Time capsule is taking months to do an initial backup, is this normal? If not, then what is the fix?

I bought a Time Capsule 2 years ago to use as a back up for a mixed Windows, Apple household, I was having trouble with the Windows back up and gave up on it. It is now being used as an Apple only back up. However from the time it was set up in Dec 2011 to now April 2012, it does not appear to have completed the initial back up. Furthermore the Apple instructions are very obtuse on how to view the items that are in the backup.
We can find no way to view the drive contents to try to see what has been backed up so far and what still has not been done.
Any help would be appreciated

Well it doesn't really matter because it sounds like it has messed up.
I think your initial setup was wrong. If you are on lion OS make sure you download the 5.6 utitilty.. also make sure you do the initial back with the computer plugged in by ethernet.. otherwise it can take forever.
Do a disk erase and start again.. if it has never completed.. something is seriously out of wack..
There is lots of useful info here about TM
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Skim through it.
If you continue having trouble..
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

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How can i authenticate my i pod more than 5 times using same id ?? is it possible ? and if not, then what is the solution?

as iam changing the os of my computer(windows) , i need to authenticate it again.

"Authenticate"?
Do you mean authorize?
Ipods are not authorized at all. Authorization applies only to computers.

Will be away from my Time Capsule for 2+ Months

I'm going to be away from my Time Capsule for 2+ months starting next month. Unfortunately it isn't an option to take the Time Capsule with me as it also funcitons as a broadband server for my home security system. What I'd like to know is, if I purchase a 3rd party external hard drive, can I use TIme Machine to back up to that drive while traveling and then resume back-ups with Time Capsule upon my return?
If so, what do I have to do to start backing up to the new drive and what will I have to do when I come back (beside be ready for really long back-ups in both cases)??
Thanks!
Oh, and BTW, I'm not too keen on going the iCloud route as I prefer whole machine back-ups (I've been the victim of laptop theft and Time Capsule SAVED MY SKIN!!!) versus just file back-ups and I haven't made the jump to Lion yet either.

If there are files on the TC.. do a back up of those to USB drive.. you can do a direct archive via the airport utility of the TC.. Then you might be able to use the same USB drive for backups on the move if you partition it beforehand.. but I am not sure having one point of backup is good idea.
You are very calm.. accepting almost.. of a fairly intolerable situation.
I hope you can still afford to insure your home and contents.
Insurance companies are great at taking your money but they don't hand any back with too much glee and vigour or timeliness.

HT201250 my time capsule is taking too much time indexing backup and then taking longer time to back up ( 207 days ) or longer !!! what shall i do ?

my time capsule is taking too much time indexing backup and then taking longer time to back up ( 207 days ) or longer !!! what shall i do ?

Try 10.7.5 supplemental update.
This update seems to have solved this problem for many.
Best.

My backup to Time Capsule is taking over 4 million days. How can I shorten the time? I am not able to connect through ethernet. How do I fix this?

My backup to Time Capsule is taking over 4 million days. How can I shorten the time? I am not able to connect through ethernet. How do I fix this?
Not only that but my Mac Pro keep running and does not stop, my Address book has a blue light under it but wont open, the light for my monitor in the bottom right corner wont turn on or off. Please need help...

It sounds like there is an issue with the Mac itself.
Use the verify disk A5 in troubleshooting.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Even if you cannot connect by ethernet, at current location.. you can simply disconnect the TC from the network and bring it to the Mac and plug it in by ethernet. The TC can be reset if you haven't got a suitable current setup (save previous setup before you change it) and run just as backup device.. do the backup and then return it to the network.
If this is just a standard incremental backup.. then something has broken. The issue is not the TC pe se but failure in hardware somewhere.

Have 2009 time capsule with 6 month old iMac very slow cox said i needed to replace with a new time machine with newer wifi ??

have 2009 time capsule with 6 month old iMac very slow ...cox said to replace with new router or extreme with new wifi ???? confused

Replace the Time Capsule with a new one or replace your router with an Airport Extreme Base Station that has faster Wi-Fi. Or you could just connect your old Time Capsule using an Ethernet connection from the Time Capsule to the computer's Ethernet port.

