10.5.6 Update Breaks Time Machine backup of FileVault home folders?

Time machine used to backup FileVault home folders when I logged out. After 10.5.6, it just logs out and does not do the backup.
Anyone else?
s

This is a copy of a post that I have here somewhere...
"Personally I think apple is up to something...."
My set up was almost since Leopard was out.. Airport Extreme, USB drive connected to it.. 3 profiles on a macbook mid 07, 4 g's ram.. TM would back up will I was logged in every hour or so.. and whenever I logged out it would back up my home folder since I had file vault enabled.. never had a mayor problem.. updated to 10.5.6 about a day after it was out.. TM still backed up while I was logged in but it stopped backing up my home folder that had file vault enabled.. I decided to try a clean back up with another USB drive that I had used for the same purpose and it would not even recognize the format of the drive.. Any ways.. today I got a brand new 500 g's time capsule.. guess what... same thing.. it wont back up my home folder.. I've been with support on the phone since the beginning of the problem spoke to 4 different people 2 different levels, finally one level higher (3rd) the guy told me he couldn't help me because the set up i had was not supported by apple.. today I got to that 3rd level and the guy had no idea.. he even or actually most of them sounded surprise when i told them that i was expecting TM to back up when i was logged off.. .. well he is supposedly going to fwd my issue to their engineers and he or some one else would call me back in around a week becuase of the holly days..
SSooooo , I would say, lets not hold our breath..
"They would have to be r*e*t*a*r*d*e*d to forget something like this"

Similar Messages

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

It must have found the old backup corrupt.. so you will more than likely have little choice. You can archive off the old backup if it is still useful.
You can also verify it. See A5 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
He also has some info on this problem. eg C13.

Backup management: how to update a Time Machine backup on a different Mac?

Hello everyone,
I need some advice. I have a question, which I think is simple, but my situation is a bit complicated, so I am not sure about what to do.
I will try to describe it as simply as possible.
There are 3 macs:
A: an old macbook (the white one)
B: a modern macbook pro (retina)
C: another modern macbook pro (TBD)
I am giving away B now; I expect to get C in 2 months time; I keep A with me all the time.
The goal is to migrate all of the data from B to C.
I have Time Machine backups of B.
Since the transition is a long time (2 months), I need to keep working on my data during this period. For this I will use A. This will generate new files, modify old ones, ...
Since A's HDD is much smaller than B's backup, I can move only part of them.
By the way, I have totally erased A and used migration assistant to restore part of my old data from B. So, when I use A now, I do it with my same account as in B (and the same I will use in C).
How do I manage my backups in such a way that, when I will get C, I can safely move all of the data I had in B plus all of the changes and modifications that I have done during the 2 month transition?
Can I just continue to use Time Machine (on A) to update the old backups? I am afraid that some mess could be created because the computers are different (before the backups were taken on B, while now on A), even the present data are different (because now A only contains a subset of the original B data, which I do NOT want to lose), the good point is that the user is the same.
Thanks for the patience to read through. If something is not clear I will be happy to explain better.

When you get MBP C and start it up for the first time you will be given the option to transfer data or not. You can transfer data from another Mac or from a backup such as Time Machine. The former requires that you be able to connect the two computers directly together either by Ethernet cable or by having both connected to a local Ethernet network. You can use wireless, but it's very slow compared to Ethernet, so I don't recommend wireless.
If you expect to perform the transfer from a Time Machine backup, then be sure to perform a backup of MBP B just before using it to transfer data to the new MBP C.
This same process can be used from MB A provided it is running Snow Leopard or later.
Also, see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

Lion breaks Time Machine backups with Western Digital Drives.

How can I find out what's being done about this from an Apple and a Western Digital angle? WD has nothing on their site. Apparently there is an 'AFP' protocol change. Help, I have upgraded all machines to Lion and now no upgrades are possible.

