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Carbonite for Mac Showing Account is Disabled Following Update to Sequoia
Summary:
Following update to Sequoia the Carbonite Backup is showing "Account is Disabled" in red letters in the upper-right corner of the interface. This can occur again following additional security updates or even when changing to a different Wi-Fi network. This issue also applies to Mac 1x, presenting with a "Backup Configuration Error".
This article applies to:
| Carbonite Plans | Products | Platforms | Version |
| Basic, Plus, Prime, Core, Power, and Ultimate (Not sure?) | Safe and Safe Pro (Not sure?) | Mac | Mac 1x, Mac 2x (Not sure?) |
Cause:
This behavior is due to a new feature in Sequoia called "Private Wi-Fi Address" and the fact that previous versions of Carbonite used the MAC (Media Access Control) Address of the Airport card as a unique identifier for a computer. The Private Wi-Fi Address feature hides the physical MAC Address and supplies a virtual one instead. This change made it appear as though Carbonite was improperly moved to another device and forced the backup to become disabled as a means to protect data.
This feature supplies a different Virtual MAC Address for each wireless network that the device connects with. As such, changing wireless networks between home, work, school, or travel would cause the backup to become disabled again.
Solution:
On January 29th, a new version of the 2.x branch of Carbonite was released, and it is no longer impacted by the Private Wi-Fi Address feature. If you are still on the 2.8.4 version when looking at the Account tab of the Carbonite application, then you need to update to the newest build to address the issue.
The 1.x branch of Carbonite for Mac (System Preference/Setting version) does not support Sequoia and is still impacted by the Private Wi-Fi Address feature in Sequoia. At the moment the only permanent solution is to turn the Private Wi-Fi Address setting to "Off" for each wireless network you regularly use followed by uninstalling and reinstalling Carbonite.
The "Fixed" setting can allow the backup to continue following uninstall and reinstall, but only on a single wireless network. In addition the MAC Address appears to still change the reboot after security updates like the 15.0.1 update that was released Thursday, October 3rd, 2024.
The Apple support article linked below details how to change/disable this feature.
Use Private Wi-Fi Addresses on Apple Devices
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