remote screen sharing router configuration

The wireless network in your little description is not other hardware I take it.

cable modem--> time capsule--> wireless network--> imac

And the cable modem is not a router?? So the TC is setup in router mode as is required for this.

The fact that your access to the TC hard drive is working properly shows me that your setup is working very well.

And you can also access the imac when you have had it running.. means it also works.

I think the problem is the imac is not waking from sleep. When the imac sleeps it goes into a hibernation mode after the basic sleep mode.. I think the failure is due to it not waking up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3774

The latest AC TC may indeed have issues with passing bonjour messages to the Mac..

I suggest you try setting the mac to wake at some fixed time every day and see if you can access it when you know the Mac is going to be running.. just as a test if you like.

If the Mac is in fact properly waking up then the issue could be port forwarding, although the point of the BTMM system is to allow the Mac itself to establish the link from inside the network.. which is much easier than to do it from a demand from outside.

Having a fixed IP would make it much easier .. but I am not sure in this case it is the main problem.

Thanks for the screenshots.. I can always pick up loads of info from them.

Your TC is correctly setup as router and the modem is pure cable modem and passing the IP correctly.

Keep track of the public IP as you will find some services change IP frequently and others can rotate them on a 3month or longer basis.. the longer the IP stays fixed the better. Hourly rotation makes it very hard.

Port forwarding should not be necessary.. as you say, you are using an all apple setup. IMHO the issue is that the Mac won't wake up..

Test it while you are at home. I want you to carefully follow these instructions so we can see if the problem is merely wake up.

Use your iphone on 3G tether or something (a friendly neighbour allowing you to access his wireless) so you can get a WAN access to your network when at home.. Then on your laptop that is accessing via WAN see if you can get access to the TC and the Mac... particularly see if the Mac starts up.. if it doesn't the issue has nothing to do with port forwarding.. especially if the TC is working ok over BTMM.. the problem is the Mac is simply not getting wake up messages. Or if it is getting the messages is not actually waking up.

If it fails to wake up the Mac.. go and wake up the machine.. and then see if you can access it.

Please tell me the results of this test as it will be pretty much the answer if I am right.

Only if the above fails.. ie even with the iMac running you cannot access it..

There is a couple of things I don't like. These maybe irrelevant.. but I would still like you to fix them.

I do not think 7.6.4 firmware handles the automatic port opening very well.. amongst other things.

I want you to try going back to 7.6.1 firmware. Just hold down the option key when you click on the version in the summary screen.. pick the earlier firmware from the list and allow it to downgrade.

Then I want you to factory reset the TC.

Universal Factory Reset.. any model TC or AE.

Unplug your TC/AE from power or turn off at the power point.

Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. (this is often difficult without a 2nd person or a 3rd arm).

Release it when the status light flashes rapidly. If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have missed it and try again.

Note..

Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.

TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations of the router.

No files are deleted on the hard disk in a TC.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.

Then I want you to redo the setup from scratch..

I want you to eliminate any name that is not SMB standard.. For instance your TC name is over long even for Apple OS.. See C9 here for why this is important. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Your disk share name is even worse.. the standard name is data.

SMB name.. short, 10 characters or less is excellent.. make it 20max.

No spaces. Spaces are very very bad.

Pure alphanumeric. No apostrophe.. that is also very very bad.

I want you to also fix the share name of the Mac. Change it from DANIEL'S iMac again to something that complies.. iMac would be fine.

As I said this will probably cause you plenty of pain and could well do nothing at all.

You don't need to do it all in one hit.. keep doing things step by step if you want.. but if it makes no difference then institute the next step.. changing the name of the computer will likely cause the backup to get lost so make that the last one.

BTW you stated you have the latest AC time capsule.. that is not so.. from your screenshots it is the older model.. and you could also therefore use the earlier v5 utility to see if the log of the TC will reveal anything about this issue. v6 utility is useless in diagnostics of problems.. v5 has at least got log access.

What OS are you running on your Macs??

i am on a residential ISP account (RCN, washington dc). so i presume i have a dynamic IP address... how frequently does RCN change the IP address.... and what will happen? will my services still work? is using something like dynDNS a work around or do i not need that? thanks!

All domestic accounts are dynamic.. I am not in the US so i have no idea what RCN is.. ring their support.. ask if you can get a static IP and how much it is and how often they change IP on dynamic accounts.

When dynamic IP changes the external IP of the router changes and any links to it drop out.

But BTMM does not work like that.. it is establishing a service from inside the network.

You can use a dynDNS account although apple are a pain to set it up on.

The real question is.. will the mac wake up??

Did you follow what I asked you to do, to test if the Mac is waking from sleep on network wake signals?? If not, getting a dyndns account is going to do nothing useful at all.

See methods of remote access.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3413

The apple method of dyndns is global domain name.