Time Machine was never supported on 3rd party remote drives other than Apple's own Time Capsule and MacOS X Server. Event the Airport Express with an external drive didn't support Time Machine. If any 3rd party products want to support Time Machine, it is their responsibility to stay up to date. Lion has been available to developers for months.
If you want to hack up your Lion to use the older protocol that Apple now feels is insecure - here you go.

Where is the Time Machine backup of my home/user folder?

I just realized that Time Machine hasn't created any backups of my "home directory"/"user folder" ... i.e. I can't find any of my documents or pictures (e.g. the iPhoto library) on the external hard drive.
I checked whether I somehow had listed my user folder on the "exclusion list", but the only thing listed there was the external hard drive (which makes sense).
Does anyone know what I can do about this? I really need Time Machine to backup my photos!!!
(I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4)

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Time Machine for clients + Network Home folders?

I currently use Retrospect to back up my client machines, but frankly I don't like it that much. I'd really like to have Time Machine working for all of the client machines so that the users can easily grab copies of their own backups, rather than having to request them from me. I plan to continue to use Retrospect to back up the data on the server and to back up non-Leopard and non-OS X clients.
However, I'm also hoping to move some or all of my OS X clients to network home directories. I saw some mention in a forum that Time Machine doesn't work with network home directories, but I can't find anything about this in the server documentation. Is this true? Can't I have my network home directory clients back up their home directories to another share point using Time Machine?
Thanks in advance for any information on this or alternative ideas.
Greg

found the answer ;-)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3247301

I accidentally did a cp -rp from a time machine backup to my home directory, making it unwritable

I cannot create files or documents in my home directory.
I was able to restore the home icon with
sudo xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo username
Get info says it is unlocked.
I couldn't find anything else helpful from xattr.
I used migration assistant to restore the old directory but that didn't work;
If I go to the User directory and do ls -l
for the bad directory I get
drwxr-xr-x@ 70 dl dl 2380 Sep 13 00:28 dl
and for a good directory I get
drwxr-xr-x+ 16 Ken staff 544 Jul 26 2009 Ken
so the bad directory has an @ and the good has a + attribute, presumably
Thanks
Ken

Then he should first Erase from the Install CD Disk Utility, and then Restore from TM.
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup disk connected, start up your Mac from your Mac OS X v10.5 or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. After starting up, use the Restore System from Backup feature of the Mac OS X Installer.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac
Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use the Migration Assistant to transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.

Can I Update Time Machine Backup Without Booting From The Source Drive

Greetings,
Can I update a time machine backup without booting from the original source drive?
My main Macbook Pro internal drive seemed to have died. I had not backed up in months so my Time Machine backup was old.
I replaced the drive with a new one and settled for restoring from the old TM backup because my latest info was on the dead drive and not backed up.
I just plugged the "broken" drive into a dock and it mounted.
It won't boot from the drive but I can mount it and copy from it so far.
I now want to update my Time Machine backup with the info on the 'broken" drive while it's able to be mounted.
How can I accomplish this without booting from the 'broken" drive and running time machine.
Recap...
I need to update a Time Machine backup using another hard drive without booting from the source (as I cannot). Both drives are connected via USB to my MBP and I am booted from another MBP. I want to end up with the newer info from the "broken" drive updating my older Time Machine backup.
Thank You,
SG

Hi
Time Machine will only be able to backup whilst booted into OSX, so unless you can mount the drive, and boot up the OS that is installed on the disk, then no, you will not be able to run a Time Machine backup of that drive.
You could image the drive onto another using Disk Utility
Cheers

