Big Sur, Big Problems with Time Capsule

I had problems with Time Machine too after upgrading to Big Sur. These problems were completely solved by using a newly formatted drive (or deleting an old drive if you have more than one backup).

For Big Sur, Apple recommends using an APFS (or APFS encrypted) disk for your ™ backup, so in disk utility erase the entire disk and make an APFS partition on it. Direct Time Machine to that drive for a new backup (in addition to any other one or by replacing it as preferred by you). The first time it will take long if you have much data.

See https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/types-of-disks-you-can-use-with-time-machine-mh15139/11.0/mac/11.0

Good luck!

First let me describe my setup. I have two 2019 MacBook Pros. One iMac Pro, and two iMac Retinas. I retain the iMacs on Mojave because I run Adobe CS6 including photoshop on them, fully licensed version, and I'd lose that and have to go to a perpetual payment for a cloud based photoshop, dreamweaver, etc. if I upgraded the OSX on those iMacs.

This is my Time Capsule setup:

The Internet is the cable modem, connected with ethernet cable of course to the Time Capsule at the top that is sitting right next to the cable modem. That time capsule broadcasts WiFi to the Kitchen, Upstairs and the lower right TC, which are extending the WiFi network. The Time Capsule on the lower left is bridged and ethernet hard wired with a 300' underground Cat6 cable to a second house on the property, which is set to broadcast its own WiFi network for that house.

Each Apple computer is set to backup to a different hard drive or Time Capsule. One hard drive is connected directly to the iMac Pro with USB C for its backup, and another hard drive is connected to the main Time Capsule on the top with USB-B, for a different iMac, and then the Time Capsule that is 300 feet away from the other one, is used for backup of a different MBP and one iMac retina.

The MacBook Pro that I upgraded to Big Sur is set to backup to the main Time Capsule directly connected to the Internet, the one connected at the top. It is the only computer using its hard drive for backup, and it is now on Big Sur.

After I upgraded the one MBP to Big Sur, I did notice after about a week that that MBP was no longer backing up to its Time Capsule. It kept giving a message to the effect of that it could not find the Time Capsule. I first tried deleting the two "Time Capsule" keys from KeyChain Access - no effect. Then I hard restarted all of the Time Capsules and Airport Extremes.

Now, after hard restart, the Time Capsule would show up for the MBP on Big Sur, but I could not get that MBP to do much more than end up in "Waiting to complete first backup" mode as far as the TC, and experienced another odd issue, which was that whenever the MBP went into "Preparing to backup" mode, before it got stuck in "Waiting to complete first backup" mode, it would briefly knock the Time Capsule off the network - make it go offline and not show Green in the Airport Utility screen, and internet would go dead across the network.

As well, another odd thing that would happen, is that when that main Time Capsule came back online, the order of connectivity of the Time Capsules and Airport Extremes would change, with the Upstairs and Kitchen Airport Extremes now running off the second Time Capsule that was hard wired 300 feet away. I think this had to do with that when the main Time Capsule went offline, the Airport Extremes latched onto what was still broadcasting WiFi, even though it was far away. None of this was good.

Finally, I went into that main Time Capsule and using Airport Utility, I erased the entire Time Capsule hard drive with the second type of erase - 0 all data - and then when that was finally done, I examined the Time Capsule's drive with Disk Utility and noticed that now it is formatted as APFS.

Gradually, slowly, now the MBP on Big Sur is completing its first encrypted backup to the Time Capsule I erased. It remains to be seen if, in the future, that every time the MBP connects to that Time Capsule if it is going to push it offline as far as its functioning as a router for internet connectivity.

Has anyone else experienced this issue with a TIME CAPSULE - that once whatever device you have connected to it is upgraded to Big Sur, that every time it is "Preparing for Backup" that it knocks the Time Capsule out as far as functioning as a router for internet, for a bit?

Yes.. it certainly seems TC is dropping further and further behind.

Sorry nothing running big sur yet but the suggestion is to clear your TC.. if you have previous backups you want to keep use a USB HFS+ formatted drive and archive the TC.. then erase it..

Then try again with Time Machine as it seems to be able to alter things to work with Big Sur.. however your older computers (if you have any) may then have issues.. give it a go..

Maybe it is time to give up?

Yes.. I do believe so. It is now old tech.. even if apple only stopped production 2.5years ago, the fundamental design goes back to 2008 with improvements in things like disk size and wifi speed.. but none in terms of the change over from AFP to SMB networking that came with Mavericks??? So it has been left behind for ages.

