Q: Airport Time Capsule - Setting Up - Impossible

Start here and see if these offer you any help

Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

Update the software on your AirPort base station - Apple Support

Connect the Time Capsule the way you would like it to be connected when it's in use. In other words if you want your iMac to connect to it wirelessly, then don't connect its Ethernet cable to your iMac. If you were to do that, it will expect that cable to be connected when your iMac wants to connect to your network.

Then: start with a "hard reset" (read below), select "New AirPort Time Capsule" from your iMac's Wi-Fi menu, and proceed to configure it using AirPort Utility.

When you're finished configuring it, the Time Capsule will restart. After it restarts, select the network you specified in your iMac's Wi-Fi menu.

To "hard reset" an AirPort Base Station: make sure it's powered up, then gently press and hold its tiny reset button. Don't apply any more force than required to feel a tactile click. Keep it depressed for five to ten seconds, long enough for its LED to flash amber rapidly. Release the reset button. Then, the LED will glow amber steadily for about a minute. Then, it will flash amber, slowly, about once every second or two, waiting for you to configure it with AirPort Utility.

Diego LaCrete wrote:

 

 

The ATC, can be however used in two different places (home&office) with the same created network, doesn't it? I mean, if a create Diego's Network in the ATC, it can be used at home and at the office, an evrywhere I use the ATC?

I'm not sure if I understand the question. If you are asking if you can use the Time Capsule in one location, then transport it to another location with another modem with another ISP and have it create a network exactly as it did in the first location, it's not as simple as that.

You can, however, export each configuration file used to connect it to your office and your home. Then, when changing locations, import the configuration used for that location, and update the TC. Those options are found in AirPort Utility's File menu.

Yes, you could do that, but it sounds rather inconvenient to routinely transport a Time Capsule from one location to another.

Note that portable Macs back themselves up using "local snapshots" that are flushed to your Time Capsule when it becomes available: About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support. The salient point is that it's not necessary to have a portable Mac connected to a TC all the time, just often enough so that a Time Machine backup can be created once in a while.

Perhaps it would best if you were to leave the TC where the iMac usually resides (the office). When your MacBook Air connects to your office network, it will automatically back up to the TC.

The reason for that message is that the network name for the Time Capsule's backup was established for its location at home. Removing the Time Capsule from your home and connecting it to a different router results in an inability for Time Machine to find the backup.

If you want to use the Time Capsule in that manner, you will have to reset and reconfigure it each time you change locations. As I wrote you can "export" the applicable configuration file for each location, and subsequently "import" that file when changing locations. And, as I wrote, that seems terribly inconvenient. (The backups themselves are not erased when resetting a Time Capsule.)

Time Machine uses Keychain to store information regarding the identity of the backups it creates. The intent is to prevent someone with malicious intent from accessing a backup of a Mac that isn't theirs, and possibly creating a duplicate image of its contents. What you are describing is exactly what would occur if someone were to steal your Time Capsule, and attempt to restore one of your backups to their Mac.

The Time Machine backups fail because it is unable to find the previously established path to its backup destination on the Time Capsule.

No need to apologize, I'm glad to help, but it will be challenging to find a solution to the unusual Time Machine configuration you would like to use. I can only offer general suggestions that are likely to succeed.

My original recommendation was to first "connect the Time Capsule the way you would like it to be connected when it's in use" followed by the "hard reset" and then configuring it with AirPort Utility. Please note that "connect" in this context refers to means by which the Time Capsule communicates with your office network. It does not necessarily imply a physical cable needs to be connected to it, however, that is the ideal configuration. I realize a wired connection may not be convenient or even possible in some circumstances, but if a wirelessly connected TC is near or beyond the limits of its network's wireless coverage area, TM backups will fail for the exact same reasons you are encountering.

Next: There are several basic Time Capsule configurations, but the only one likely to work in your office is to have it "add to" your existing office network. It can do that either with a wired Ethernet cable or wirelessly, but in either case you need to start with the "hard reset" so that it can determine which one to use. If a viable Ethernet LAN connection is available, AirPort Utility will select it by default because it is more reliable than any wireless connection.

Then, and only after AirPort Utility has finished configuring the TC in that established configuration, you can select it as a backup destination for Time Machine, and it should work reliably from then on. Any subsequent changes to that established configuration, including relocating the TC to your home or any other network, will require selecting the resulting new Time Machine destination so that it can continue to work. The backups themselves will remain available and intact, but having to re-select the backups each time you relocate the TC will be inconvenient at best — and remember you will need to start over with a reconfiguration (or re-load a previously saved configuration file) each time you do that.

... then changed to "create a new Network",

From that description, it seems as though you now have two networks at the office: one created by the office wireless router, and another created by the Time Capsule. Is that right? If so it's not ideal for a number of reasons: when you are connected to your office network's Wi-Fi, there will be no path to the TC, and TM backups won't work.

The only solution that is likely to work (a word about that later) will be to have your TC "add to" the existing office network. In that configuration, it will act as a client in the exact same way any other network device connects to it. And, in that configuration, you will need to set up Time Machine so your Mac can always has that same path to the TC.

Here is the caveat to that solution: According to Apple's documentation, Time Machine will back up to a Time Capsule "on your network" (boldface added). According to anecdotal reports that I have no way to confirm, Time Machine might be unreliable when a TC is configured as a client on a non-Apple network. A great deal of uncertainty arises when enterprise-grade routers are used, such as might be the case with your office network. They can be configured to prevent access to any equipment an office's network administrator might deem inappropriate. They can also change that configuration at any time, as often as they wish, for any reason, or for no reason at all.

Taking a number of similar Apple Support documents into account as a whole, one can infer the only solution guaranteed to work is an all-Apple network – defined as one created by an Apple AirPort Base Station (Extreme, Express, or Time Capsule). That does not strictly conclude you will not be able to implement the configuration you seek, it just means that you should seek the least complicated solution: configure the TC as a client to your office network. Assuming it works in that configuration, leave it that way.

Great! I'm glad you got it sorted out. You're now Mauritania's official Mac expert.

Thanks for posting that Discussion link... the problem was due to incorrectly set permissions. How that occurred is anyone's guess. Erasing the applicable Keychain entry should have fixed that, and we will never know the reason it didn't.

I realize how difficult it can be to troubleshoot problems such as this even if one is physically present. Attempting to remotely determine what's wrong on a site such as this can be a challenge.

The point is, strangely, until yesterday, every time I did that, the internet signal from the router (feeding other devices and the depending-router upstairs) dissapeared, and the ATC couldn't work ...

Not that it matters any more, but if I understand you correctly that might be normal. The temporary network created with a TC that has been "hard reset" disappears after you finish configuring the TC. You then have to reconnect to the network you want to use: either the one created by the TC, or (as in your case, I believe) your office's existing network that the TC has joined as a client.

That's what I meant by:

When you're finished configuring it, the Time Capsule will restart. After it restarts, select the network you specified in your iMac's Wi-Fi menu.

Now that you have established a working connection to the TC it should continue to work reliably. If that should change, TM will let you know, in which case please write back.