10.5.8 - Horrible update problems, Time Machine failures

I've just had the singular worst experience involving a Mac that I've ever had. I don't think anyone can actually fix what is wrong with my computer anymore, but I feel the need to describe my experience. Perhaps someone out there can tell me what went wrong, where, so at the very least this isn't repeated.
I came into work this morning, unlocked the screen of my Mac Pro, and the software update bouncing icon was letting me know that I still hadn't installed the 10.5.8 update. I figured, okay, fine, while I make some coffee let's do the update. Software Update does its thing, restarts my computer, and, boom, I'm back at a login screen.
I log in to the computer, and I have the default Leopard background. Not only that, but I notice that my dock icons are the default Leopard icons. Now I'm nervous, so I check out the finder. Yep, nothing in my home directory. I do, however, see a sparse bundle. I double-click on the sparse bundle, enter my user password, and voila; there is everything that should have been in my home directory.
I figure this has to be some kind of reasonably simple problem with recognizing a File Vault home directory. I then proceed to do what many Mac users have to do with every single OS update; go download the combo update and pray. After downloading the 800 MB combo update, I install it, reboot, and find that I still have the same problem. On advice that I found on the Internet, I try rebooting in Safe Mode, reinstalling the combo update, and logging in again. Still no dice.
This is where things get really fun. I think to myself; this is horrible, but I have Time Machine! I can just restore the machine to before I installed the update. After poking around, I find my Leopard install disc, order the machine to reboot with the disc as a startup volume, and away I go. Here's where I made my first mistake (that I'm aware of!). I went to the system restore utility, and it informed me that it would wipe the hard drive.
At this point, alarm bells should have been going off. After all, it was clear that nothing was working the way it should. Unfortunately, I had utter faith in Time Machine; I mean, what's the point of a backup utility that you can't trust, right? So I say, hey, sure, go blow away my hard drive. At this point, I go to have lunch while it does its magic (because, yes, trying unsuccessfully to fix the problem took my entire morning away from me).
When I come back, I'm thinking to myself, "maybe I should have backed that sparse bundle up to a spare drive just in case . . .". Sure enough, I restart, and just like before, I have an empty home folder. The only difference is that, this time, there is no sparse bundle. There is no record on Time Machine of any backups of my home directory. Not only that, but even though I restored to one hour before the 10.5.8 update, the files on my machine are no longer the correct versions.
I work on my development files out a subdirectory of /opt (don't ask). I go in to the subdirectory, check the Git repository, and find out that I'm 7 commits behind the master. This is odd, I figure, since I restored to one hour before the update and I haven't even touched the computer since Friday.
So, here are the problems I faced:
1) The 10.5.8 update completely ruined my system's ability to access my Filevault protected home directory
2) The 10.5.8 update apparently does not allow Time Machine to make a current backup of the user's home directory (as is normally done as part of the shutdown procedure - this is the only explanation I have for why Time Machine did not have a record of my home directory)
3) Time Machine did not restore the correct version of my hard drive's files
4) Time Machine did not keep a record of my home directory, AT ALL
So far now I've lost roughly three quarters of a day of work, and I will lose at least another day or two as I try to track down what versions of my files Time Machine actually restored, try to incorporate any necessary changes to those files that were passed over by the system restore, try to find a backup of my home directory that is not from Time Machine (which will, because these backups are more irregular, mean that I'll still have at least week old files and thereby lose a full week of work for anything not committed to a repository - at least I can be thankful that I do have other home directory backups, and that I don't rely on Time Machine for everything - if I did, I'd be completely hosed), and then proceed to get my machine back to a reconfigured, workable state.
The question that presents itself is when, if ever, should I contemplate doing the 10.5.8 update again. I will now forever be terrified of Apple OS updates; I can't believe the amount of work that has already been lost to this nightmare, and the amount of work I am going to have to do in the coming days to clean up this mess. If I could have pinpointed what would be the worst possible update scenario I could think of, this would be pretty close.
I hope no one else has faced any similar problems in their recent updates, but if they have I would certainly like to hear from them regarding what they did to alleviate the issues.
Thanks for reading and in advance for any help, advice, or considerations for the future you can provide.

