Time Capsule refuses to work!

I bought this Time Capsule in August and spent a month trying to set it up to no avail. After dealing with school and a house robbery I finally tried to set up my time capsule again (kind of useless when you have to borrow computers until you can buy your own!) since we have an iMac and MBP now.
I called a bunch of times in August and that was no help at all. I'm kind of upset that Apple won't help me over the phone for a product less than a year old.
The Time Capsule is flashing amber right now. We have no network errors, I'm on the internet right now. On page 29 in the manual it only says that there would be a network error and there isn't. We just got a brand new modem since our old one was shot.
In 2012 when I tried setting it it would go green but it would NEVER connect to airport utility.
And when I do try it, it either flashes amber or never connects to airport utility.
Our iMac is a 2012 model so I would assume it comes with an airport card?>>
Does anyone know how to fix this?D:

Let me suggest you do this in stages..
The TC has to fit into the existing network.. in order to do that it has to be setup in the correct mode.
So first thing I need is to know the whole network layout. We cannot work in general terms.. it needs specific info.
So, what modem and what type.. please supply the make and model.
What kind of broadband is it?
Is the modem also a router and also wireless.. ?
How is the TC connected and in what mode?
How is the iMac for instance connected now.. you are apparently not using wireless.. yes, it has wireless?
Is it plugged into the modem or TC?
What about the MBP, how is it connected?
Does the TC come up in the airport utility? If so please go to the page where it shows errors.. Flashing amber does not mean anything much.. just some thing needs attention. it could be vital or trivial.
Please use the ability to post screen shots.. that makes life 1000x easier.. one picture telling a 1000words.

Similar Messages

My Time Capsule does not work with existing WiFi

Following a question solved on March 24 by LaPastenague, but gone bad again.
Apple AirPort Time Capsule
I felt the need for a physical backup of my data, as I would not completely trust the different clouds. I use, and have used Dropbox for 4-5 years and are very satisfied with that, but I am still not sure if or when a political lunatic will shut off the internet.
I purchased the Apple AP Time Capsule 2T, because all my other stuff are Apple, and that it's wireless. My old backup is Maxtor 300 GB.
Since we stay 2-3 weeks on two locations, one in Norway and one in Sweden (two different countries) we must use Mobile Broadband 4G, cables or fibre connections are useless for us, and we don't have it up to the houses. I have one mini router for each country, we bring with us iPhones, iPads, iMac, Apple TV, APExpress. When we pass the boarder I change the mini router, and the system continues working perfect on the WiFi, except the APExpress that needs to be reconfigured, but then it works.
The APTC was difficult to make working as it would not accept to be in an existing network, but with good help from the Apple Community, LaPastenague, with forcing the TC connect to the APE with Ethernet cable in bridge mode, ref "My Time Capsule does not work with existing WiFi" from March 24, the problem was solved and all gadgets worked together in a perfect harmony, until we changed location.
Now, as I have my second WiFi network, and the APExspress is reconfigured, it's like the TC thinks, I am the base boss here, I am not taking orders from APE one more time, and it simply does not work, not only that, it fluctuates all the time.
I have a slight feeling that the two WiFi bands are making the trouble as during the configuration of the TC sometime the last figure 6 and 7 pops up, and that has something two do with the two different 2,4 and 5 GHZ bands
So, I am curious if you have any idea ?
I am thinking of returning the TC if I don't make it work now, but how do I delete all the data that's on it?

