Macbook Air not able to locate Time Machine service on wired network

My adapter connected to a late 2012 Macbook Air seems to be working fine on my wired network in my home for everything except Time Machine.

I have a Mac Mini with OSX server running Time Machine back ups for multiple macs in my home. I have confirmed that other machines in my home network can find Time Machine when they connect to the wired network - these Macs all have standard ethernet connectors built in, so it seems the only difference between those macs and and my Mac Book Air is the Plugable adapter. I am able to back up to Time Machine from this same Mac Book Air without an issue over Wi Fi in my house so Time Machine is configured properly in the network and on the Mac Book Air.

Is there some special setting required to make the Plugable Adapter allow Time Machine traffic through?

Hi Dave-

Thanks for posting with your issue. I assume you have one of our USB-Ethernet adapters, the USB2-E100 or USB2-E1000?

We saw a similar issue recently, and found rebooting while wireless is disabled, with only the USB ethernet device connected to the Mac would typically get this up and running. There seem to be some issues with TimeMachine when the system has both wireless and a USB network adapter enabled.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have further questions. The simplest most reliable solution is the one I mentioned, however I can share some further details if you’re interested.

Best wishes-

Jeff Everett
MCITP Enterprise Support Technician
Plugable Technologies

Thanks Jeff - Yes the USB2-1000

The solution you proposed does not help. My MacBook is not able to find my Time Machine backup disk via the Plugable adapter, even after rebooting with WiFi turned off. I am sending this note through via the wired connection after a reboot so as mentioned, general network connectivity is ok - it seems that there is some compatibility issue specific to Time Machine and the Plugable adapter.

I hope you have some additional ideas because I can’t afford to keep using the adapter if Time Machine is somehow blocked. While I can perform backups over WiFi, it’s far from ideal in my home to rely on that because the signal isn’t strong where I am wired, and I also wanted wired connectivity to have high speed backups supported.