Back to My Mac Router Set up

Have you researched the documentation that came with your router?

This document may help: ftp://ftp.zyxel.fr/ftp_download/P-663HN-51/support_note/P-663HN-51_1.0.pdf

NAT-PMP or UPnP is not absolutely required for BTMM to function.

The message may not go away. I have found very few, if any third party routers for which it will not appear:

BTMM is working despite the above. The relative speed of the connection may be affected by it, but there are too many other variables involved to determine if NAT-PMP is a contributing factor.

Other than the status message "unable to obtain NAT port mapping" I have no idea what other effects it may have:

Last login: Mon Nov 4 17:02:10 on ttys001

Johns-MacBook:~ john$ echo "show State:/Network/BackToMyMac" | scutil

<dictionary> {

xxxxxxxx.members.btmm.icloud.com. : <dictionary> {

AutoTunnelExternalPort : 0

ExternalAddress : 0.0.0.0

LLQExternalPort : 0

LastNATMapResultCode : 0

RouterAddress : 172.20.1.1

StatusCode : -65557

StatusMessage : Unable to obtain NAT port mapping from router

}

}

Johns-MacBook:~ john$

Third party routers always complicate troubleshooting. I tried to find specific instructions for your Zyxel router but the above document was the best I could come up with.

I have experienced similar issues. In some cases toggling Back to My Mac off and then on again in the iCloud System Preferences panel seems to work fo a while, but not always.

But using the Finder's Go to Server… command has worked every time for me so far.

The string for a remote Screen Sharing connection is:

vnc://[IP address of remote router or its host name]:[local IP address of remote computer]

The string for a remote File Sharing connection is:

afp://[IP address of remote router or its host name]:[local IP address of remote computer]

I believe this is a bug in Mavericks.

Hi James,

I found your answer the most easy to understand.

I am having trouble trying to make my Back to My Mac work. I can see my iMac in the finder sidebar under Shared, but when I try to connect as it comes back saying "The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again."

I then went into the Finder's Go to Server as you suggested and tried connecting there, but it comes back with the same message.

How do I tell if the string has all the correct information? This is what my string looks like: afp://Sophie%E2%80%99s%20iMac._afpovertcp._tcp.local

I have a third party router and have checked it's settings and all of the NAT-PMP and UPnP are all enabled. But Back to My Mac does not seem to be working or waking up my iMac so I can access it remotely.

I hope all of that made sense and hopefully you're able to help out.

Thanks!

I have this EXACT notification and I have the new tower Airpor Extreme. I am running Mavericks 10.9.1 and 7.7.2 on my Airport Extreme.

However, I can't access my computer. NAT-PMP is enabled inside the Airport Extreme. Any ideas? Is this really a bug in Mavericks?

Eric Barger wrote:

... Is this really a bug in Mavericks?

Apparently.

Give it time, Apple will fix it.

Sorry I missed your response of December 5.

When you open the Go to Server window you need to create the string that fits your situation. Here is the string I use to activate Screen Sharing to my Home Mac mini:

vnc://xxx.xxxxx.xx:192.168.1.28

The xxx.xxxx.xx entry should be the WAN IP address of the remote router or a DNS server host name that will convert the host name to the correct WAN IP address for the remote router, and the last entry should be the LAN IP address of the remote computer. I always assign static LAN IP addresses to computers to which I make remote connections.

The afp string doesn't seem to be working for me right now, but the vnc string does. With a vnc connection, you should be able to access all files.

Hi there,

This discussion is few months old, but I ran into the same problem.

It happens to be that setting my Time Capsule in "bridgemode" instead of "DHCP and NAT" solves the problem for me. But then again I can't use my guestnetwork unfortunately.

Hopefully it helps to solve your problem and a good solution will come out of this.

Cheers,

Robin