Whilst your post raises some interesting points - many of your issues are my issues too, plus lots and lots of other users, how do you explain away the fact that the vast majority of us must be using lots of different brand routers? I have tried three as I said in my previous post, one of which is a Thomson. I think it more likely it is the way MBL is configured in the firmware which is the cause of our issues.
I suspect that the problem has something to do with the router because I know somebody who has a Mac and a MBL, and (once he installed the latest firmware) Time Machine works perfectly for him. It’s at least worth asking the ISP about the router, surely.
It’s not just Time Machine anyway. The MBL installation wizard can’t discover the device; WD Quickview can’t find it either; Bonjour doesn’t see it; the finder loses it and recovers it as something else. All this gets reset if I reboot the router, although it stops working again fairly soon.
I just tried rebooting the MBL (by turning the power off and on again) but left the router running. Once it restarted, the device appeared again under “shared” in the finder, with the Mac server icon but with no capitals in the name and the backup doesn’t appear. Bonnjour, Quickview, and TM still can’t see it. The public share remounts when I click on it in the Finder.
The Finder icon changed a moment ago, while I was typing this post and not doing anything else, back to the PC-type icon.
Well we will see. I’m currently using the Thomson router but to be honest the behavior is still the same, though I have just tried a TM backup to the MBL and it didn’t hang this time. However, as you say one swallow doth not a summer make, as it can run fine today yet tomorrow it’s all flaky again. On thing I would advise and that’s get rid of the QuickView software. It’s not really designed for the Mac and I found it kept freezing or disappearing. You don’t need it in any event.
Early days yet, however, the MBL seems better suited to my Sky Netgear router than the Belkin - it has successfully backed up TM to the MBL without issue and it is entering sleep more readily. Still I have been here before following simple router reset so it’s early days yet. Could well be back to square one by tomorrow.
I have a reply from TalkTalk which says (more or less) that if I’m connected to the internet that’s the end of their direct responsibility. However, they have a team of engineers (“Bright Sparks”) who can make home visits to help connect other devices. The example list of devices doesn’t include NAS, but there’s a free phone number I can call to find out if they can help with stuff that’s not on the list. A home visit costs £50 including VAT (tax).
I’ll keep that in mind. Meanwhile, another friend says that he has an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router that he’s not using, and I can have it if I like. I think I’ll try that first.
FWIW I did a little test yesterday to make sure I wasn’t wasting my time making backups. If I reboot the router while connected via cable, I can enter Time Machine to access the restore functions.
Accessing your backups is one thing but the acid test is do they work? I test mine regularly both for my iMac and Acronis backups for my W7 system. No point waiting till you have a disaster then finding out your backups don’t work. Have you installed the new firmware released today? Fixes some TM issues.
Hmm. I opened the dashboard by sequencing through the IP addresses my router had assisned, and saw an information message that there’s a new version of the firmware. The auto-button said my firmware was up to date, but I’ve seen that before. The WD site says that the latest firmware still has the same release number, but I’ve seen that before too. So I’m downloading it again. The Mac has assigned a (1) to the name of the download, because it has the same name. What the **bleep**, I’ll install it. More shortly…
OK, so I downloaded what purported to be the latest firmware version apnc-021109-053-20120413.deb from the WD site, though the “20120413” bit makes me suspicious, and installed it. No obvious change. The Public share has remounted. Bonjour can’t see it; TM can’t see it. Perhaps it wasn’t the new version.
I’ve set the option to update automatically, and also to send me email alerts.
I think you have used the last update again. Take a look at this http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-Live/New-firmware-detected-02-11-12-006/td-p/426172
So what news from the front Jim? How have you been fairing with the wireless backups?
No progress. I’ve tried downloading the firmware again but still only get the 20120413 version. I’m also waiting for my friend to find the Airport Extreme that he said he’d lend me. I have family visiting this weekend, so won’t have endless time to muck about with the thing.
The firmware has been withdrawn for the time being due to unspecified issues, which is why you can’t download it. It downloaded without issue for me, however, if you check THIS out, you will see you may not be missing much.
I checked that thread and no, I don’t seem to be missing much.
My friend found the Airport router; it turned out he was using it.
We are now trying to get a different router from TalkTalk, but I don’t expect a quick response.
The new router, a D-Link DSL-2780, arrived today from TalkTalk, and I’ve set it up (just by plugging in cables; no configuration).
Everything seems to be working exactly as it should do. Bonjour can see the MBL over Ethernet and wirelessly. The iMac has backed up successfully over Ethernet and the MacBookPro over wireless, without having to reboot anything. iTunes can see my Airport Express for Airplay via the router (I switched off AirPort on the iMac to check that). The next thing will be to see if it all keeps on working over an extended period.
What you really need to do if you are going to carry on backing up wirelessly though is bite the bullet and initiate a full restore. No good employing the “ignorance is bliss” strategy until something does go wrong only to find your backups don’t work. I would however make sure you have a second Ethernet backup on an external USB drive just in case.
Wirelessly or otherwise, I’d say.
Files that I update regularly are on dropbox (and I’ve excluded that folder from the TM backup list, for obvious reasons). Just about everything else is written and kept. I have restored a file from TM to the desktop successfully, and that’s good enough for me at the moment.
Everything is still working as it should; nothing has dropped out or failed. Time Machine seems to be working just the same as it used to before the demise of my Time Capsule. I use those words with care: TM has its little quirks, but the MBL isn’t making them worse.
Following your success yesterday I decided to switch on the wifi for my iMac (never used it before) and attempt a wireless backup to my MBL. I will say at the outset that this was an existing TimeMachine Ethernet backup file. The backup went without incident though it did hang for a while about 1mb short of completion. Having said that I find TM backups via Ethernet to MBL somewhat erratic too. They often start off slow, hang, then race forward only to hang again at the end. This never happens with TM to an external USB drive. Is this something you find too?
There should be no difference in the backup from using cable vs. wireless except speed. If I know that I have a lot to backup from the MacBook, I’ll take it into the other room and plug in the ethernet. To be sure that you did connect via wireless, you would have to unplug the ethernet cable, because the Mac knows that’s a faster connection and will select it for preference, given the option.
I’ve never tried backing up with TM to a directly connected USB drive – only to NAS such as the Time Capsule and now the MBL. I’m not surprised that a direct connection is more stable than NAS though; there’s no software interface looking for competing demands on the drive. iMovie, for example, can run using external storage, but it must be a direct USB connection; it won’t work with NAS even if you mount the share on the desktop. Nor does it work to edit movies stored on the other computer’s hard drive, attached via the LAN. I guess that’s because of latency issues on LAN-attached storage that don’t exist with a dedicated drive.
Hello Jim, first thing I did was unplug the Ethernet cable, though you can set priority in Network Settings if you wish. I find I have the same stop start hang issues with TM to MBL whether Ethernet or wireless. I just wondered if you experience the same "stagger? You want to try a TM to USB external backup. It’s like comparing high speed rail travel to local branch line, the high speed being USB. That’s why I have gone back to USB for TM, they’re quick, very very smooth and faultless. Whenever I back up to MBL it never inspires one with confidence. Yes TM gets there but the journey can be fraught.
Strange thing: the LED on the front of the MBL is flashing blue. That’s not a signal that’s mentioned in the manual. It seems to be working as far as access etc. is concerned.