I can deal with the last question first and easily.
I am thinking of returning the TC if I don't make it work now, but how do I delete all the data that's on it?
Open the airport utility .. go to the disk tab and select erase.
When you select erase you will get mulitiple options.
Quick removes the file table but does not delete the files,, it takes 2min or less.
A Zero out data is the secure way,, by writing 0 ie low level drive format.
It can take several hours..
7 pass will take a week.. not recommended..
35 pass erase is ridiculous.. it would take a month.. put an ax through the TC. It is quick and better.
Now, as I have my second WiFi network, and the APExspress is reconfigured, it's like the TC thinks, I am the base boss here, I am not taking orders from APE one more time, and it simply does not work, not only that, it fluctuates all the time.
The fact that it did work and has now failed might point to faulty unit.
The only way to tell is reset it properly to factory and start over.
Universal Factory Reset.. any model TC or AE.
Unplug your TC/AE from power or turn off at the power point.
Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. (this is often difficult without a 2nd person or a 3rd arm).
Release it when the status light flashes rapidly. If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have missed it and try again.
Note..
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations of the router.
No files are deleted on the hard disk in a TC.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
Generally having multiple wireless AP should not cause problems.. but it is better to set channels manually.. so it doesn't go beserk rotating channels.
Remember to keep all names short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric.
Sadly though the Apple routers have no logging now and no SNMP and almost nothing to help diagnose a problem, so if it continues .. take it back to apple.. they have given you no other method of fixing it.

Time capsule no longer working

My time capsule has stopped working entirely. No longer can use it for my network and it no longer backs up. My mac book does not even recognize it. any suggestions or is it fried?

Does "no longer working" mean that the Time Capsule will not power up at all?
If the Time Capsule will power up, please describe the indicator light on the front panel.....green, flashing amber, solid amber, etc.

I have an external hard drive from my time capsule that stopped working on me. I am attempting to access the data with a hard drive reader on my MAC. I am able to see the drive in disk utility and under system info USB. But I am unable to access the data.

I have an external hard drive from my time capsule that stopped working on me. I am attempting to access the data with a hard drive reader on my MAC. I am able to see the drive in disk utility and under system info USB. But I am unable to access the data and it does not show on the desktop when connected.

Ok if disk utility was able to verify the drive I doubt there is any problem.. are you trying to open a TM backup??
You need to mount the sparsebundle then check the actual info inside the bundle.
Don't use disk warrior.. if the disk has verified then unless you deliberately deleted files there is nothing that is going to do.
Pondini has a lot of stuff about getting access to the sparsebundle.
http://pondini.org/TM/17.html
But if you have copied info to the TC that is now gone.. and the disk is ok.. I am not sure.. the TC will not have deleted the files itself.

I have two time capsules, one for work and one for home, how do I set up the work time capsule to only back up my work files?

I have two time capsules, one for work and one for home, how do I set up the work time capsule to only back up my work files? Also, how do I add co-workers to my work time capsule and wife to my home time capsule? Thank you!

You cannot have two different TC setups.. at least until Mountain Lion.. it did introduce some changes but I am not sure if you can setup two different configurations for TM.. you can use two different devices to back up to. I doubt this will help you.
You might be better using a real backup software.. superduper, CCC, chronosync etc.
The TC by default is available to any Mac in the network to do backups. TM will sort itself out and put each computer on a different backup. These are kept in separate sparsebundles.. so that is all fine.

Tima capsule stop to work

i've changed the name of my network and my time capsule stopped to work properly. actually time machine says "i cannot activate the image of back up disk"
i've tryed to initialize the disk with the disck utility and now from the disck utility TM is all free (no space allocated) but Time Machine continues to try to make incremental back up and doesn't work !!! i've tryed to cancel with zeros old backups space but is too long (it takes 7 days)
with the disk utility i've changed the name of the disk

That's right, I can't connect after a Hard reset. I get the same message.
" Connection Failed
The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and your network connection and try again."
When I use a program to identify wireless networks the Time Capsule shows up.
Would the fact that I had a different name for Time Capsule before I Hard Reset create some sort of a problem?

HT2284 My Time Capsule just stopped working.

Thank you in advance for any help. My Time Capsule just stopped working and I do not get the 'Connection Failed' error message as the Time Capsule is not showing up in the finder window. The light continues to flash amber on the Time Capsule. I am using it with my iMac running Lion. Any help will be really appreciated.

