jamesyc/TimeCapsuleSMB v3.8.6

on GitHub

macOS GUI installer app (for macOS 14+)

• Download TimeCapsuleSMB.dmg below, open it, and drag TimeCapsuleSMB to Applications. If you have v3.8.0 or newer, the app offers this update itself
• You can use your old AFP backups, with native Apple metadata support on HFS
• With Homebrew, brew install --cask jamesyc/tap/timecapsulesmb installs the macOS app

Python CLI installer (for macOS 12+, Linux)

• brew install jamesyc/tap/tcapsule installs the tcapsule command, with no bootstrap step. On macOS 14 and older, Homebrew has no prebuilt Python 3.15, so it compiles Python first.

What's Changed

• Disks at startup
  • Fix a device that could come up with its disks unmounted, Samba stopped and AirPort Utility unable to reach it until it was unplugged. Since v3.8.5, TimeCapsuleSMB asks Apple's disk service (diskd) to stop when it starts. A request that arrived while diskd was still checking its disks at boot could leave it and Apple's ACPd waiting on each other forever
  • The request now waits until diskd has been idle for more than 2 seconds and no ACP request is waiting on it. Checkup says "File sharing is still starting" while it waits, and "The disk service needs a restart" if diskd has not gone idle after ten minutes
  • When Checkup finds Apple's ACPd broken, it no longer also reports the disk service. Unplugging the device, the fix for ACPd, restarts the disk service too
• Devices on Wi-Fi
  • A Time Capsule that joins or extends another Wi-Fi network, without an Ethernet cable to your router, can slow to a few KB/s for hours. Checkup now says when the device reaches its network over Wi-Fi
  • When an install, Checkup or another task times out on such a device, the app says the Wi-Fi link may be the cause. Its steps: restart the device so it joins the network again, connect this Mac by cable to one of the device's LAN ports, or try again later. For a lasting fix, connect the device to your router with an Ethernet cable and change its wireless mode in AirPort Utility
  • Longer time limits for slow links. SSH logins get 60 more seconds, since Apple's SSH server looks each Mac up in DNS when it logs in, 15 seconds or more when the DNS server never answers. A connection is dropped after 180 seconds without an answer during an upload, up from 90. An upload gets enough time to finish at 12 KB/s, down from 16 KB/s
• Error messages
  • Timeouts while copying the files, during the test write and during the metadata migration no longer blame the disk first. They say that a slow connection or a slow disk can cause them, and suggest Ethernet before Disk Repair
  • "Device is responding very slowly" is now "Device did not answer in time". If the device still does not answer after a restart, it says to check the connection, such as Wi-Fi or a VPN
  • A disk that stopped responding "may be failing", where the app used to say "probably failing"
  • When neither this Mac nor the device itself (through SSH) gets an answer from Apple's ACPd, the app no longer reports ACPd as broken. It says the connection may be too slow, the device may have too many files open (several Macs connected at once can cause this), or ACPd may have stopped answering the network. It suggests trying over Ethernet before unplugging the device
  • Before a restart, the app now tries twice to read the device's uptime over AirPort ACP. If neither read answers, it says the restart was not requested and the work before it is finished, and to restart the device in AirPort Utility or unplug it, then run Checkup. It used to report the device as unreachable
  • When the device does not answer the service checks after a restart, the app says it is not known whether file sharing started, and to run Checkup in a few minutes
  • When Add Device finds that SSH did not answer, it tries once more before turning SSH on. A device with SSH off refuses the connection at once, so the confirmation now says SSH may already be on and the restart then changes nothing
  • Wipe Internal Disk says the disk is failing only when a write or a read failed, or the disk did not keep the zeros. These now each get their own message, with steps to try again: the wipe did not finish in time, the connection was lost during it, reading the disk back did not finish, the device did not list its disks before the wipe (nothing was changed), or the new volume could not be confirmed after the restart
• Advanced
  • If /mnt/Flash/rc.user exists and is executable, the device runs it in the background at startup, for your own additions. TimeCapsuleSMB never installs, changes or removes it, so the file stays through Install / Update Samba and Uninstall (after Uninstall, nothing runs it) (#420)

Full Changelog: v3.8.5...v3.8.6