Q: Time Capsule disappear from network but still connected

Yosemite is what is going on.

Fixing this issue is really up to Apple.. but I recommend the following list of things to do.. however in your case.. a week of uptime is excellent.. really I doubt this whole change will do better than that until Apple fixes Yosemite.

Factory reset universal

Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.

N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.

Setup the TC again.

ie Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.

Then redo the setup from the computer with Yosemite.

1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.

eg TCgen5 and TCwifi for basestation and wireless respectively.

Even better if the issue is more wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round.

2. Use all passwords that also comply but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.

3. Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when Yosemite cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking. If the TC is main router it will not be an issue.

4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.

5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.

In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,

Type in SMB://192.168.0.254 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).

You can use name.. SMB://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.

However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.

6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only.

There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.

You might need to do some more work on the laptop itself. eg Reset the PRAM.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.

Tell us how you go.

Someone posted a solution.. See this thread.

Macbook can't find Time Capsule anymore

Start from the bottom and work up.. I have a list of good network practice changes but I have avoided Yosemites bug heaven.

This user has had success and a few others as well.

RáNdÓm GéÉzÁ

Yosemite has serious DNS bug in the networking application.. here is the lets say more arcane method of fixing it by doing a network transplant from mavericks.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/01/why-dns-in-os-x-10-10-is-broken-and-what-yo u-can-do-to-fix-it/

gbrohez wrote:

 

Using old mDNSResponder files from Mavericks, everything ok.

Will see in a few days how things are going...

Man, when you put your mind to something you work fast.

Report how it goes..

When using Airport Utility on my iPhone, TIime Capsule is also disconnected.

Disconnected from internet or not working at all on the LAN??

We also have some network bugs on the WAN port of the Gen5 TC with certain modems. Mostly Motorola ones.

If you are bridged plug the modem into any LAN port.. and see if that fixes it.

iOS is problematic since v8. Due to peer to peer airplay.

Resolve issues with AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring from iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

Then to here. Use AirPlay to wirelessly stream content from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

This is explained a bit more here. http://help.apple.com/deployment/ios/#/apd8fc751f59

And you can see there is an interaction between iOS and Yosemite..

Fun isn't it.

If there was another security update recently.. I am seeing worse results than ever.. so I am wondering if the latest security is making it harder than ever.

I wish there were better network tools for this.