ggfromcp wrote:
Sadly I don’t have unlimited funds, so need to try and get this working again.
Unlimited funds are not necessary, nor would it help. If you want to use Time Machine and expect it to work, adherence to requirements is necessary.
A 1 TB Time Machine backup disk can be purchased for about $50, an amount that cannot reasonably be characterized as "unlimited funds". You can purchase one with twice that capacity for not much more. Connect it to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, to your AirPort Time Capsule, or directly to your Mac. They will work. You will never need to "try to get it working". They will just work, unobtrusively and reliability, the same way all of mine have been working for years and for many macOS versions.
During that time Apple has never supported a "My Book Live" or any other non-Apple NAS. The only hint of support is this excerpt from Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support:
"Note: Some SMB and AFP disks from manufacturers other than Apple don’t support Time Machine. If your network uses an SMB or AFP disk, but the disk doesn’t appear in the list of devices available for Time Machine backups, contact the disk’s manufacturer."
However, it does state the requirement for the disk to use one of a number of specific formats. Is your "MyBook Live" formatted in accordance with it? If not it won't work. Contact the disk's manufacturer.
What about AFP? Does your non-Apple NAS use it? Since AFP is a proprietary Apple protocol that they license to exactly no one, I doubt it. In fact I know they don't: they use an open-source, poorly implemented and perennially buggy imitation of it that tends to break with practically every macOS upgrade or update.
Despite those facts, that has not stopped people from "trying" to get non-Apple NAS devices to work with Apple's Time Machine for years. If you want to continue "trying" then do what Apple says: contact the disk's manufacturer. I'll save you the effort: they are 100% certain to blame Apple, your network, its devices, your Mac, you, the phase of the moon or Russian intervention for the problem... anyone and everyone but themselves, for having irresponsibly made a compatibility claim that cannot be defended by any one of Apple's many technical publications. If you insist, the best they will offer is to refund your purchase price. That's what Synology (another popular NAS device manufacturer) did for me, when I proved beyond all doubt that their device could not be relied upon for Time Machine backups.
At your option, you can contact Apple. They will cheerfully offer to help, at a cost not to exceed the $695 they charge for network configuration or cross-platform integration support. Even that amount is far from "unlimited" but in the end, they will tell you everything I already did, for $0. Oh and by the way I did that too, and that was the result: "It won't work. Get a Time Capsule." Do that and your troubles are over.
This site is littered with reports from hapless individuals "trying" to hammer Time Machine into working with unsupported devices and for purposes Apple never intended for about a decade now, resulting in an overwhelming number of failures reported on this site. If you want to use Time Machine, use it correctly, or don't use it at all. Your choice.
