Time Machine + Time Capsule problems

If the issue is long standing and started during Snow Leopard this may point to actual hardware fault.

What model is the TC?? The actual number from the rubber base.. A1xxx will help.

I can only suggest trying it a few different way. That will help narrow down the fault. Whether it is fixable is another question.

1. Does TM complete the backup if you use an external USB drive?

That will tell us if the issue is network/TC or actually you have internal fault in the mini..

2. Are you using wireless or ethernet? Please try the other.. ie if you use wireless.. turn it off and use ethernet .. you can do it to TC freestanding.. ie no network connections.. just as a test. Using a short patch cable that is known good. If you have tried that, then test with wireless.. it won't be the first TC I have seen where wireless works but the ethernet was faulty.

3. Test by using superduper.. free download will do a disk image.. do image to the TC by network. What happens.. if it fails the issue is pointedly TM. IMHO upgrade install of the OS is to be avoided.. if another backup utiity works.. well either pay for it and forget TM.. or do a clean install of the OS onto a fully reformatted dirve.

I am also at a bit of a loss..

A full factory reset of the TC and use new names for everything.. short, no spaces, pure alphanumeric.

Erase the TC so you start with a clean slate.

Do a reset of TM A4 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Have a look through the C section of pondini and see if some of those other issues could also be yours.

Sorry in a rush now.. post again and I will have another go.

Tell me the whole network layout.

Modem model.. type of broadband.

Is the TC router or bridge mode?

Is the mini using wireless or ethernet?

Can you try again with a completely isolated setup.. This is just a test.. it is to determine if the issue is network fault.

Plug the TC Lan port to the mini with a short ethernet patch cord. No other connections on the mini.. so turn off wireless.. nothing else plugged into the TC. Totally isolated.

Start again with factory reset. That will put the TC back into router mode.. you can then pick up an IP address and the airport utility should connect ok. Ignore all the problems.. except a disk problem.. tell me if AU shows disk issue.. do as little setup as possible.. you are not worrying about network as it is totally isolated.. it is simply to get the TM to work.. start TM. If the TM fails.. I would say the TC is faulty.. if you still have applecare or any warranty left take it back to apple for a checkup/replacement.

Sounds like it..

Do a verify of the mini's disk.

See A5 in pondini.

But clean install of the OS is a great idea. At least that will prove something about the issue.

Just look up clean install.. there are plenty of posts with instructions and youtube videos etc all showing howto clean install.

It sounds a bit like the sparse bundle is already mounted, either by another process on your Mac or by the other Mac.

Be sure to eject it, from both Macs, before starting a backup. Actually, just to be sure, I'd recommend powering both Macs down, then powering-up only the one you want to back up, and starting the backup. When the "Time Machine Backups" disk image appears on your desktop, don't attempt to mount it or look inside it.

I'm not sure your problem is with OSX, but a "clean install" is probably overkill -- if you want a fresh copy of OSX, just install one, via the Recovery HD. Unless you specifically erase the internal HD, that will just install a new copy of OSX, without disturbing anything else. See the Reinstalling OSX section in the blue box of Installing the ''combo'' update and/or Reinstalling OSX.

Hello Thomas,

I've been experiencing exactly the same problem you have been and I can attest to the fact that it is totally infuriating.

In my case, I have a 2009 Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro that came with Snow Leopard (if I remember correctly) and a 1TB Time Capsule that provided both my home WiFi and MBP backups. Then all of a sudden, I was constantly experiencing the "sparsebundle -1" errors. After many TC factory resets/erases I thought I had tracked down the problem to the TC itself and went out and bought a new 2TB one (as well as a new HD to install in the previous TC) and then discovered that it I was still having the same problem! And like you I also discovered that my Intel Mac Mini (a secondary computer) was able to utilize the TCs just fine and I am also able to use Time Machine on the MBP with a USB Western Digital drive to make backups. I had reinstalled Snow Leopard (not clean) to no avail. And last night I finally did an update install of Mountain Lion on the MBP thinking that it would probably fix the problem once and for all and it still comes up with the same sparsebundle error. I've even tried using Disk Utility to try to make the sparsebundle file Read/Write (initially it displays as being "Read Only") but that hasn't worked either. And I have been reading about Unix fixes in Terminal on the web to repair a Read Only sparsebundle to the proper Read/Write state but:

a) it's really complicated

b) I don't care about "recovering" the stupid file

c) you shouldn't have to do all this jumping through hoops in order to make it "just work" in Apple's own phrasing!

Actually I think a clean install is probable the only option. In my case, I think I'm going to do a clean install of Mountain Lion on a new hybrid (SSD/HDD) 750GB drive and install that in my MBP.

Thomas Schaller wrote:

. . .

Did you see anything about Western Digital causing problems with the TC? I thought I saw somewhere that some people fixed the problem by deleting some WD driver file that came with their external disks. If you haven't, worth googling...

That's the WD SmartWare package.