Mac – Time Capsule still provides Wi-Fi but is not discovered by AirPort Utility

airporttime-capsuletime-machinewifi

I connect to the Internet with my Time Capsule's Wi-Fi, and it works perfectly. I also have been backing up to the same Time Capsule with Time Machine. But now, after about 18 months, Time Machine complains that it can not find the backup drive. I checked AirPort Utility, and there I just see the "Internet" sphere and the green dot letting me know I'm connected successfully. The Time Capsule neither shows up nor can it be discovered.

I rebooted the Time Capsule several times. LED is first yellow and then green, like I'd expect as normal.

What could be wrong? How can I troubleshoot?

Best Answer

Follow these steps and it should be OK:

Press the reset button on the Time Capsule.
Forget the old time capsule in Airport Utility.
Re-add the reset Time Capsule.
Update the Time Capsule's firmware.

The Back to My Mac function caused it to be not seen by the Airport Utility despite it working fine otherwise.

Modes and ownership

Ideally, use chmod(1) and chown(8) to have the mode and ownership, of the copy of the disk image, consistent with how Mountain Lion normally creates a local disk image for Time Machine.

Example

GPES3E-gjp4-1:~ gjp22$ sudo ls -al /Volumes/tall/com.apple.backupd/GPES3E-gjp4-1.sparsebundle/
Password:
total 16672
drwx------@ 3 root   staff     10  7 Jun 19:07 .
drwxr-xr-x  8 gjp22  staff     10  6 Jun 18:57 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    500  7 Jun 18:03 Info.bckup
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    500  7 Jun 18:03 Info.plist
drwx------  2 root   staff  78855  7 Jun 19:07 bands
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    444  7 Jun 18:02 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.bckup
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff    444  7 Jun 18:02 com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff   1473  6 Jun 21:28 com.apple.TimeMachine.Results.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root   staff  10698  6 Jun 22:24 com.apple.TimeMachine.SnapshotHistory.plist
-rwx------  1 root   staff      0 19 Mar 19:36 token

– and for each band, you should have:

-rw-------  1 root  staff

Attaching the copy of the disk image

With Terminal, for the example above:

sudo hdiutil attach -readonly /Volumes/tall/com.apple.backupd/GPES3E-gjp4-1.sparsebundle/

If you use Terminal from within Recovery OS: you'll probably not need the sudo prefix to the command.

Additional detail

… whether I can still restore …

You require:

a copy of a Time Machine destination, a copy that will be good for restoration
not an additional Time Machine destination.

Assumption

You wish the copy to be usable, for restoration only, in the event of loss or failure of the Time Capsule.

If the disk is attached from a local image where modes and ownership vary from the norm for a local image:

OS X or Recovery OS might use that disk without difficulty; I can't be certain.

Thoughts

If you're preparing for the possibility of loss or failure of a Time Capsule – and restoration from a copy of what was there – then think a step further, to backing up without the original Time Capsule. (If you wish the copy to be writeable by Time Machine, that could be a separate question.)

All things considered

It's probably quicker and simpler to use the external hard disk, or a part, as a Time Machine destination.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

ICloud – How to access the Time Capsule remotely with iCloud

Mac – Make backup of Time Machine volume on Time Capsule