This is just typical Lion.. reboot the TC.. if that doesn't work.. reboot the whole network from fully off.. in order.. modem.. router/TC.. clients. 2min gap between each.
If still has issues.. press reset on the TC and redo it.
Download a utility that has tool properties..
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Just ignore the toyland version in Lion.
Next time it happens go to disk page in the utility and hit disconnect all users..
C12 and C17 can suggest some other things.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

My time capsule has stopped working.

My time capsule has stopped working. I get following error message The backup disk image “/Volumes/Michael Campbell's Time Cap/iMac.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1). I tried everything including deleting all the data and starting again. It then works for a few back ups and then gives the error message. I have tried to repair the disk but that is grayed out.

Found this elsewhere so I will try it
Go to App folder
Open Utilities
Click on AirPort Utility
Highlight your Time Capsule
Go to Manual Setup
Click on Disks
Highlight your Time Capsule
Click on Disconnect All Users
Close AirPort Utility
Go to Systems Preferences
Click on Time Machine
Click on Select Disk
Find your Time Capsule and highlight it
Then click on USE BACKUP DISK.
Go to the Menu Bar and click on the Time Machine Icon
Click on Backup Now
It should work

Time Capsule backup not working anymore after upgrade to Snow Leopard

Hi,
after I upgraded to Snow Leopard I started the backup process with the time capsule. Within several days I tried this about 5 times and the iMac crashed or froze after some time doing the backup - but it never completed.
I then deleted the whole content of the time capsule and started a fresh backup. Now I receive a message after some gigabyte that there was a problem and I should try it again. Again the backup has not finished so far. I tried to reduce the amount of files to backup by excluding folders - no chance. Since the upgrade to snow I was not able to complete one single backup.
Any ideas or similar experience?

I have had a similar problem. I have the latest 1TB Time Capsule and backup worked fine in Leopard. I am backing up over my home wireless network. The backup starts, but at some point it freezes with the spinning pizza wheel if I click on anything. Everything freezes with no possibility of force quitting any application.
I tried trashing the plist for Time Machine, but that didn't work. Tonight I'm going to try a backup with the computer connected to the Time Capsule by Ethernet.
I can access my existing Time Machine backups on the Time Capsule.
This is a frustrating situation. But for this, SL works great, but this problem is a critical one.

I keep getting the message "The backup disk image "/Volumes/Donald Baker's Time Capsul/Donald Baker's iMac.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1). does anyone know what this means? My time capsule refuses to back up.

I keep getting the message "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Donald Baker's Time Capsul/Donald Baker’s iMac.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1). does anyone know what this means? My time capsule refuses to back up.

Time Capsule and Time Machine master guru Pondini has all the answers.
Check # C17 in his excellent support document Time Machine -- Troubleshooting.
http://Pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Time capsule: will it work wirelessly without disrupting my wireless system?

Time capsule: will it work wirelessly without disrupting my wireless system?

This type of setup is difficult, and not officially supported by Apple for good reason.
Before you attempt this, you should know that this type of setup will require a "double hop" wireless connection for backups.
In other words, for your Mac to back up, the wireless signal must travel from your Mac to your wireless router......hop one.....and then travel from the wireless router to the Time Capsule....hop two.
This doubles the chances of an error occurring and unfortunately also doubles the amount of time that it will take for a backup to occur.
I've tried this type of setup a few times as an experiment. It gives new meaning to word "SLOW".
In addition, the Ethernet ports are disabled in this type of setup on the Time Capsule, so it is not possible to use them for any purpose.
Bottom line....the fact that the Time Capsule can possibly be configured this way.....does not in any way imply that it should be configured this way.

Time capsule hard drive working slowly on mavericks

I would like to know why time capsule external drive works so slow after Maverick update ? Cause now if you want to open folder in time capsule external drive it takes a while till it opens ? After it opens you you cant see any files for a while to just after some time it appears.

Thanks LaPastenague, but interestingly, the issue turned out to be rather esoteric.
We have a headless Mac running as a home theater pc. Apparently, it tried to do an hourly TM backup just as Carbon Copy Cloner (which runs a completely seperate backup) put the computer to sleep after it completed its backup.
So when the home theater Mac woke up, for some reason it kept having trouble attaching to the Time Capsule disk to do a TM backup...
...which is what was making my TC hard drive spin up and down and up and down and up...
As soon as I fixed the error and the home theater Mac made a successful TM backup, all was well once again.
(And I've since installed TimeMachineEditor, so these types of backup collisions won't happen anymore.)
Hope this helps someone else down the line...
Thanks!

