Q: Server Connections Interrupted

How long ago did you upgrade? Please keep us posted about this. I have not moved to Mountain Lion yet so I can't tack it myself.

Hi Mike, I have been on Mountain Lion since its initial release (on iMac late 2009, MacBook Pro Mid 2010, MacBook Air Late 2010).  I am not experiencing any problems worth mentioning on any of the Macs.  I was also running the beta version of Mountain Lion on my MacBook Pro - prior to official release.  I was seeing the disconnect popup on all versions of Mountain Lion - except 10.8.2 - which I believe I have been using for about a month.  I also recently set up a brand new Mac Mini (Late 2012) which had 10.8.1 initially - and I got the popup on it as well.  After upgrading all machines to 10.8.2 - no sign of the popup - except when there is an actual break in the network connection to the time capsule (such as during switch of wifi networks or unplugging a cable while time capsule is mounted).

Again - I realize that this is a ridiculously long thread - but to summarize my problem in a nutshell - whenever I would copy large amounts of data (multiple gigs - such as an iTunes library) to a time capsule share (mounted via AFP - the default) - the copy would complete successfully - but within a few minutes of it completing the copy - it would pop up the server disconnect window - when the server had not actually disonnected.  It almost seemed to be tied to when the time capsule would go to sleep due to inactivity - but I was unable to prove this directly.  Unmounting the share would always resolve the issue - until the next mount and copy.  I also believe the problem happened when copying large amounts of data from the TC to another drive - but less frequently in that scenario.  I really do believe 10.8.2 has resolved the issue - because nothing has changed on my time capsule - either firmware wise or  config wise.

Scott

I've been very hesitant to move from Lion to Mountain Lion so far. Have you seen any issues? I'm on an earlier iMac than yours, the last (I think) 20" screen version.

If you are already on Lion - then you should not have any fear of going to Mountain Lion.  I think the problems - if you were going to experience any - would have been most obvious when going from Snow Leopard to Lion - not from Lion to Mountain Lion.

In my opinion - Mountain Lion appears to be more stable than Lion or Snow Leopard.  The only crashes that I am encountering is occasionally with the new Airport Utility (version 6.1) - where upon saving a configuration to an airport express - it will fail during the save and you have to reopen Airport Utility.  However, the changes always do seem to "take" when this error occurs.  That's about it.  I am only running very generic apps - and nothing that might be sensitive to an OS upgrade - so my assessment of the stability may not be a fair one.

Scott

Not to beat a Dead Horse, but my Problem if you Read my Earlier Posts, was the Hard Drive starting to go bad & finally bit the bullet at the 2 Year Mark. Just something to consider. Server Connection Interuption is how it all started.

Getting the same behavior still:

• iMac running OS X 10.8.2 connected via Ethernet to Time Capsule (firmware 7.6.1)
• MacBook Air running OS X 10.8.2 connected via Wi-Fi to Time Capsule
• Only after connecting a portable USB Western Digital (WD) 1 TB HDD (My Passport for Mac) to the Time Capsule
• Get the "Server Connections Interrupted" popup for the USB WD HDD, with option to either "Ignore" or "Disconect".  If I ignore, I can still access the WD HDD.

Again, I had the same thing happen while iTunes was Playing off the same Hard Drive. Not a skip or nothing. My music played fine.  I Just got the message. And always selected ignore.

So you are saying that you don't get the message for the time capsule itself, but only for the USB drive connected to it, is that correct? Did you get messages about the TC drive in the past but they've stopped since upgrading to 10.8.2? Or have you never had the messages about the TC drive?

Yes, that is correct. Message is just for USB WD HDD and only started on both Macs after connecting WD directly to the Time Machine.

Matt - When you say directly connecting to the Time Machine - do you mean that you have told Time Machine to use the USB drive as a backup destination - or did you mean to say "after connecting WD directly to the Time "Capsule"?

I have been trying to reproduce the disconnect popup - for several days now - and have not been able to produce it on 10.8.2 - whereas I was abile to easily reproduce it in the past (prior to 10.8.2).  I just attached a WD MyBook 1.5 Terabyte USB2 drive to my Time Capsule - and I am in the process of copying a 40 gig iTunes library to the WD drive attached to TC.  This should produce the popup - if the popup is going to occur.

In the past (prior to this thread about the popup occurring) - I believe that I did not have good luck with attaching either of two specific WD USB drives - it seems they would go into a weird state after a day or so - and would not sleep properly.  This, I believe, is an entirely separate issue.

Although using Time Machine to back up to a USB drive attached to either a Time Capsule or an Airport Extreme - appears to work correctly - Apple states that that backing up to a drive in that configuration may not be reliable and is not supported.

