Moved my Time Capsule, now it won't show up on WIFI

Question

Moved my Time Capsule, now it won't show up on WIFI

Okedoke, here we go.

My in-laws were having trouble with the back up feature of their Time Capsule. I told them I am not terribly familiar with Apple products but figured I could at least attempt to help them via a little Googling without making things worse.

Holy balls, was I wrong.

Unbeknownst to me, the Time Capsule (2 TB about 2 years old) was also speeding up their internet/acting as their router for WIFI. Here is exactly what happened.

I found the Time Capsule sitting underneath their stock cable modem next to my father-in-law's Acer PC. The amber light was flashing slowly and there were no cables connected to it other than the power cord. The WIFI was working perfectly, I had used my Samsung Galaxy S4 with it all week and my wife had used her Ipad Mini, Iphone, etc. At this point I had no idea that the Time Capsule was also providing a WIFI signal to the house including all of my in-laws Ipads and their Imac, I had only been told it was a hard drive that wasn't backing up as it should. Seeing no cables connected except for power, and after checking the Apple forums for the meaning of the blinking amber light, I unplugged it and brought it downstairs to have it with me at the Imac while I continued to troubleshoot.

Between unplugging it upstairs and plugging it in downstairs it was probably without power for 2-3 minutes. I plugged it in by the Imac, connected no other cables, and proceeded to use the Imac via to search the forums via WIFI. I came across many things including something about plugging in the internet directly to the Time Capsule so I lugged it back upstairs, plugged it into the power, disconnected the ethernet cable form the Acer PC, and attached it to the in port on the Time Capsule. I went back downstairs and attmepted to access it via the airport utitility and it could not find it. I searched the forums, again via the WIFI, and found a post that said I would have to download the newest Airport utitilities. I did that and installed it. I repopened it and again, no Time Capsule. I went back upstairs, unplugged the time capsule and replugged the internet cable into the Acer.

I left the Time Capsule on the table after I was told not to worry about it -- still not realizing this was the source of WIFI -- until I got a phone call that they had no WIFI. (I'm not even sure they realized that the Time Capsule was their WIFI). I told them they should plug the Time Capsule back in and that should fix it. It did not. None of the devices can find it.

Any ideas? It had no ethernet cable connected to it when I originally found it. I moved it a couple times and the WIFI still worked after each power cut and return. It didn't even have to search for it like a PC does when the modem disappears. But now, after an extended power cut it's not being found by the computer or Ipads. Making it worse, I'm now home three hours away.

Should they just plug the Time Capsule power back in and wait?

Posted on Jul 6, 2014 11:40 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

LaPastenague

Level 9

67,226 points

Jul 7, 2014 5:29 AM in response to noproblempablo

The TC was not plugged into the modem, then it also could not provide internet.

Unless it is actually a wireless modem router that it was sitting next to I don't see how it could work.

It sounds like the people might need to call in a technician.. this is simple stuff to me.. but is perhaps too hard for people not used to networking.

Here are the steps.

1. Reset the TC to factory.

The Factory Reset universal

Unplug your TC/AE. Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. The time is not important.. it is the front LED rapid flashing that indicates you are in factory mode.

Release reset.

If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have released reset at some point and try again.

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.

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

2. Ensure you use ipv6 set to link local in the computer doing the setup.. or use iOS device, ipad or iphone are much better at this.. download the airport utility for iOS.

3. Plug the WAN port of the TC into the LAN port of the modem.

4. If they are using cable modem.. then you will need to power off the modem for up to 20min.. this is perhaps the step you forgot. It will not work simply swapping cable modem from a computer to a router.. you MUST power cycle the modem.

If the cable modem is a router then the above is not necessary.. but the TC must be in bridge mode. This is part of the setup wizard when the newly reset TC is found by the airport utility.

If it is some other kind of modem tell us.. we need particularly if tf it is a router. Or is a pure modem.

5. During the setup I strongly recommend using a simple name for the base station like TCgenx and simple wireless name like TCwifi. Do not use the long names with spaces that Apple recommends.

6. Once in operation the TC will show a green light if it works.. otherwise it will flash amber.. and the errors will be listed in the airport utility.

7. Some errors are minor.. eg requires a firmware update. Some are major like no WAN connection. Or double NAT etc.. You need to post the error to find out how to fix it.

I am not at all sure this is possible without your presence or someone that knows what they are doing.. a normal computer tech will have it going in 20min.. and it will save beating your head or hours or days against a brick wall.

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Answer 2

Jul 7, 2014 9:52 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks a lot man, I appreciate it. It was a wireless router/modem sitting on top of it. That's what confused me about the dual purpose of the Time Capsule. It had a blinking amber light when I found it, nothing plugged into it, but it was only when the Time Capsule had no power for an extended period of time that their internet stopped working. They have what they call their "slow internet" working now. Is the Time Capsule able to boost internet speed or something? I will recommend a technician to them and if not I'll just follow your steps when I go back up in a few weeks. Apple is pretty foreign to me but your instructions are nice and detailed and I should be able to use them to get it going if I don;t run into bigger problems.

Thank you!

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Answer 3

Jul 7, 2014 1:24 PM in response to noproblempablo

Is the Time Capsule able to boost internet speed or something?

No.. the setup you explained is barely possible and slower than direct connection to the modem router.

Sitting wireless routers on top of each other is never a good idea.. nor from a hardware point of view for heat dissipation.. they should be 1-2M apart if not more. And the TC MUST.. absolutely MUST be plugged into the main router by ethernet and set in bridge mode.

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Answer 4

Jul 9, 2014 9:45 PM in response to LaPastenague

OK, thank you, this is a big help. It sounds like their internet just happened to crash after the fact. Out of curiosity, could connecting the Time Capsule to their router like I did have corrupted their router and caused a problem? I'm going to use your directions to actually set their Time Capsule up next time I am in town. Thanks again!

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Answer 5

Jul 9, 2014 11:02 PM in response to noproblempablo

In the world of networking it is hard to rule out things.. but once disconnected and the main modem router rebooted.. then nothing unsavory would be left behind.

There should be no effect on the main router of plugging in the TC configured correctly.

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