Saturday, October 11, 2025

Why does my 2013 MacBook Air used as server retains disconnecting from the community and my Time Machine backups preserve failing?

I exploit a 2013 MacBook Air (i7, Large Sur) as a Plex and Time Machine Server. It is hardwired. I’ve disabled sleep. Nonetheless, Time Machine backups preserve failing and I actually do not know what to do anymore:

My predominant Mac (M2, Tahoe) retains dropping connection to it. It disappears from the sidebar at random instances of the day and it would not come again by itself. If I attempt to manually provoke a backup I get a message in regards to the server being unavailable. When this occurs, the server generally tells me that it is acquired a self-assigned IP and it reveals offline in my router’s GUI. Unplugging and replugging the cable often fixes it. See right here:

Why does my 2013 MacBook Air used as server retains disconnecting from the community and my Time Machine backups preserve failing?

Nonetheless, another instances, the connection on the server stays regular and, in these circumstances, a restart of my predominant M2 MacBook additionally fixes the issue. This does not make any sense in my head.

It is price noting that I had an older (i5) MacBook Air with OCLP-enabled Ventura that I utilized in the identical method. It appears to work then. Additionally, counterintuitively, when I attempt to set the newer one as much as join over WiFi fairly than Ethernet, the issue appears to virtually disapper.

Issues I’ve tried to date:

  • Restarting the router.
  • Flushing the cache and restarting mdnsresponder.
  • Cleansing the Thunderbolt port.
  • Altering the ethernet cable.
  • Preserving the lid open on the server.
  • Formatting the drive and rebuilding Time Machine from zero.

I am nearly out of concepts!

I’m contemplating exploring whether or not to make use of OCLP on the i7 MacBook Air to put in Ventura and see if that fixes the issue however I would fairly see if anybody else can level me to a repair first in order that I haven’t got to put in patches on a Mac that, for all intents and functions, will solely ever be used as a file server.

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