There has been an update to this post (Upgrade Stopped Time Machine Pt 2 – Fixed!) so please make sure you click here to see the fix…

As most of you Mac users know, Apple released Leopard 10.5.3 yesterday. I was a bit hesitant to immediately upgrade because I had read a while back that this upgrade might stop Time Machine backing up wirelessly to a USB HD connected to an Airport Extreme Base Station (aka screw the thousands of us who don’t want to shell out $500 for a Time Capsule).

So I did what I thought was smart. I waited a while, began reading comments from Engadget and TUAW and I even posted a comment asking if the upgrade kills the Time Machine wireless backups. A few said “No.”

I upgraded.

Low and behold, after six hours of major frustration, I no longer can use my Time Machine to backup wirelessly via my hard drive that’s connected to my AEBS. This sucks. And I also lost 4 months of backups because I was advised by a forum reader to delete my sparse file because it must be corrupt, which then would allow Time Machine to work again. Nope, it didn’t.

So this is the first time, in 6 months (I switched to a Mac in January), that I can honestly say I’m pretty pissed off at Apple. I already have an 802.11n wireless router so I have NO NEED for Time Capsule. It’s just ridiculous.

For those who are experiencing the same problem, I’m getting the following error:

So, are any of you getting this error? If any of you CAN use Time Machine wirelessly via a USB Hard drive, please leave a comment and let me know!!!