Q: Time Machine issue with Server 5.0.15 and OS X 10.10.5

What are your symtoms @cdhw? We can do manual backups (so I suspect that our issue is not with permissions) but TM won't fire automatically since we have upgraded. We are now OS X 10.11.1 and Server 5.0.15 (build 15S4033)

various servers running OS X 10.10.5 and each backed up to its neighbour by Time Machine

Why would you ever want to do that? a failure in either of two machines then takes out your backup. How is this superior to having local backup drives?

I am unable to use Time Machine with Mac OS X 10.11.3 and Server 5.0.15. I have a Western Digital USB3 drive connected to my Mac mini server, and it had been functioning just fine as the TM backup device, until 1/7/2016 that is. Time Machine reports the following error: "The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features."

The diagnostic you are getting is one for an inadequate Network-Attached Server (NAS) as a Backup destination.

A directly-attached WD USB-3 drive should show up as a locally attached Drive, not a Network-anything.

It sound like more hardware or software is in this chain that you have let on, or your drive is VERY confused. Did you install some magical WD package?

Grant, I agree with you that the drive should be seen as locally attached and not as a NAS drive. I am not aware of ever installing any WD software on the drive, but I will look at that. Thanks for reaffirming my position that the drive should work as connected to the Mac mini server.

Grant, would you suggest just wiping the drive, reformatting and configuring it as the Time Machine backup device, or is that too extreme at this point?

Was the drive sold as an NAS? If so, the NAS functions may be in firmware in the device, not on the drive itself, and Erasing the drive may not solve the problem.

Perhaps there is a way to turn it into just a directly-connected drive that the manufacturer or the Vendor can tell you about.

I just worry that you are "working without a net" until you get your first Backup onto it as a directly-connected drive.

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As an aside, did you know that if you give Time Machine an Additional drive, it automatically alternates every-other drive on every-other Backup, while keeping the two independent?

A couple years ago my WD drive used as a Time Machine backup device failed and WD sent me a USB3 drive as a replacement. It was a vanilla USB3 drive (My Book Studio). I replaced my Mac mini with a newer one that had a USB3 port, and the replacement USB3 drive functioned fine as a TM backup device until January 7, 2016, the date of my last successful backup.

Last week I did upgrade the firmware on the USB3 drive but that didn't solve the problem with TM backups. I'm pretty certain the USB3 is NOT a NAS drive.

Today I removed the drive as my TM backup device (in the Time Machine System Preference window) and then added it again. Then TM started the long process of "Preparing backup" but it reported no other backups existed, so it lost track of 6 months of backup history. I halted the backup at that point.

The good news is that time machine didn't abort with the error message I reported in my original post on this thread.

Before I proceed with backups again, maybe you have some suggestion how I can get TM to recognize the previous TM backups. I wonder if I can use Terminal to access the TM backup folders to "straighten things out". (Maybe something got corrupted.) If that's not possible I guess I can just accept the loss of the previous TM backups, and start anew with a full TM backup.

Time Machine backups need to be rock-solid reliable. I would never trust the backup "lost track of", even after being "fixed up", would still be adequate in case of a Big Failure.

My inclination would be to call the old ones "corrupted" and "lost" and move on. But it's your system.

Do you know about the late James Pond's wonderful site?

http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

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Thanks for the help and the link.

I'm happy to report that Time Machine is now working. I lost no previous TM backups. Everything is there!

I followed the instructions from the pondini,org site for resetting Time Machine (basically deleting the TM Preferences). (I also deleted a lock file -- same name with a .lck extension -- but that may not have been necessary.)  And then TM was able to do its thing.

Thanks again, Grant!

Excellent!

Glad you got it working properly again -- and with no loss of data -- that is even better!