Hi Everyone,
I just setup my new Time Capsule and am having a problem with keeping a stable connection. I am within a close distance of the time capsule, but every so often it will drop the connection and within a few seconds it will return. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but I work from home and it has become a problem during conference calls. Any suggestions? I am using a macbook pro, and it is up to date.
Airport Time Capsule 802.11ac
If you are close to the TC plug into it with ethernet.. if your Mac doesn't have ethernet port, buy the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter which is cheap.
There are issues with wireless that are hard to track down.. but I am not sure how you are doing these conference calls.
If you use iphone or ipad do they also experience the wireless dropout??
This is important to track down where the problem lies, with the Mac itself or the TC.
If all your client devices experience these dropouts go through the TC setup and change all the auto settings to manual. This is the basic guide I did for using TC with later Mac OS.
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
Use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels for the two wireless bands.
Try channel 11 or 9 for 2.4ghz and a low channel eg 36 or 40 for 5ghz then say 149, although the actual channel available will depend on your location.
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.
Tell us if you need help with this.
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. (This is a bit different now in El Capo)
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.
You might need to do some more work on the computer itself. eg Reset the NVRAM/PRAM/SMC.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.
Tell us how you go.
Dropping connection