Time capsule works as wireless router, but intermittently stops backing up because it is not recognized

So here is the scenario. I just purchased a new 2T Time Capsule about a month ago. At some point, about a week ago it stopped working correctly. A few things that I've noticed:
1. The wireless router works just fine.
2. Every once in a while (more often than not) my computer (Mac book pro) will not recognize the time capsule and it will therefore not do it's wireless backup. I can no longer use it to store data.
3. What works? Unplugging the time capsule for about 20 seconds and then reconnecting seems to fix the problem, but will then the same problem will recur spontaneously.
4. Sometimes, I'll restart my computer and that will fix the problem, but again time capsule will drop off from the shared devices.
5. Interestingly, when TC is not recognized by my mac book, the Home Sharing feature of Apple TV also is rendered non-functional.
Any ideas? is it a hardware issue? If so, is it my Mac book or my TC or both?
Thanks for your advice in advance

I have seen a few posts on this one and the issue is very likely to be the way Auto channel changes take place.. for some unknown reason, the wireless can still connect as a router but the arp address is lost in the ARP table on the computer. So open a terminal and type arp -a soon after a TC restart when TM can see it.. you will see the TC MAC address listed. Once the TC is no longer recognised again do arp -a and you will find the TC is no longer listed. It is possible to force a static listing to the ARP table, but it seems to be much easier and better to simply lock the wireless channel.
Using the airport utility go to the TC setup and open the wireless area. Airport on the top menu.. wireless on the tab under that. where it says radio channel selection change to manual.. give it a fixed channel, for 2.4ghz it is best to pick the least used channel and you will need to use some site survey software to do this.. kismet, inssider for pc is superior to most Mac utilities at the moment. There are only 3 non overlapping channels 1, 6, 11 (12,13 outside USA). Pick one. I would also give a separate name to 5ghz wireless so it doesn't switch between the two.. that means you will have to change manually if signal drops out as it does more readily on 5ghz. The locking of channels seems to help the Mac not lose the MAC address in arp..though the actual mechanism is unknown to me.

Time capsule hangs on 18.5% no matter which backup used

I've tried three different hard drives now.
Status bar stops pulsing and just hangs at 18.5%
I've tried backups from three months ago to 3 days ago, I've tried a new hard drive cable, I've tried every Ethernet cable known to mankind
Anyone have a suggestion?
The time capsule is 3 months old the MacBook is 2010

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Okay so I set up my Time Capsule already and is now backing up 2 of my iMacs. Works great. What I want to know is how to use the TC to directly store files? I want to do this to delete some files but still have them on the TC for future reference..

Okay so I set up my Time Capsule already and is now backing up 2 of my iMacs. Works great. What I want to know is how to use the TC to directly store files? I want to do this to delete some files on iMac 20inch but still have them on the TC for future reference..eg some movies on iTunes. I want to directly save them on the drive so I can delete them from iTunes and gain some storage. (Ps on iMac 20 inch (it's almost full - 320 GB) when I enter time machine, a tab comes up on finder which reads "Time Machine backups" it's able to be ejected like a disc or a connected device. On the iMac 20 inch, I dragged some files onto there as if using it like a hard drive. Is this the correct method? Then I went to my 27inch iMac and saw the "Time Machine Backups" hoping to see the files I dragged from the 20inch iMac. But the files were not there except a folder that said "Backups.backupdb". Can someone help me?

It's not a good idea to use a network disk for both Time Machine backups and other things. By design Time Machine will eventually consume all the space on its output disk, which will then cause problem for your other files. I'd store those other files on an external disk connected to the Time Capsule. The problem with that is that Time Machine will only back up files that are local to your Mac. That means that you'll only have one copy of the files on or attached to your Time Capsule.
By the way, you've been misled by poor field labeling on this forum into typing a large part of your message into the field intended for the subject. In the future just type a short summary of your post into that field and type the whole message into the field below that.

My Time Capsule expired and no longer works. My printer (a HP) will now not work as it still wishes to connect through the Time Capsule. It will not allow itself be recognised through a USB connection to my Mac. Anyone got any ideas?

My Time Capsule expired and no longer works. My printer (a HP) will now not work as it still wishes to connect through the Time Capsule. It will not allow itself be recognised through a USB connection to my Mac. Anyone got any ideas?

You will need to install the printer on your Mac
Open System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Open Print & Fax
Click the + (plus) button at the bottom of the printer list
Wait for your printer to appear in the next box, then click it to highlight it
Click Add at the lower right
Be sure to select the correct printer when you try to print as you will see your printer listed twice. Good idea to make the printer now installed on your Mac the default printer so you do not have to choose which printer to use each time you want to print.
You can also go into Print & Fax, select the printer associated with the Time Capsule and click the - (minus) button if you want to delete that location.

I am using a macbook pro with system 10.6.8. I just discovered that no recent files have been backed up to the external disk using Time Capsule. There is a long list of backups including most recent but no recent files, for some weeks, have been backed u

I am using a macbook pro with system 10.6.8. I just discovered that no recent files have been backed up to the external disk using Time Capsule. There is a long list of backups including most recent but no recent files, for some weeks, have been backed up. I did a full reset of Time Machine. I disconnected the external drive and reconnected it. It is not a matter of file types, no files and no folders have gotten backed up. Everything looks normal though unless one goes hunting for recent files on the back up.

Many thanks.
With those symptoms, I'd try the following document:
Apple software on Windows: May see performance issues and blank iTunes Store
(If there's a SpeedBit LSP showing up in Autoruns, it's usually best to just uninstall your SpeedBit Video Accelerator.)

