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Initial Setup of TC Fails

I am trying to do an initial install of my new AirPort Time Capsule. I repeatedly get an error message, "Unexpected error occurred. Try again."


I've reset my AT&T/Arris DSL router, including a hard reset to factory settings. I've also confirmed that I have link status on the DSL router port that my Ethernet cable is connected to that runs to the AirPort Time Capsule.


In Airport Utility (v6.3.2) on my MacBook Pro, running 10.9.5, I get a green bullet next to the single word "Internet"


In addition, I have a USB cable connected from the capsule to a printer.


The amber light continues to blink.


Suggestions?

AirPort Time Capsule-OTHER, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), Airport Utility (v6.3.2)

Posted on May 4, 2015 3:40 PM

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15 replies

May 4, 2015 4:23 PM in response to LashL

DSL modems are particularly problematic because the airport utility will recognise it as such and try to take over PPPOE.. which of course may or may not work.


Is this a pure modem or a modem router?? If it is modem router.. do not allow the TC to setup in PPPOE client mode.. this might require you to take control and do the whole setup manually.


See Airtport Utility can't find Airport Time Capsule on either of my 2009 Macs


If you find that hard to follow I can give you more explicit set of instructions.. but I do need to know if your modem is full bridge or router.

May 4, 2015 5:28 PM in response to LashL

I am trying to do an initial install of my new AirPort Time Capsule. I repeatedly get an error message, "Unexpected error occurred. Try again."


Do you happen to have an iPhone or iPad handy that could be used for the setup, instead of the Mac running Mavericks?


I've reset my AT&T/Arris DSL router, including a hard reset to factory settings. I've also confirmed that I have link status on the DSL router port that my Ethernet cable is connected to that runs to the AirPort Time Capsule.

Does this mean that the Ethernet cable connects from one of the LAN <--> ports on the ATT router to the WAN O port on the Time Capsule?


If you temporarily disconnect the Ethernet cable that connects to the WAN port on the Time Capsule and instead connect it to another laptop or desktop as a test, can the computer get a good Internet connection that way? Be sure to turn off the wireless on the computer when you perform this check.


If the computer cannot get an Internet connection this way, neither will the Time Capsule, so you will need to try another port on the router or try another Ethernet cable to get your "test" setup working first.....before the Time Capsule can be set up.


In addition, I have a USB cable connected from the capsule to a printer.

Please do not attempt to connect the printer until the Time Capsule is up and running correctly. We will tackle that setup later.

May 5, 2015 9:46 AM in response to Bob Timmons

I am trying to do an initial install of my new AirPort Time Capsule. I repeatedly get an error message, "Unexpected error occurred. Try again."


Do you happen to have an iPhone or iPad handy that could be used for the setup, instead of the Mac running Mavericks?


LashL: I have both. Please advise on how to use either.


I've reset my AT&T/Arris DSL router, including a hard reset to factory settings. I've also confirmed that I have link status on the DSL router port that my Ethernet cable is connected to that runs to the AirPort Time Capsule.

Does this mean that the Ethernet cable connects from one of the LAN <--> ports on the ATT router to the WAN O port on the Time Capsule?


LashL: Yes.


If you temporarily disconnect the Ethernet cable that connects to the WAN port on the Time Capsule and instead connect it to another laptop or desktop as a test, can the computer get a good Internet connection that way? Be sure to turn off the wireless on the computer when you perform this check.


LashL: Yes. The port and cable both work fine. I get good connectivity when they're connected to my MacBook with Wireless off.


If the computer cannot get an Internet connection this way, neither will the Time Capsule, so you will need to try another port on the router or try another Ethernet cable to get your "test" setup working first.....before the Time Capsule can be set up.


In addition, I have a USB cable connected from the capsule to a printer.

Please do not attempt to connect the printer until the Time Capsule is up and running correctly. We will tackle that setup later.


LashL: OK. I disconnected the printer.

May 5, 2015 1:45 PM in response to LashL

An iPad screen will probably be easier to see and use to tap in info, but you can use either an iPad or iPhone.


We will be using the same instructions that appear in the Setup Guide that you already have there.


Perform a Hard Reset on the Time Capsule by holding in the reset button for 7-8 seconds and then releasing. Allow a full minute for the TC to restart.


Go to the iPad or iPhone Home Screen

Tap on Settings (the gear icon)

Tap on WiFi


Look for a listing of Setup New AirPort Base Station


User uploaded file


Tap on Time Capsule. The example above shows an AirPort Express.


Follow the prompts.

May 5, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Bob Timmons

That got me one step closer--I now have a green light on my TC! And I am able to connect to it from my MacBook.


However, Time Machine on my MacBook Pro, doesn't find it. I get a green indicator next to "Internet." But I also get the error message saying, "No configured airport base stations have been found. Airport utility will continue searching." I restarted AirPort Utility and Time Machine, but got the same result.


Any suggestions on how I can make Time Machine see the new Airport TC?


Thanks.

May 5, 2015 1:19 PM in response to LashL

Unfortunately, there appears to be an issue with the Mac and AirPort Utility as far as its ability to discover the Time Capsule on the network. No doubt this same issue is what was causing the "unknown errors" when you tried to use the Mac to configure the Time Capsule.


So, the initial impression might have been that you were having a Time Capsule issue, when in fact the real problem is that you have a Mac issue. The fact that you could configure the Time Capsule with an iPad or iPhone pretty much confirms this.


