Did Apple just kill the AirPort Time Capsule's functionality?

If I do a backup on my Big Sur iMac right now, and a week from now I need to restore to that backup, how would you go about doing that?

We already mentioned above that things changed significantly with Big Sur and explained that a user would need to 1) erase the hard drive on the Mac, 2) install Big Sur again, and then 3) use Migration Assistant to transfer all of the data from a Time Machine backup back over to the Mac.

I was just trying to explain how I realized that Time Machine backups cannot be restored at all anymore.

Yes, they can. Time Machine backups can be used to restore or transfer the data on a Time Machine backup back over to the Mac which has had the Big Sur operating system reinstalled after the hard drive was erased. I know this is true because I have done it.

The Command + R "restore" only worked with previous operating systems before Big Sur. In that case, you could reinstall the operating system and the existing data on the Mac was not affected. It was only a means to reinstall the Mac operating system, it was never a means to "restore" a backup to another Mac.

Have you.......

1) Erased the Mac's hard drive using Disk Utility?

2) Reinstalled the Big Sur operating system

3) Used Migration Assistant to transfer the data in a Time Machine backup back over to the Mac?

If you have not done this, then you will need to do this to return your Mac to its previous state.

Did Apple just kill the AirPort Time Capsule's functionality?

No, but things have changed. We do not really handle questions about the Mac operating systems in this forum, so our ability to help is limited.

Everything changed with Big Sur. To "downgrade" to another earlier operating system, you must completely erase the Mac's hard drive and then install the older Mac operating system that you want to use.

Once that is done, you can use Migration Assistant to move over data from a Time Machine backup on the Time Capsule to your "new" Mac.

The article linked below will likely provide some useful tips:

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/downgrade-macos-3581872/

You can also post in the Big Sur support forum for more details on the downgrade process. That link is just below:

macOS Big Sur

FWIW, I think the issue is that Apple hasn't provided a means to allow users who make Time Machine backups to a Time Capsule under macOS Big Sur to use those backups in Recovery Mode to an earlier version of macOS. That is basically because, as the others have mentioned, TM uses a different method to back up to APFS vs. HFS+ volumes with Big Sur.

The following article may shed a bit of light on that:

• APFS changes in Big Sur: how Time Machine backs up to APFS, and more - The Eclectic Light Company

To be honest, I stopped using my remaining 802.11ac TC for TM over two years ago; not long after Apple announced it was getting out of the networking hardware business. The "writing was on the wall" and I switched to using a combination of a externally attached drive and a Synology NAS. TM has been basically flawless since then even with upgrading my Macs to Big Sur. I keep the TC around as a pseudo file server, but for little else. The bottom line? I don't solely depend on TM for my overall backup strategy. If you are, I suggest that you reconsider ... especially, if your data is critical to you.

The image you provided does show that your Mac is attempting to establish an AFP connection to your Time Capsule, but obviously it was not successful. How I know it is using the AFP protocol is for two reasons: 1) TM uses AFP to a TC for backups, and 2) The fact that your TC is shared with a .local extension. This extension would not be used for a SMB connection.

So, out of curiosity, can you connect to your TC's share using the Finder app successfully? I am assuming so, as you have stated that you are not having any issues backing up to it. Second, do you have, as a minimum, IPv6 Link-local only, configured on your Mac & TC?

Finally, a great little utility to monitor and analyze TM backups, is called The Time Machine Mechanic. It is free and provided by the folks at The Eclectic Light Company.

If I choose to migrate to a backup from a week ago will it work exactly the same as restore used to in recovery mode? Will it delete all newer files and changes?

If you use Migration Assistant to move data from a Time Machine backup of a week ago, your Mac will look like it did one week ago. It will not have any new data information that was picked up in the last 6 days.

I did not try that as I didn't find that logical at all since Time Machine System Restore is still an option in recovery mode. If it just doesn't work anymore then they should remove that option.

A lot of things changed with Big Sur. The Command + R option does not work on Big Sur. It does work on all previous operating systems. Maybe Apple will add an error message that will appear when users try this with Big Sur. You can let them know here:

Feedback - macOS - Applewww.apple.com › feedback › macos

If you have more questions about Big Sur, please post them over in the support forum for that operating system:

macOS Big Sur

Konsolkongen wrote:

AirPort Utility > Internet > Internet Options > Configure IPv6 is set to Automatically if that's what you are referring to. What does Link-local only achieve?

By default, your base station would use the "Automatically" setting. The "Link-local" option would restrict IPv6 traffic to the local network only where it would still be used for discovery of Apple devices. If your ISP is not providing you with IPv6 service, switching to "Link-local" would be recommended.

At one time, you could restore a Mac by holding down Command+R at startup, but that feature only worked if you were NOT changing anything on the Mac's operating system. This feature does not work on Big Sur however.

All that Command + R did was install the same operating system again on the Mac and leave all the other data intact.

Everything is completely different if you are trying to downgrade an operating system. You cannot use Command + R for that.

For more information, please post over in the Mac operating system forums.

Nice work!