Complex problem - Time Machine backup missing "Applications" directory

OK - I have a 2 or 3 year old iMac - Intel 1.83 mh / 4gb memory OS 10.5.7. System has been working fine and time machine seems to have been backing up fine. Today, we had a strange problem with the HD, probably some weird hit - it wouldn't boot, and I tried multiple times. I finally booted from the CD and used the disc utility to try and examine/repair the disk - no luck. I got an error message. I then went back to the CD and restored the entire system from Time Machine. The restore seem to work fine. The system re-booted OK --- EXCEPT --- there were no apps - and I mean zip. Aside from the finder, there was no Terminal app, couldn't find any apps in spotlight, and I couldn't see the app directory anywhere on Time Machine. I believe all of my data was restored OK. It's difficult for me to tell if somehow the apps were all deleted from time machine or they're there and just not visible.
Anyway, I then restored the OS (10.5) from my CD, and it has restored the basic apps that come with it - mail, terminal, disk utility etc. However, I still can't see the apps on Time Machine.
This is somewhat disconcerning since I had assumed that I could do a complete system restore with time machine.
I'm open to any advice you might have.
Signed - frustrated with Time Machine

BaNzOmBiE wrote:
I also noticed that on the time capsule there are more recent backups that I was not offered to restore by the mac os x boot disk.
Maybe not. Did you do a full restore, by booting from your Leopard Install disc, and selecting Utilities then +*Restore from Backups+* from the menubar? If so, the list of backups you saw was not shown in your local time zone: it's in *U.S. Pacific Time,* (because you only specify your language when booting from the Leopard Install disc, not your local time zone).
If you selected the last backup shown, then you got the last one, even if the date & time didn't seem right.
I don't know what to do.
Shall I start the recovery process from scratch using the same backup (and wait 13 more hours..)? Or maybe try to manually copy the applications directory on the restored mac and see what happens.
Are you sure it's not there? I know that sounds silly, but be sure you're signed-on as an Admin user, check the top level of your internal HD, and other places. What happens if you click the Apple icon in your Menubar, then +System Preferences?+ It may be some sort of permissions problem -- if the restore utility can't restore something, it will fail, not just skip things.
If all else fails, your best bet might be to do an Archive and Install, preserving users and settings, per the *Archive & Install* section of the Glenn Carter - Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
Then use the normal Time Machine app to restore the other apps.

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Time Machine Backup Missing?

I have been searching for lost photos for a couple of years, and have a new MBP and want to try to finally reaarange my digital life. I had stopped time machine from making backups because I was hoping I would not overwrite the backups that may have contained the missing photos, since time machine as it marches along eventually overwrites older backups to make room for newer ones.
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Not sure why you say "at least three" unless the Time Capsule is set up to Secure shared disks with accounts (per the Disks window of Airport Utility). In that case, there may be multiple accounts on the TC; each one must log on with its name and password, and will see only what belongs to that particular account:
If you backed-up with one account for a while, then changed to another, each would have a sparse bundle for the same Mac.
Othewise, there should be one sparse bundle per Mac.
Should be only one sparsebundle, but I probably copied things in the past - this is almost 3 years that I'm still coming back and hoping to find these photos on a backup somehow. When I open Airport Utility I don't even see a menu bar like your image shows, and when I go to the menu itself all options including disk are greyed out.
Here is my finder window with the sparsebundles:
they all seem to have the same data in them.
They'll all have the same folder structure, but the contents should be the same as the Mac that made them.
But if the backups are made at different times you would think the files would be different. If I have photos taken every month, shouldn't the backups from say February have additional files than the backups from January?
The big question is are there some earlier backups lurking somewhere - I thought I had read that TM keeps earlier backups even though it may not display them.
If you don't see them via the Finder, either there's nothing else there, or there's some sort of corruption or damage.
So essentially it would seem that any backups from 2009 are gone if the earliest backup from the sparsebundle is dated 2010?
Since I see these backups through finder, would the display other tm backups display something different if I could get it to work?
Nothing extra, unless there's damage that can be fixed.
The sparsebundles seem to mount and open through finder, but nothing works through tm itself.
Have you tried the things in my previous post?
The things in the previous post seemed to apply if I couldn't mount a sparsebundle - I must be missing what to do when TM itself will not start from the dock or menu bar. I did reselect it as drive option and then turned off backups again.