Mavericks (10.9.x) and Yosemite 10.10.x) are both known to have these kind of bugs with "lost" Time Capsules and other AirPorts as well.


We can try to check a few settings, but cannot offer any guarantees that we'll be able to find a way to work around the bugs.


On the Mac.....open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock), and then open Sharing. Check to see that the name of your Mac appears correctly here, and that a (2), (3), (4), etc does not appear after the name. If it does, edit to remove the (2), (3), (4) so the name of the Mac displays correctly.


Open System Preferences again if it is not already open and open Network

Click on WiFi on the left panel to highlight it, then click Advanced at the lower right of the window

Click the TCP/IP tab

Make sure that the setting for Configure IPv6 is set to Link Local Only. It should be, but strange things happen with Mavericks and Yosemite.

Click OK, the click Apply in the next window


Now click on Ethernet to highlight it, as you did with WiFi in the steps above, then click Advanced

Click the TCP/IP tab

Make sure that the setting for Configure IPv6 is set to Link Local Only

Click OK, then click Apply in the next window


Close the windows and restart the Mac


Pull the power cord from the back of the Time Capsule, wait a few seconds, then plug it back in and let the Time Capsule restart.


See if that helps to get Time Machine going.

May 6, 2015 4:22 PM in response to Bob Timmons

That solved that issue--I now have a green light on the TC! 🙂


That's an important step toward getting my SSD backed up.


Time Machine shows it's doing hourly backups. But each backup is only about 0.25GB for an SSD with 182GB of stored data. How do I ensure the backups are being done correctly?


Thanks

May 6, 2015 5:47 PM in response to LashL

Time Machine makes a complete copy of the SSD on the very first pass that it makes. After that, it only backs up the changes that have occurred on the drive since the last backup. So, unless you have added a very large file since the last backup of the SSD, the "incremental" backups are going to be small.


.25 GB sounds about normal to me for activity that has occurred on the drive since the last backup.


If you go into Time Machine, you should be able to see the backups from the very first date that SSD was backed up until the most recent backup.

May 6, 2015 9:09 PM in response to LashL

I don't think that you are understanding how Time Machine works.


When you go into Time Machine you can select any date that you want see how the entire contents of the drive looked on that date. Let's say that you made the original back up a week ago.


So, you can go back to the day that you made the back up and see the contents of the entire drive in Time Machine. This would have been a big backup, since the entire drive was backed up on the initial pass.


If you go to the next day, you will see the entire contents of the drive including any new data that was just backed up that day. But, if you watched to see how much data was backed up on that day during the backup, you would see a small amount......say .2 GB. So that .2GB was added to the original back up of xxxx GB.


If you go to the next day, you will see the entire contents of the drive plus any new data that was backed up that day, etc.. The backup that day again might have been only .2 GB or so, unless you added a significant amount of data to the drive.


So, to repeat, you can go back to any point in time starting from the date of the original backup and see how the entire drive looked on the date that you select. You cannot see just what was backed up on a given day.....because you see the entire drive including what was backed up on that day.


Because you can see the entire drive on any date that you select, you know that the entire drive was backed up originally on the date that you first started the backup.


That's the best that I can do to explain how Time Machine works. If that is not clear, then another user will need to step in.

May 6, 2015 9:38 PM in response to Bob Timmons

No, I get all that, thanks. And apparently it's working fine. The only things that had me questioning whether all was working well were how fast that first backup occurred (many GB) and the fact that, in Finder, all of the backup files are quite small. I just can't find the original big file. But as I look at the contents of the backups as seen through the Finder-like i/f in Time Machine, it seems fine. ✅


So, thanks again for all of your help! 🙂

May 7, 2015 6:38 AM in response to LashL

There are ways to get into your Time Machine backups using the Finder, but Apple frowns on this, since they do not really want users to know how to do this.


Do you want to know how to do it this way? You will have to be very careful to only look at files and not change them in any way.


If the forum moderators see the steps that I post, they may remove them. Not sure on that.

May 7, 2015 5:36 PM in response to LashL

I don't have an SSD, so I am still not clear on exactly what it is that you are looking for. Here is what I do on my Mac....which does not have an SSD....if I want to use the Finder to see files in the Time Machine backups on the Time Capsule.


Open any Finder window and look on the left panel of the window for the Shared heading

Click on the Time Capsule icon there

That will open another window that displays the Time Capsule hard drive....which is named Data unless you have changed the name

Double click on Data. If you have not done this before, you will be asked for the Time Capsule device or disk password

When you double click on Data, that will open another window that displays the special sparsebundle file that holds all of your backups

Double click on the sparsebundle file and a disk icon normally named Time Machine Backups will appear on your desktop

Open Time Machine Backups and you will see a normal looking folder named Backups.backupdb

Open Backups.backupdab and you will see a folder with the name of your Mac

Open that folder and you will a list of all of the dates of your backups

Pick a date and open up the folder

Keep drilling down through folders to find what you need


Be very careful to not modify any file in any way, as a simple change can corrupt that backup. Since all backups are tied together through complex links, the corruption can spread very quickly, rendering your backups unusable.


The forum moderators have pulled the steps that you see above in the past, so if you don't see any steps, the moderators have done their thing.

Initial Setup of TC Fails

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