Time Capsule Newbie

[theARNSKI]

By the kindness of my coworker's heart, she got me an early Christmas present in the form of a 2TB Time Capsule. Believe me, I was like this 😱 the whole day yesterday.

Anyways, initial set-up was a breeze. I set the TC up to be just my external drive, since we already had a 802.11n router. So with that, I set up my Time Machine and it went easily. Then I hit the initial backup, mind you, it was wirelessly. So with how slow it was, I decided to search on here for how to do it using an ethernet cable and I came across this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8474046#post8474046
and on there post #6, proved to be the most helpful. Set it up and blammo, my initial backup via ethernet went fast.

Then came the trouble. I wanted to set it back up to wireless. I followed the poster's instructions and followed them, with the ethernet cable still attached as advised. But then now, I'm getting the message that "The settings for your Airport device have been updated successfully, but there was a problem re-joining the wireless network or finding the Airport wireless device." And then Airport Utility can't find it, so I'll reset the TC to factory settings and AU will find my TC, but I'll get the same message.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[dangerfish]

Well, it sounds like you were not on the same network as the time capsule. You said that you were using your other N router for wireless, which means you did not have a wireless connection to the time capsule. If you are going to wirelessly back up to the time capsule, I think you need to use it for your wireless network.

 

[skorpien]

What you need to do is set up your Time Capsule in bridge mode. First, if you haven't fully reset your TC, do so by holding down the reset button for ~30 seconds. Then connect your TC via Ethernet and set it up. Turn connection sharing off and set up your wireless any way you choose (or turn it off completely). Then save the settings and restart the TC and connect it to one of your current router's LAN ports. Now if you join any of the wireless networks (remember, with the dual band TC you can have two), you'll be able to access the TC's HDD for Time Machine backups. You can also hard wire to either router and be able to do the same.

Setting your TC in bridge mode makes your current router the DHCP host and places both on the same subnet, essentially making one giant network with multiple SSIDs.