HT201250 "Time Machine Not Configured", but appears to be working?

The Time Machine menu in the toolbar says "Time Machine Not Configured", yet I have it fully configured in Prefs, it is "On", and when I browse the drive it appears to be doing backups.  Anything I can do to fix the menu item?

Solved... Erased entire backup disk, reformatted and seems to be working again.

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine not configured / won't open / but it runs?

    I'd appreciate some assistance troubleshooting a Time Machine issue.
    I recently purchased a 2TB Time Capsule and set it up on my home network.  I have set Time Machine up using it to back up 2 out of 3 MacBook Pros with no issues.
    On the third MacBook, the Time Machine setup appears to work just fine (I have selected the Time Capsule disk, it has done the first full backup and periodic incremental backups).  However, I have the following problems:
    I cannot open the Time Machine application.  Clicking on the App causes absolutely nothing to happen.  No error. No windows. Nothing.
    The icon in the menu bar is greyed out and gives no indication of backups in progress (no spinning clock like the other macs).  Clicking on it reveals the top, greyed out menu choice that says "Time Machine not configured".  (I can open time machine preferences and observe status from within that window.)
    I have searched this and other sites for solutions.  I have done steps A4 and E4 from this site (repeatedly) with no success.

    I'd appreciate some assistance troubleshooting a Time Machine issue.
    I recently purchased a 2TB Time Capsule and set it up on my home network.  I have set Time Machine up using it to back up 2 out of 3 MacBook Pros with no issues.
    On the third MacBook, the Time Machine setup appears to work just fine (I have selected the Time Capsule disk, it has done the first full backup and periodic incremental backups).  However, I have the following problems:
    I cannot open the Time Machine application.  Clicking on the App causes absolutely nothing to happen.  No error. No windows. Nothing.
    The icon in the menu bar is greyed out and gives no indication of backups in progress (no spinning clock like the other macs).  Clicking on it reveals the top, greyed out menu choice that says "Time Machine not configured".  (I can open time machine preferences and observe status from within that window.)
    I have searched this and other sites for solutions.  I have done steps A4 and E4 from this site (repeatedly) with no success.

  • "Time machine not configured" & Can't reset to factory setting.

    Once I removed the Time capsule from my List to back up again. But after removing when i connect the time capsule, the amber light keep on flashing and i can't set up the Time capsule. Although i get it in the wifi network. ( I attached the Pic marked Majmadar's Wifi Network ). Now when i click on the icon of time capsule it shows " Time machine not configured ". Even when i open the time machine preferences i don't see My time Capsule in my list. Please help me to
    solve my problem. Thanks in advance.

    Start over and redo the setup from a manual factory reset.. do NOT use names like you have now.. this is problematic on Yosemite..
    Also do a full reset on Time Machine.. See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Factory reset universal
    Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.
    N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.
    Setup the TC again.
    ie Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.
    Then redo the setup from the computer with Yosemite.
    1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.
    eg TCgen5 and TCwifi for basestation and wireless respectively.
    Even better if the issue is more wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round.
    2. Use all passwords that also comply but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.
    3. Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when Yosemite cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking. If the TC is main router it will not be an issue.
    4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.
    5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.
    In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,
    Type in SMB://192.168.0.254 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).
    You can use name.. SMB://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.
    However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.
    6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only.
    There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.
    You might need to do some more work on the laptop itself. eg Reset the PRAM.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.
    Tell us how you go.
    Someone posted a solution.. See this thread.
    Macbook can't find Time Capsule anymore
    Start from the bottom and work up.. I have a list of good network practice changes but I have avoided Yosemites bug heaven.
    This user has had success and a few others as well.
    RáNdÓm GéÉzÁ
    Here is where they discuss a true solution.. replace the rotten DNS app in Yosemite with the one from Mavericks.
    http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/01/why-dns-in-os-x-10-10-is-broken-and-what-yo u-can-do-to-fix-it/

  • HT201250 Time Machine not keeping hourly backups.

    My Time Machine backups don't seem to be working correctly.  It doesn't appear to be keeping hourly backups.  When I enter Time Machine and look at the backup from just one hour ago, the newest file is from several weeks ago, not one hour ago.
    Same thing with monthly backups.  At a certain point, the backup history skips several months.
    I've scoured the internet but can't seem to find anyone else with this problem or a solution.

