Why is my TC not available in finder anymore

Did you try a simple reboot of the TC?

What about a restart of the whole network.. do it in correct order.. shut everything off.. not standby.. OFF!!

Start the modem.. wait 2min

Start the TC.. wait 2min

Start the computer.. does the TC disk now appear??

No luck what OS are you running??

Did you do something silly like upgrade the OS.. and then expect it to work??

I've got the same problem, instead of a blue file icon my file just appear as a blank page with the top right corner folded. I've shut everything down as advised but still no luck and I haven't updated the OS lately. It runs on OS X Yosemite. I have also reset the airport will no success.

Something has forgotten where the TC files are located.. your long name for the TC isn't helping.

Let me suggest.. strongly recommend actually you do the following.

Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.

Factory reset universal

Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.

N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.

Setup the TC again.

Then redo the setup from the computer with Mavericks--Yosemite--ElCapo. (MYELCAP)

1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.

eg TCgen5 for basestation and TCwifi wireless name.

If the issue is wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round. ie plan on a first and second round of changes to fix this.. hopefully.. I will point out other steps that can be round2.

2. Use all passwords that also comply with 1. but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.

3. If the TC is main router you can skip this point. This is only an issue when the TC is bridged.

Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when MYELCAP cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking.

4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.

5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.

In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,

Type in SMB://192.168.0.254 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).

You can use name.. SMB://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.

However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.

6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only. Do the same for ethernet if you use it.

There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.

Having done this you will need to reconnect the computer to the Time Machine backups..

So just go into the TM setup and select the TC as the location.. with its new name.

TM will say it is going to do a new backup but when it starts will discover the existing backup and continue.

No luck give us more info on the whole network layout.

Hi LaPastenague

Thanks for the help last week but I’m still unable to access time capsule, the problem is that I’ve been improperly using TC exclusively as an external hard drive for large files, Iphoto and Itunes. I may have incorrectly deleted an old sparsebundle. The TC is a 2T with 655 GB free which was the size of the old sparsebundle.

The disk permissions seem to be the problem, if I go to disk info the main user is unknown, if I try and change permissions error 36 appears, also error 50 comes when I attempt to delete new sparsebundle.

I am a novice and have attempted to muddle through your last instructions.

Thanks

Stop immediately using the TC.. Do not allow Time Machine to backup to it.. although you state it has not been used for TM.

When you copied your files to the TC, did you create that folder FILES directly under the main Data partition??

The sparsebundle you deleted .. are you sure that didn't contain your FILES..??

If you are sure the files were all directly copied to the TC disk, then open the airport utility.. you will need a USB hard disk Mac formatted at least as big as all the files left on the TC.. (just buy a 2 or 3 or even 4 TB one.. USB 3 of course) And plug it into USB on the TC.. and archive the TC.

The archive will proceed without any need for the computer to be on or even connected.

Once it is finished plug the USB drive into the computer and see what copied across.. it will be all the files on TC but you can now use disk utility to repair permissions etc.

IF that doesn't work then your files were actually inside the sparsebundle you deleted.

You have very little choice now..

I recommend you pull the hard disk out of the TC. Get a USB holder for it, plug it into the computer and see what you can find in the Data partition.

If your files are gone, you deleted them.. then buy an undelete software like diskwarrior or data rescue. They are expensive.. but they have you over a barrel. and nought you can do but suffer the consequences if you have no backups.

You can also send the disk to a data recovery centre and hope for the best.. and part with the better portion of $1000.

Now the rap over the knuckles..

If you had important files on the TC but didn't back them up.. it is the reason we tell people NOT to use the TC this way.. then you have been foolish and you will learn a hard lesson. The irony is using a backup device for exactly the wrong usage.. and it has no backup or ability to backup nor can Time Machine backup network drives.

Hi

I did create folder FILES directly under main Data Partition.

The sparesbundle I deleted did not contain my FILES as it was deleted two months ago and everything was working fine, I was able to access all my FILES the space they take up still shows up in AirPort Utility.

I will take your advice and get a USB hard disk and archive my files on TC.

In the FILES info window I was trying to Choose new owner but any name I enter comes up "isn't valid" do you have any suggestions?, is there a specific name. My user name on other files isn't working martinmcdonald (ME), and there is no small padlock at the bottom of the window? Or has it all gone to far and the things frozen me out.

In the FILES info window I was trying to Choose new owner but any name I enter comes up "isn't valid" do you have any suggestions?,

The folder on the TC is not owned by your computer at all.. it is actually owned by the TC.. something has happened and the share has broken down.. or something else extremely odd.

Anyway the whole point of copying the files to the USB via archive is to get them into a disk where you can then plug it into the local computer and change permissions.

Here is a screenshot of the same thing on my TC.

My permissions are identical to yours.. and no padlock.. because this computer does not own that folder.

And yet there is something strange happening where folders created by one computer cannot be accessed by another.. and yet show the same permissions.. strange eh??

Something happened.. could you have opened that folder from another computer ?? It has then somehow locked the folder so you cannot access it. Could that other computer still be on and the Folder mounted.. or did it drop access without dismounting the folder.. The Get Info does not show it locked..so it is hard to know.. what you are experiencing is happening a lot more as Apple has been tightening permissions.

I believe you can do it from Terminal commands.. Very great care needs to be taken whenever you approach Terminal due to ability to kill your files permanently.. so I would prefer to see you archive them first.

If you want to try.. use rsync but use the full admin.. so put a sudo in front of the command.

see http://www.cnet.com/au/news/using-the-os-x-terminal-instead-of-the-finder-to-cop y-files/

rsync -av /path/to/source/* /path/to/destination/

This works for me.. I can copy the files from the TC to my computer no problems.

rsync -av /Volumes/Data/bitsandpieces/* /Users/Ray/Downloads/bits

building file list ... done

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WebDriver-346.02.03f02.pkg

vlc-2.2.1.dmg

iPhoto.app/

iPhoto.app/Contents/

iPhoto.app/Contents/Info.plist

A zillion files in here.

sent 2838753420 bytes received 440746 bytes 5650137.64 bytes/sec

total size is 2836984065 speedup is 1.00

I did not use sudo as I have no permissions issues so try without first perhaps then try with.

Good luck.

There are a lot more switches in the rsync command.. I don't know them all.