I have a new time capsule (replace my old time capsule). I want to erase my old one. My computer does not see the old one anymore, how do I connect it (the old TC is not connected to modem)

I have a new time capsule (replace my old time capsule). I want to erase my old one. My computer does not see the old one anymore, how do I connect it (the old TC is not connected to modem). I want to erase it and then use it as either a second hard drive (sired/sirelesly?) or as a hard drive/bridge. So,
1. why doesn't my cmputer see the old TC
2 once i have solved that, how do I erase the old one
3. Can I use the old one as a supplemental hard drive
     a. wired?
     b. wirelessly?
4. Can I use the old one as a range extender?
I know .. a lot of questions but I would appreciate any help.
Thanks

sgetraer wrote:
I have a new time capsule (replace my old time capsule). I want to erase my old one. My computer does not see the old one anymore, how do I connect it (the old TC is not connected to modem). I want to erase it and then use it as either a second hard drive (sired/sirelesly?) or as a hard drive/bridge. So,
1. why doesn't my cmputer see the old TC
2 once i have solved that, how do I erase the old one
3. Can I use the old one as a supplemental hard drive
     a. wired?
     b. wirelessly?
4. Can I use the old one as a range extender?
I know .. a lot of questions but I would appreciate any help.
Thanks
1. Because it is either the same IP as the new one or hidden by being plugged in as a second router.
To access it, isolate one computer from the existing network and plug it directly by ethernet to a lan port of the TC. Use the erase function in the TC to remove all the content of the hard disk.
Then go to the internet tab, connection sharing and select off bridged. You can then reconnect the TC to the network.. and the computer as well. The TC will act as bridged device.. getting IP from the main router and should then appear correctly in Airport utility.
2. I covered in 1. But you just go in airport utility manual setup. disk, and you will see the erase function. You can also set it to bridge and leave the erase until you put it back in the network.. but be careful you erase the right one.
3. You can use the old TC via wired or wireless.. although I would always stick to wired connection if possible. Speed on wireless is 10x worse than wired.
Also note the reliability goes down dramatically after 2 years.. a series 1 3 years old or more is ebay fodder unless you want to repair it. Do not trust vital data to it.. when it dies you will have issues recovering it.
4. Yes, all apple routers will function as wireless extenders. when you do that the ethernet ports turn off so it becomes a purely wireless device.. strange apple decision on what you want to use your TC for.

I have an 2tb time capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi base station can I use this as an external hard drive and use a new airport extreme 802.11ac Wi-Fi for my wifi?

I have an 2tb time capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi base station can I use this as an external hard drive and use a new airport extreme 802.11ac Wi-Fi for my wifi?

You can use the 2 TB Time Capsule as a network drive. That means that it must connect to one of the Ethernet LAN <--> ports on the new AirPort Extreme, or connect to the network using wireless.

I purchased a new airport time capsul to use with my older MacBook Mac OSX 10.6.8 and am having trouble downloading the updated software for it .

I purchased a new airport time capsul to use with my older MacBook MAC OSX 10.6.8 Can't seem to download the upgraded software. Can anyone help?

Please review the System Requirements for the Time Capsule.
http://www.apple.com/airport-time-capsule/specs/
Setup and Administration
iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 5 or later and AirPort Utility 1.3
Mac with OS X Lion v10.7.5 or later and AirPort Utility 6.3

Im completely new to Mac. Im swapping my windows laptop for macbook pro and looking for network storage solution which the Time Capsule seems to do. Is it possible to use this as NAS for my desktop Windows PC - windows 7

Im completely new to Mac. Im swapping my windows laptop for macbook pro and looking for network storage solution which the Time Capsule seems to do. Is it possible to use this as NAS for my desktop Windows PC - windows 7

Broadly speaking I want some sort of network storage( wireless or through my existing wifi router) that I can access files for both my windows PC and Macbook and also to access files to my iPad/ iPhone. Some sort of backup and sychronisation so that I can access certain files remotely.
Buy a real NAS.. synology or QNAP are the standard... although companies like Netgear and Western Digital and Seagate make them as well.
There is no problem sharing between Mac and PC now.. you do not even need a NAS to do that.. you simply share the hard disk directly. Mac talk SMB.. everything talks SMB nowadays.. so it is easy.
ipad and iphone are not designed to use NAS.. they are designed to backup only to the cloud or itunes.. but you can load an app like file browser if you want.
http://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/
Remote access to the Apple TC is somewhere between difficult, to impossible from a PC.. Apple use BTMM and iCloud but the service is not offered to PC.
A real NAS will offer HTTPS or SFTP or several other methods.. that both Mac and PC can use.
You simply plug it into the current wireless router.. it is a network device and assessable over the network. It is not necessary to buy another router.. in fact that is a waste.

Time capsule is taking months to do an initial backup, is this normal? If not, then what is the fix?

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