Time Machine error: Connection Failed...

We just did a remodel that required me to take down all computers, internet, etc for a few days. Everything works (computers, internet, ooma, TV) now except Time Machine. This is the error I get: Connection Failed The server may not exist or is not operational at this time. Check the server name or IP address and your network connection and try again.
Time Machine Preferences shows accurate name, nothing (--) under Available, Oldest Backup and Latest Backup, but shows the time for Next Backup. The time changes after each non-backup but I never get the "Failed" designation under Latest Backup.
Any thoughts?
Much obliged!

Go Mean Green wrote:
Much gracias, Pondini.
I am a neophyte, admittedly. Started looking for a Preferences section.
System Preferences > Time Machine; or click the TM icon in your menubar, or right-click the TM icon in your Dock, and select Open Time Machine Preferences.
The storage location for Time Machine backups can't be found.
That means Time Machine can't find your backups in the location where they used to be, probably as a result of re-configuring things.  One of the things suggested earlier will probably fix that.
Very paranoid that I am even more stupid than already agreed upon.
Nope.  Nobody was born knowing all this stuff! 

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  • First Time Capsule Backup Failed - Time Machine Error

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  • Time Machine on TC Fails - Error 21

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  • Is there a solution for Time Machine error?

    I got an error in Time Machine saying backup had failed, a couple of days ago. Spent the next day or two trawling the web and found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution.
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    I've been using Time Machine for a few weeks, and it has only now taken a dislike to my external hard drive, which is connected by FireWire.
    Is there a solution to this problem, or should I revert to using SuperDuper, which I was using successfully before?
    I haven't put in lots of information about the apps I'm running, because this is a general query rather than a specific one. If there's a solution, I'll use it; otherwise I'll wipe the drive and go back to using SuperDuper.

    OisinOg wrote:
    Pondini - Thank you for your slightly hostile reply.
    On the contrary. The statement was: +"found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution."+ I don't know where you found thousands of posts -- there are many here, but certainly not thousands. If you're talking about, say, a Google search, if you actually look at them, many are duplicates, unrelated to your problem, or unrelated to Macs at all -- and there are a number of solutions that seem to have fixed many of the real ones.
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    How full are they?
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    The initial backup of both copies almost everything on your HD, excluding only some caches, temp files, etc., although you can exclude other things. This takes quite a while, of course. Thereafter, only the items that changed are backed-up.
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    First is, CCC and SD look at every file and folder on your HD to see what changed. This is quite time-consuming and CPU-intensive, so most of us run it once a day (or less often), usually automatically at, say, 3 am. TM, however, runs hourly, but uses an internal File System Event Log of changes, so it is far quicker and less intrusive. There are exceptions, but most users rarely even notice the backups unless they see the icon revolving. On my small system, for example, TM rarely runs over 30 seconds; CCC is at least 15 minutes.
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  • Time machine error: The backup disk image could not be mounted

    Time Machine worked OK for several months. Now I get this error every 10 minutes or so.
    I unplugged Time Machine capsule and "Change Disk" in Time Machine options.
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    Christ1ne,
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    If, for some reason, you have manually mounted the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle), or Time Machine failed to eject it after the previous backup, subsequent backups may fail. (Console - “Failed to mount disk image”… “Backup failed with error: 21”)
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    If your Time Machine backup drive (“Backup of Users Computer”) is mounted on your desktop or in the Sidebar of the Finder window. then Time Machine may think the drive is already in use. Alternatively, if the Time Capsule hard disk has been recently accessed by a Windows machine, it may not have fully relinquished control. Do the following:
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    Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
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  • Restore from Time Machine backup is failing

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    - No error message at the end of the restore
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    It may be helpful for others for me to post the approach I've decided to take, which seems to be working well.
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    Feb 20 19:27:55 sherborn-g5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[335]: Backup failed with error: 11

  • Upgraded to Mavericks  and time machine backups keep failing.

    I upgraded to Mavericks a few days ago and now I find my time machine backups keep failing. I first tried turning off the power to the time machine then turning it on again and I managed to get one complete backup but that took over 20 hours to complete.
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  • Time Machine: Error occurred while creating the backup folder

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    grifftastic wrote:
    I believe my Time Capsule is out of space and isn't removing older backups to create space for itself.  Time Machine preferences says only 98 MB available on the 1 TB volume.
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    If you have other data there (not usually a good idea), move some of it elsewhere temporarily, and try again.
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    locmi01 wrote:
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