I am running YOSEMITE on a MBPro and have found some "odd behaviour" with Time Capsule/Time Machine.

I have no trouble connecting to the Airport Disk for the wireless internet connection.

However, sometimes when I want to do a manual backup (i.e. I have not set Time Machine for automatic/hourly backups), I receive a message that Time Machine "is busy and cannot connect" AND "try again later." Other times, I have no issue with making the backup as usual on Airport Disk/Time Capsule . . . although there may be a bit more of a wait at the "preparing for backup" stage before the backup begins.

Also: I have been able to ENTER Time Machine and view all the backup folders there - oldest to latest. However, sometimes, upon entering, the display page, mouse and keyboard will freeze and I cannot page through the folders or files. The only option then is to press the power button on the MBPro and reboot.

Any ideas as to what may be going on with the Airport Disk/Time Capsule/Time Machine?

Thanks a bunch.

I have a couple of old Time Capsules with flakey routers I use as network drives as well as a recent model Time Capsule. Sometimes, when attempting to access one or another of them via Finder after they have not been accessed in a while I cannot connect. When that happens opening the Airport Utility will show the drive but the green connection indicator light is off and can take a very long time responding to Airport Utility. That almost never happens with the drives actively being used for Time Machine, but I let Time Machine run on its regular schedule and have multiple computers backing up to each of them. My assumption and it is just an assumption, is the drives go to sleep and either do not wake on network access or wake too slowly so that the connection times out.

If my assumption is correct the only "fix" I can suggest would be a cron job that periodically probed or accessed the drive often enough to keep it alert, but so far it has not been aggravating enough for me to either find such a tool much less write one.

Just a reminder, and we've heard it for awhile now, cron is going away at some point in the future. It got depreciated in 10.5 I think. I'm surprised apple still supports it. Launchd is the way to go now. At first I clung to cron, but when 10.5 dropped auto emailing of output, I looked more seriously at launchd. I'm getting proficient with it now. It's more complicated to use, but offers numerous nice features. A LaunchD Tutorial

Thanks for that input and link. Its good to have you back.

I just read the subject as you-seh-MITE heh. it's Friday, I need to go home...

Thanks, Guys:

1. On a whim, I decided to trash the TIME MACHINE "PLIST" from the Preferences Folders in both the OSX Library and my User Library.

2. Re-started the computer.

3. Clicked on Menu Bar icon to do a manual backup.

4. Selected AIRPORT DISK for the backup (i.e. the same procedures used when setting up Time Machine for the first time in October).

5. When b/u done - 40 MB which took less than 2 minutes, so I knew it was not a full b/u - I entered Time Machine . . . and all files and folders from previous b/ups were there (and accessible).

Ditching the PLIST seems to have resolved the matter. Time will tell if the problem rears its ugly head again.