Time Capsule does not work and i can not not mount it anymore, even after follow all apples instructions at FAQs

My Time Capsule suddenly stopped working, and i can not even mount it anymore. When i ask for a backup, the time machine keeps looking for a disk with no success.
I tried all the FAQs suggestions:
1) I change the name of the disk using Airport Utility;
2) I updated it using Airport Utility.
Now i can not even try to erase the disk because after to update it, the disk in not listed anymore.
Now i can just read a "internal disk needs repair" message. that wasn't there before, having in mind that the first response was "there is no space at the disk for a backup".
What can i do?

The TC has a fault..
Power it down and let it cool off overnight. Power it on again the next morning and check if it works.. no luck factory reset.. do all the tests quickly as you have 10-20min before the Temp rises to kill it again.
No luck it is dead.. give us the actual model number.. A1xxx from the base.
How old is it?? Beyond 3years they do become dodgy.

I have a time capsule that has worked flawlessly for several years. I recently upgraded my iMac OS to 10.8.4 and coincidently (or not) have started having some issues with backups. When I go into time machine, it struggles to find the time capsule disk

I have to unplug my time capsule and reboot it. Is there a diagnostic routine I can run or any error detection I can look for?

You are absolutely right.. when apple changed significant features in Lion and Mountain Lion .. they introduced a bunch of issues into networking which are bugs to this day..unacknowledged.. and without much that will fix them.. other than your reboot strategy.. which is like.. well that other OS.. where continual reboots are considered normal.
Old TC may also just suffer from age.. we continually tell people they have a lifespan.. 3years is the reliable span.. after that expect anything.. sudden death.. slow decline.. continual hassles and problems. If the backups are important to you.. then it is telling you in a very clear way.. replace me.. I am no longer happily providing services promised.
Now to specifics.. we don't know what the problem is.. if we knew we could give some work around.
The problem is odd in that it doesn't affect everyone.. if it starts .. people find it starts several months in to ownership.. it is never cured.. or even curable.. something like DNS or ARP table is being lost.. but it is not either of those things.
Is there a diagnostic routine I can run or any error detection I can look for?
Nothing much shows up anywhere. Including the TC log or local logs. It simply has lost the TC disk but not internet.
So.
Some things do help.
I don't know if you have pondini's resources.. TM is a complex piece of software.. it has multiple issues.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Look at A1 .. load the widget.
A5 .. verify the backup.
A4 .. reset TM.
All of those things can help.. look at some of the typical problems.. C12 and C17 being the most common since Lion.. and exacerbated in Mountain Lion.. not fixed.
Some suggestions.
1. Keep names short, no spaces and pure alphanumeric. See C9 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
2. Do not use 7.6.3 firmware... go back to 7.6.1 or even better 7.5.2 on an old one.
Firmware downgrade is easy in new utility. Hold down the option key whilst selecting version.
3. I recommend a very short dhcp lease time.. 20min for example. In whatever device is the router .. that can help keep things up to date.. and use dhcp reservation again to see if the address info helps to keep things updated.
4. Do turn on ipv6 local link.. which you need to anyway with 6.3 utility.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4597
5. If you are using a desktop.. an external drive is faster.. more reliable and easier than TC for Time Machine backups..
6. Consider using CCC or another backup software.. if you want to continue to use network drive.
7. Although using 6.3 airport utility has some advantages.. it is also devoid of a lot of tools that are in v5.6 airport utility.. well worth loading into at least one computer on the network.. if you only have Mountain Lion now here is one method.
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
Leave the package open on the desktop so you can see the file. AirportUtility56.pkg
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. If your Mac refuses to run the software, because it wasn’t downloaded from the Apple store, go to security in preferences and allow other software to work.. this is limitation of trade methinks. You can set back later if you like.
Now drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. in finder, open the new directory, drill down.. applications, utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall version 6 (now 6.3 if you updated) so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. although I have had no problems when doing so.
For screen shots see this post.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4668746?tstart=0