Does Time Machine backup the Applications folder?

Hi everyone. I'm backing up my MBP with Time Machine with the intention of formatting and reinstalling ML. It's completed it's first backup, however the backup is 133GB and in Disk Utility it says I've used 220GB on my hard drive? What's happened to that 87GB? I've noticed also that on the Time Machine disk, the Applications folder is nowhere to be seen.... Has it backed up my applications? Why has it missed out 87GB of stuff? Thanks

Hi Steve, thanks for the reply.
Yes I've checked all that, applications is not in the exclude list, and the "used" value in disk utility is vastly different...
If you look at the number of files/folders on the Time Machine, it's almost half....

Where is time machine backup of applications and library?

I have had regular time machine backups of my system for the past year. I have recently wiped my system and have done a fresh reinstall of OSX 10.8.
I now need to restore some applications and application settings but the Macintosh HD/Applications and Macintosh HD/Library only appear in the very first backup from a year ago. No other backup contains anything except for the "user" and "shared" folders.
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It's possible for those folders to be excluded without anything showing in the Time Machine preference pane.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine SkipSystemFiles
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste (command-V) into the Terminal window. Post the line(s) of output that appear below what you entered.

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My problem is that I was away from my network when TM tried to do an update. I'm not sure if TM was actually able to connect to my server but none the less I was on a verizon wireless card and so even a minor backup would have been slow.
I needed to shut the computer down and leave. I have had TM hang when trying to shut down and tried to tell it to stop the back-up (which it tries to do for hours on end and have had to force quit before... had to run disk first aid that time) So this time I figured Id leave the computer on (though unplugged) while I drove home.
I did not close the case until the screen went dark. Unfortunately, it had just gone to sleep (a half hour later) instead of shutting off but I did not know that at the time so I shut the case then.
When I plugged it in in the AM it was dark but not black... I could just see the screen and could see it was frozen. Force restart completely screwed my startup disk. Luckily I have a BU from the night before.
Maybe TM should also be linked to the location, and or connection you are using. So, if I am away from my LAN it will automatically turn off. I also wish I could set it to back up every x hours instead of every hour.
Good idea... just needs some work on the routines. (only an hour left on my restore now)

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However, this option has disappeared from Volume info window after upgrading to Mavericks 10.9.
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Once you're in the TM interface you will see a basically normal Finder window (with a lot of weird graphics, hence its other name The Star Wars interface )
On the right of the screen is the timeline allowing you to move backward and forward in time. Once you find what you want you can select the files or folders and restore.
As in the normal Finder multiple selections are allowed. I suggest you play around with it a bit at first and try restoring a file or a few files or folders just to get a feel for it.
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Now, shifting from the 2x3 TB RAID1 Duo to a 1x3 TB Drive took again 7-8 hours, but short of completion, copying the Time Machine directory Backups.backupdp to the new drive, the system said that there are files, unable to convert (???). See two of the messages.
The Backup directory on the new disk is some 40 GB smaller than on the original disk – and grayed out, i.e. unable to open.
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a Mavericks update from 10.9.1 to 10.9.2
a pages, numbers and keynote update, which I deleted after a few tries and I reinstalled Pages9 etc. again The simplified apps were useless for me, as too many of the standard features of iWork 9 - an ergonomic, simplier but almost full alternative to MS Office – are missing.
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Another message, the one about "unable to convert", I missed the screenshot...