baltwo wrote:
A Time Machine backup is only as good as what can be restored ...
This much is true of any backup.
... since the backup isn't checkable until you restore it
Fully checking a clone (IOW, not just that it will function as a startup disk but also that all the files it contains are readable or usable) is extremely time consuming. And since it is a duplicate of the volume it is backing up, it can & usually will inherit any problems of that source, especially if the copy method is a block (as opposed to file) copy. For this reason, I use SuperDuper! to make my clones, since unlike CCC or Disk Utility it always does a safer if slower file copy.
However, there is still the problem that the clone will not automatically contain a file or container (folder or package) inadvertently erased or replaced with another one of the same name on the source, or a good copy of one that has been damaged on the source since it was installed or created. IOW, a clone is a snapshot of the source volume state +at only one moment in time+ -- including any problems or omissions of that source at that moment in time.
Archival backups like those made by Time Machine or Retrospect are different: as these product names suggest, they can back up the state of the source volume at many different moments in time to one backup volume. Moreover, particularly with Time Machine, they make it quick & easy to locate a particular version of some backed up item & restore it if needed. With Time Machine at least, one has the option of replacing an item or keeping both versions, with one renamed with an "(original)" suffix, since this kind of restore is basically a Finder copy. Occasionally "entering" Time Machine's galaxy timeline interface should make it obvious if things are being backed up or not. For instance, if there is no home folder in /Users/ for some user account, it is obvious that account isn't being backed up.
Unfortunately, everything changes for FileVault encrypted home folders. You may not even see the encrypted home folder in a Finder view of the Time Machine backup. When you turn on FileVault for an account, you get a warning about its consequences for Time Machine backups:
+Time Machine backs up home folders protected by FileVault only when logged out. You cannot browse items of the protected home folder in the Time Machine backup. Because you cannot browse the items in the Time Machine backup, you cannot restore individual items.+
IMO this makes Time Machine a poor choice for archival backups of FileVault home folders.

Time machine backup failed (no error number)

I recently installed logic studio on my mac and wanted to update my time machine backup. However, when I attempted to do so, I got the following message:
"An error occured while copying files to your backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
Of course the problem was not temporary (it has been going on for a couple days now) and disk utility did not resolve the issue. I have tried to repair the disk and disk permissions with no avail. Does anyone else have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Alex
Message was edited by: alexdrumz

idk why, but it just started working... maybe it was temporary?..
The only thing I can think of is that I didn't make it run this time it just made a backup like it does every once in a while..

Time Machine backups are bigger than expected

Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone would know why, all of a sudden after a day or two ago, my Time Machine is suddenly insisting on backing up well over 4GB at a time? Before then my backups would almost always be below the 100MB mark. Has some update happened that would have caused this?
I have looked in Console but unfortunately am none the wiser. Is there some way of finding out a list of the files Time Machine is actually backing up? If so then I'd be able to track down this problem since I am fast running out of space on my Time Machine backup drive!
Many thanks for listening...
:-Joe

Jowie,
Consider the following info that I have gleaned, some of it may explain some it.
*Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!*
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412)
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer may be describing what you are experiencing: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder it you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.

Time Machine backups to WD My Book Live terribly slow

I got a Western Digital My Book Live for Christmas and have set it up to take Time Machine backups over my home Wifi network.
Unlike many other posts I've seen, my initial backup took a reasonable amount of time in my opinion. My initial backup was about 400 GB and it did it over night in about 12 hours. I did however plug my Macbook into my router via ethernet in hopes that would be faster (the My Book is also plugged into the same router via ethernet). This was 2-3 weeks ago.
Since then, I have set Time Machine to off as I use my Macbook at work each day and manually tell Time Machine to backup when I'm at home with my computer. I didn't want Time Machine to constantly have errors while looking for my backup disc when I was at work and not at home.
I have been trying to a manual backup all weekend now with no luck. I have approximately 5 GB to backup, and Time Machine is only backing up 50 MB an hour if that. I have even plugged in my computer via ethernet again.
Any ideas on how to speed this up? I've also read a lot about Spotlight indexing slowing TM down, but I don't think Spotlight is indexing right now.

Rick Wall wrote:
Time Machine is only backing up 50 MB an hour if that.
Agreed that is crazy slow.
WD use to be problematic for Macs, is this still the case?
Did you you reformat the WD with the correct partitioning scheme and format ; and get rid of the proprietary backup software?
Also TimeMachine if left on, can take local snapshots, and maybe be a benefit to you.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11394
Does not answer your question I know.

