Time Capsule cannot be accessed but Time Machine connects Ok

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Time Capsule cannot be accessed but Time Machine connects Ok

I have a time capsule to which I backup to via Time Machine.

This is working Ok, but I noticed yesterday that the Airport Utility app was saying the capsule cannot be found (Time machine still backs up to it). Today the capsule isn't showing in the Airport app at all (but Time Machine is still backing up to it). If I look in Finder > Network it shows the capsule cannot be connected to.

Slightly puzzled to say the least? What could have gone wrong?

Airport Time Capsule 802.11ac Gen1

Posted on Sep 5, 2019 11:37 AM

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Answer 1

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Tesserax

Level 10

149,477 points

Sep 5, 2019 1:22 PM in response to tomg35

The AirPort Utility relies on both the Bonjour and IPv6 protocols to "discover" an AirPort base station. When neither are available, for whatever reason, would be the "why" the utility cannot find or display it. Sometimes, simply restarting the base station solves this issue.

One thing to check it the IPv6 settings on both the Time Capsule and the device that is hosting the AirPort Utility to verify, if at least, they are configured for IPv6 Link-local only mode.

For a Mac:

System Preferences > Network > Ethernet or Wi-Fi (depending on how it connects to the local network) > Advanced... > TCP/IP tab
Configure IPv6: Link-local only

For a base station:

AirPort Utility > Select the TC > Edit > Internet tab > Internet Options... > Configure IPv6: Link-local only

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Answer 2

tomg35 Author

Level 1

28 points

Sep 6, 2019 12:09 AM in response to Tesserax

Thanks - it was the link-local setting that was wrong. I presume an update may have changed it as I didn't know it existed and it was working fine before

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Time Capsule cannot be accessed but Time Machine connects Ok

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