Remote access to Time Capsule won't work

Over the past couple of months I've been doing lots of research and planning into replacing my Mac Pro and old MacBook Pro with a new Mac setup. I was looking for efficiency, productivity and ultimate portability so the Macbook Pro Retina and Time Capsule grabbed my attention.
I was interested in the MacBook Pro Retina for work (travel) and home leisure use. Due to having so much music and video iTunes content, I was interested in purchasing a Time Capsule and a secondary external hard drive, placing all my iTunes content on the Time Capsule which I would then back up to the external hard drive when I was at home. I would then setup Time Capsule to be accessible over the internet so that I could view my media content through iTunes wherever in the world I was (internet speeds permitting of course). By doing this I could carry only my work files with me on the 512GB SSD Macbook Pro Retina, but could access the Time Capsule media files remotely, either via wi-fi or by tethering my iPhone 5.
So I purchased a Time Capsule to test my theory. I followed online guidance on how to achieve such a setup and using my 2008 MacBook Pro (which runs Snow Leopard) and a friends internet connection I got the system to work. I was able to remotely contact Time Capsule and watch High Def video content via wireless internet and even tethered to my iPhone. So I went and purchased a Macbook Pro Retina (running Mountain Lion) and set about setting up the system in the same way. But this is where something's gone wrong. I can't connect to the Time Capsule over the internet at all.
The Air Port utility has been updated to version 6 which is lacking the ability to instruct the Time Capsule to "Allow access over WAN". I thought I'd make sure it still connected via the internet using my old MacBook Pro, which had definitely worked perfectly just a couple weeks earlier, and that won't work either. I can't find the option to "Allow access over WAN" within Airport Utility 5.6.1 either? And the simple apple script application that I wrote (following an online guide) to open the remote connection to Time Capsule with the double left click on an icon has stopped working too.
I don't pretend to be a network engineer and I'm no I.T. expert, though I usually manage to teach myself what I need to know to sort issues like this out, but this has gotten me really stumped! I tried downloading an old version of Airport Utility to see if that had the "Allow access over WAN" feature (within the 'Disks' > 'File Sharing' area of Airport Utility) but my Mac OS won't allow the old versions to run.
Perhaps the version of Airport Utility I used on my Macbook Pro a couple of weeks ago didn't have the "Allow access over WAN" check box either and I just didn't notice - which is likely unless Airport Utility updates itself in the background without any prompts etc. I certainly didn't notice a software update for it any time over the past few days. Either way, I don't understand how it could have been working a few days back and now it's suddenly not.
I used this guides to gain remote access to Time Capsule successfully just a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQ7SzA1cK4
Can anyone shed any light on the issue and point me toward a fix please? I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks LaPastenague. I'm not sure if I have a static IP but I can confirm it hasn't changed in the past month.
I've pretty much come to the conclusion that what I want to do isn't really possible using Time Capsule. Like I mentioned, I had remote access working a couple of weeks ago but it seems like apple have updated the firmware or airport software to remove something that was necessary to remotely connect in the same way. And even if I did get it working I think it would still be so restrictive, requiring a fast wifi or mobile phone tethered connection to view my media files over the internet.
I got connected via iCloud and B.T.M.M. but the connection was very slow and video wouldn't stream well at all (painful). It seems that the speed constraints would make it very frustrating each time I simply wanted to look through my vast iTunes music collection or movie library. Album covers won't appear either.
Even if it were possible to connect via a static IP I just don't think that the WAN connection would be stable or fast enough to offer an efficint solution(?), so I'll probably have to by an external portable HD and use Time Capsule for Time Machine and Printer Sharing.
I wish I could stream my iTunes movies and music successfully over the internet, but right now it just doesn't seem possible.

Time Capsule refuses to work!

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