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
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Hello!
I tried to make a new Time Machine backup file on my external harddrive today.
Unfortunately it stopt after about 6 or 7 gb with the popup:
''the backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the 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''
I'm certain that the HDD (Western Digital 1Tb) was correctly formatted (Mac Os Extended (Journaled)). It's the same type as my internal harddrive.
I also have a Time Machine Buddy logfile. Maybe that will help in finding the problem.
Also noticable is that after the backup failure, I can't seem to restore or format the external HDD. Once I connect it to a regular pcc and remove and reinstall the driver, I can use it again.
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Starting manual backup
Error determining directory contents for /Volumes/Time Machine: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “Time Machine” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7faa73422f70 {NSFilePath=/Volumes/Time Machine, NSUserStringVariant=(
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Error -36 applying backup protections to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok size:37
Error -36 applying backup protections to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro van Rolf Perdok size:37
Backup failed with error: 2
Thanks in advance!

And I spoke too soon, backup just failed with:
22/10/2012 15:44:24.266 com.apple.backupd[555]: Stopping backup.
22/10/2012 15:44:24.267 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:24.267 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error: (-47) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Documentation/DocSets/com.apple.ADC_ Reference_Library.DeveloperTools.4_5.docset/Contents/Resources/Documents/recipes /xcode_help-project_editor/Art/BuildingTargetsintheCorrectOrder.m4v to /Volumes/Storage/Backups.backupdb/cizin/2012-10-22-152514.inProgress/ED608989-4 CF3-4713-8E62-3A32E8CC3917/Cizin/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Docum entation/DocSets/com.apple.ADC_Reference_Library.DeveloperTools.4_5.docset/Conte nts/Resources/Documents/recipes/xcode_help-project_editor/Art
22/10/2012 15:44:28.221 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Copied 249786 files (10.64 GB) from volume Cizin.
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:28.222 com.apple.backupd[555]: Copy stage failed with error:11
22/10/2012 15:44:31.231 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Resource busy
22/10/2012 15:44:34.239 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Resource busy
22/10/2012 15:44:34.239 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
22/10/2012 15:44:34.358 com.apple.backupd[555]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Storage/Backups.backupdb/cizin size:37
22/10/2012 15:44:44.739 com.apple.backupd[555]: Backup failed with error: 11
Time fo a bug report.

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Unfortunatly, i only ran a partial time machine backup on the hardrive before i lost it.
Fotrunatly though, it did manage to save some important stuff, but now for the next problem....
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That is not how you restore from a Time Machine backup.
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☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
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Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
chmod -R -N ~
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. When a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) appears below what you entered, it’s done. You may see a few error messages about an “invalid argument” while the command is running. You can ignore those. If you get an error message with the words “Permission denied,” enter this:
sudo !!
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
Next, boot from your recovery partition by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
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In the Terminal window, enter “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset the password.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.

Time machine backup problem with company backup.

I have serious problems with making backups of our company computers by Time Machine.
We have Synology NAS with Time Machine Support. When I made setting for Time Machine backups (users, shares, quotas, etc. ) ewerything worked fine. All Time machines uses one directory, that appears on the network like a Time capsule. Machines have their own accounts with quotas etc. After a few days started many problems. Some Time Machines has missed their target sparsebundles and unsuccessfully tried write into some others. After Time Machine restart and new manual setting problem persisting. Only successfull solution is complete remove all affected sparsebundles (miss all older backups) and make new ones. This problems appears on many different computers with various OSX version 10.6 - 10.8.
Can you help me with this problem?

I have used OS X Server on an Xserve and gained the impression that it did little that OS X would not do. Earlier versions had a fairly easy to use GUI but as it developed it became more tedious and unreliable than using OS X on the same hardware. It was far from cheap for unlimited users even with educational discounts.
At one time OS X Server was more advanced than the same version number OS X - about half a version ahead.
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At one time OS X Server had a security bug in that it confused FTP root with machine root under some conditions leaving the whole disk open to the public.

Complex problem - Time Machine backup missing "Applications" directory

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