I noticed that my external drive is still storing in a backups.backupdb. The Time Capsule moved over to a .backupbundle. Does that have something to do with the trouble?

*WARNING.. I am trying to understand myself what is going on.. This is guesswork after reading all the available info.. which as you know.. Apple supplies in a drip feed to those who need to know.. end users are in the category of unwashed masses who get nothing. END WARNING*

The underlying format remained HFS+ even though the drive MUST be APFS. Catalina gives trouble for many people on network backups. There are multiple reasons for this, but certainly the changes in OS protocols to SMB3 (AFP which must be used with TC is deprecated), and continued use of HFS+ when Catalina requires APFS format drive could also enter into it. I do not think the change to .backupbundle was much more than a naming exercise intended to prevent Catalina destroying older backups. Big Sur has now made the full change to APFS on the .backupbundle which was probably intended for Catalina.. but cannot do it without starting from empty target. Check the format on the disk holding backups.backupdb. I think you will find it is now changed.

Not necessarily a solution, but not much else to try at this point. If the Time Capsule is 5+ years old, I would retire it.

Not sure if LaPastenague already mentioned this, but Time Machine backs up to an external drive connected directly to a Mac differently than it does to a network drive like a Time Capsule.

Time Machine backs up to a normal folder on an external drive connected directly to a Mac but backs up to a special container called a sparsebundle.......(now called a backupbundle in Catalina and Big Sur)......which is a more complicated way to back up. More chances for errors to occur.

Not practical for most folks.

Say your Mac connects to your network using WiFi now. You would have to turn off the WiFi on the Mac and connect to the Time Capsule from your Mac using an Ethernet cable. Then, disconnect the Ethernet cable and log back onto your normal WiFi network once a backup has run.

Or, log off of your current WiFi network and log onto the Time Capsule WiFi to back up. Then, log off o f the Time Capsule WiFi and back onto your regular WiFi network once a backup has run.

If you can connect the Time Capsule using an Ethernet cable to an Ethernet port on your main router, you do have the option of turning off the WiFi on the Time Capsule and backing up over the WiFi provided by your regular WiFi router.

You can even "hide" the Time Capsule if you want in this type of setup, because it will not be providing a WiFi network. Then, you will be able to back up seamlessly over the same network that you use for your Internet service. Backups to a Time Capsule occur only over on your "local" network, the Internet is never involved in a backup.

Hi

that’s the way it’s connected at the moment, via an Ethernet cable to the router and was backing up whilst I was using Catalina this ceased when I updated to Big Sur. I’ve lodged an Apple expert call to try and find if they have a work around

I haven't read through the entire thread so may have missed something.

Apple will have you power off your router, power off the Time Capsule, restart your Mac, etc and power things back up as a first step.

After that, they will usually ask you to reset the Time Capsule and set it up again.

If still no luck, it's erase the Time Capsule hard drive and try to start over again with a new backup

If you don't want to lose the old backups.......you can copy them over to a USB drive connected to the Time Capsule using the Archive function in AirPort Utility......before.....you erase the Time Capsule hard drive. Unfortunately, no guarantees that the old backups will still be useable though.

I’ve carried out the power off bit, fortunately I’d only recently (October) reconnected the capsule after household redesign etc, and had cleared it, so no extensive history to speak of. I’ll give it a try and go from there. The change in destination name is probably why Time Machine gives the ‘Time capsule is already in use’ message.

Interesting issues revealed by this thread.

I have a Time Capsule that currently serves as a way to backup 4 computers, and has worked pretty much flawlessly for quite some time.

One of these is a 2017 13 inch MacBook Air, which has plenty of free space on the internal drive, and has been backing up with no issues since put into service.

Until I upgraded it to Big Sur - now it gives me this error when it cannot complete a backup -

"Time Machine could not back up the disk “%@” because a snapshot of the disk could not be created."

All other computers continue to back up as before with no issues -

Any thoughts?

Thanks for the reply. I didn't run it prior to posting, but when I just did it came back with no errors.

Attempting to run another backup resulted in the same error reported previously.

I will attempt a backup to a USB hard drive shortly and report the results - but as you said, the snapshot is created on the internal drive, so we'll see how it goes.

I guess I should have stated that there is plenty of room available on the Time Capsule as well -