At the moment my statement of 10.8.2 - seems to have corrected the disconnect popup - is stil holding true - in that I am not seeing it happen using the methods I was historically using to force the popup to occur (and this is without any external USB drive attached to the Time Capsule.  Now with a USB drive attached - I will take note of the behavior and report back what happens.

Scott

Hi Scott,

I have the USB WD physically connected to the Time Capsule. I store a large iPhone Library (400GB) on the WD so that it can be shared wirelessly. I use Time Machine to back up the iPhoto Library from the USB WD to the Time Capsule. Just to be clear, the WD is the backup source, the TC is the backup destination.  Thanks.

Matt

Matt - Thanks for the clarification:

First - I have to retract a statement I made in my last post - I stated that backing up to a USB drive attached to either a Time Capsule or an Airport Extreme - is not supported by Apple and may not be reliable.  In researching this some more - it appears that backing up to a USB drive attached to a Time Capsule - "is" in-fact supported - and it is only not supported when the USB drive is attached to an Airport Extreme.

Second - I have had my WD USB drive attached to my TC for over 12 hours - and I have copied large amounts of data to it several times without any issue.  I am still not encountering the server disconnect popup under any circumstance.  Also the WD USB drive is sleeping when not in use - and I have both the TC and the WD drive mounted via AFP on 4 different Macs.  The Macs are going to sleep as they normally would - and the connection is not being dropped and no popup appears.  Two Macs are wired - the other two are wifi.  Two are clean installs of Mountain Lion and the other two are successive upgrades from Snow Leopard to Lion to Mountain Lion  I am still convinced the problem is fixed - at least in my scenario.  I will keep the WD attached to the TC for a while longer to see if anything changes.  In the past I had trouble getting the WD drive to sleep (reliably) while attached to the TC - but now this seems to be resolved as well.

Third - Just out of curiousity - how are you able to use Time Machine to back up the WD which is attached to the Time Capsule.  I was under the impression that Time Machine can only back up locally attached non-network drives and cannot back up Time Capsule shares (or shares on any other network drive).  Are you using Time Machine to backup the WD - or are you manually copying files from the WD to the TC to perform the backup.  I am very interested in knowing if this is possible - because I have some network shares on other network drives that I woul like Time Machine to backup - and have not yet found a way to do that.

Scott

Thanks Scott.  For your second item, I'm unfamiliar with AFP, so I doubt my USB WD HDD is mounted the same as yours.  I'll need to investigate AFP mounting...

For your thrid item, based on your input, I'm now not so sure I'm actually even backing up my data from the USB WD HDD to the TC.   The WD "My Passport for Mac" is listed in the "Available Disks" lists when I click the "Select Disk..." button from the Time Machine preferences so I could potentially reverse the backup source/destination (maybe). I need to investigate:

1. Whether TC can back up from a USB HDD to begin with, and if not
2. How to share an iPhoto Libary between 2 Macs and have that library backed up to a second location

-Matt

Hi Matt - It definitely sounds like Time Machine is not backing up the WD drive with your iPhoto Library the way that you were thinking.  In your current configuration - the only way that your iPhoto library will be backed up is if you copy the Library manually from the WD to the Time Capsule - or to some other network share (if you have one).

Your approach to sharing the iPhoto library is correct and will work - but it does not account for backing up the shared library.

There are a number of ways that you can effectively share as well as backup your iPhoto library - and these methods apply to sharing iTunes as well.  This is probably not the best thread to discuss this particular topic - as this thread is dedicated to the Server Disconnect popup that people are encountering on their otherwise in-good-condition working Time Capsules and Airport Extremes.

If you want to start another thread on this I will gladly join in and give you my opinion on things I have tried in the past regarding sharing libraries - both things that have worked as well as those that did not.

In a nutshell - AFP is Apple Filing Protocol - and is used to provide the communication between a computer and a remote  network file system (or share).  Other common network file system protocols are SMB (Server Message Block) and NFS (Network File System).  These all function in a similar manner and provide network connectivity to a remote file system.  When you open a share on a network drive (or Time Capsule) - the Mac by default will connect using AFP - unless you tell it specifically to use some other protocol to make the connection.  Files are processed and handled differently by each of the protocols and the underlying implementations on the platform on which you are working.

And ... still no disconnect popups - my Time Capsule as well as the WD USB drive attached to it - are continuing to work just fine on Mountain Lion 10.8.2..

~Scott

Mike -

I just wanted to report - it's been two weeks or more - and still no disconnect popup with the Time Capsule on Mountain Lion 10.8.2.

~Scott