Had a recent crash on my macbook, was previously using OS 10.6 I think. Restored from recent Time Machine backup and updated to OS 10.8.2 and now I cannot open Logic Pro 9. I get a 'No entry' Icon and a not supported on this type of Mac message. I cannot

Had a recent crash on my macbook, was previously using OS 10.6 I think. Restored from recent Time Machine backup and updated to OS 10.8.2 and now I cannot open Logic Pro 9. I get a 'No entry' Icon and a not supported on this type of Mac message. I cannot update either as anything up to 9.1.1 tells me I don't need it yet 9.1.2 tells me I need an eligable Logic Pro Version was not found in applications.
All of my files are stored in a separate hard drive with only the actual app having been on my Macbook. Should I just reinstall?

Hi
To run Mouitain Lion you need to update Logic.
For the updaters to work the Logic application must be:
a) Within the Applications folder, and not in any sub-folder
b) Named "Logic Pro" with no extra numbers or spaces
CCT

Update to 10.9.3 Stopped My Time Machine Backup from Working

Hi. Just now I upgraded my Mac from 10.9.2 to 10.9.3.
I also use Time Machine to back up my Mac to an external drive and I've been using it for years.
One result of the update from 10.9.2 to 10.9.3 is that I'm now unable to back up to my Time Machine drive. I successfully backed up to it earlier this afternoon at 3:17PM (it's now 4:32PM), but I'm now getting this error message:
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to 'Time Machine Backup.'
Files can't be copied onto the backup disk because it is read-only. You may need to repair or erase the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can't be repaired, select a different disk for backups.
Last successful backup: Today, 3:17PM"
I shut down my Mac and restarted it, thinking maybe the error would go away, but it hasn't.
Did 10.9.3 somehow make my Time Machine backup drive read-only? Is there a way to change it back so that it also has write permissions? I can't figure out how to do it. Or am I going to have to erase the drive?
Thanks.
M

I've had intermittent read-only unable to auto-back-up to an external hard drive in general without the OS number considerations as well. Sometimes just a reboot of the computer and/or the drive reset it. As others stated, I also went into disk utility and checked the disk...which took 30 minutes or so. It then always auto-reinstated my ability to write to the disk as well as ungreyed the write permission below it (still in disk utility) so I could click which setting I wanted, and allowed me to use the other info gui to also change the permissions (which was locking me out before the long disk check). I had alternatively tried to use the terminal to chmod my write permissions to that drive, emulating exactly the other drive permissions (which did work), but I was unsuccessful. After doing the long check disk process as above, however, it did show the command line permissions to be exactly as the working disk, surprise surprise. Maybe I could have sudo-ed the chmod command (I didn't try that before giving up and doing the long disk check process) right away. If so, my advice would be to find the path to the disk by using a file inside it (you can drag something to the terminal to auto-write the path), use ls -l to look at the permissions you want to emulate, and sudo chmod [permission] [file] using this wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chmod.

If I update from 10.6.8 to Mavericks and I have a time machine backup, can I do a full restore back to 10.6.8 and resume as if I had never updated?

If I update from 10.6.8 to Mavericks and I have a time machine backup, can I do a full restore back to 10.6.8 and resume as if I had never updated if there is a problem? Probably an answer I should know but I don't. Thanks in advance! (instruction suggestions welcomed)

Upgrading the OS is a system wide thing. So all users will receive the upgrade.
It should not delete files and such. However, if you have for example files made with Pages '09. Then the new Pages that comes with Mavericks will make a copy of those files so you can continue to edit them. But those new files can not be opened in Pages '09. BUT again, some people perfer Pages '09 and they use that still. Mavericks will just hide Pages '09, it's still usable in Mavericks just hidden.
To be safe, make a back up of your system before doing any major upgrade.
KOT

10.5.6 Update Breaks Time Machine backup of FileVault home folders?

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