    That's odd. Mine go away after 24 hours like clockwork.
    As VA2020 says, it's probably not a significant space problem, but worth investigating, especially after that long a time.
    I'd suggest downloading the Time Machine Buddy widget, which extracts TM's messages from your logs and displays them in a little window. Check your last few backups, especially for messages about "thinning".
    As an example, here's my most recent set, showing routine deletion of an hourly:
    *Starting standard backup*
    *Backing up to: /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb*
    *No pre-backup thinning needed: 133.2 MB requested (including padding), 175.83 GB available*
    *Copied 492 files (2.7 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.*
    *Starting post-backup thinning*
    *Deleted backup /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb/JPs.G5.iMac/2009-01-19-191145: 175.83 GB now available*
    *Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed*
    *Backup completed successfully.*
    If yours look hinky (pardon the technical term), especially any sort of failure message, or not being able to delete old backups, copy and post them here (be careful to get all the messages, as they often overflow the little window).
    One question: have you used any of the 3rd part apps or postings about modifying TM's preference file to alter the backup schedule?

  • Time machine not configured in menu bar  but when accessed all seems ok?

    I have an apple time machine just purchased in nov 2011 i set it up for my macbook pro and all was fine, now the icon in the top menu shows that time machine is not configured and time machine button wont turn on in sys preferences but i can access time machine in airport utility and all seems fine, i don't get it nothing has been changed by me yet it says something has and i don't know what?????

    Are you talking about Time Machine (Apple's backup software) or your Time Capsule?
    The menubar icon is for Time Machine;  Airport Utility is where you configure your Time Capsule and network.
    If Time Machine is not configured, it's not making backups, but you can still use the Time Capsule, both to use your network and, if you want, to put files on it.
    If you're not making backups, you really should.  You don't have to use Time Machine, but you should be backing your Mac up with another backup app so when (not if) something awful happens to your Mac, you don't lose all your data.

  • "Time machine not configured" after yosemite clean install

    I'm on a MBP early 2011, 16gb Ram, Seagate 500gb used to back up with Time Machine. I was doing manual backups once a month. Having wifi problems like everyone else and general slowdowns on the machine even before the regular install of Yosemite (on top of Mountain Lion, on top of Snow Leopard) I decided to do a clean install. Start fresh. Followed all the directions. But,little did I know that by changing my user name (not deliberately) on my brand new OS, I don't have access to TM. At least that's what I think is up with this "TM not configured"
    How should I proceed?
    Can I configure the drive now with my new username and still have access to my files? I wanted to bring over some of them, not all of them. If it's possible to do this, and I do, will I have all kinds of permissions or other problems? Will I lose my old backups if I configure it?
    Or should I just start over with another kind of clean install? It's only been a couple of days.If I restored from the backup or whatever options there are, am I actually reinstalling the problems I was trying to eliminate? The upgrade to 16gb ram was part of my initial troubleshooting.
    Other options?
    Thanks!

    My family upgraded to Yosemite on our 3 Macs four days ago: on an iMac, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air, all three Macs from early 2014.
    In Mavericks there was never any trouble with the Time Machine. But now on all three Macs, the TM doesn’t function properly.
    1) on entering TM, the Restore and the two Arrow buttons for selecting the date are dimmed out 90% of the time; nothing can be done, for example, clicking on the Finder folders or files and so on is impossible.
    2) sometimes, however, only the Restore button is dimmed out, or vice versa, only the two Arrow buttons.
    3) on two occasions, no buttons were dimmed out, but on the very first click, all the buttons were again dimmed out
    4) on the iMac and the Mac Book Pro, thank God, the backups still seem to be working; however, on the MacBook Air, a „preparing backup“ message just keeps on running and running.
    The TM is a major feature of OS X that Apple pushes hard in its ads. Hopefully this means we’ll soon have an update. As a normal Mac user, I would find it difficult to apply any more exotic workaround solutions that some Mac experts might offer. My patience and ability to troubleshoot doesn’t go much beyond David Pogue’s latest OS X manual.
    Anyway, a last more point: the previous TM was a thing of beauty, and I really enjoyed being sort of shot into space with the stars, like Dante on his way to the Empyrean; but now, on entering the TM in Yosemite, it looks like the Finder has fallen into an ugly pool of mud.
      Thanks for any help or feedback you can offer.

  • HT201250 I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them?

    I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them?  No, they were not part of previous Time Machine backups, and I have checked both the hard drive the documents were lost on and the new one that I now use for backups. Any suggestions would be helpful, as the lost files are old pictures that are gone forever. :[ Thanks!

    1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
    2. Reformat the drives if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, and remove the drive with the pictures from the list of items set to be excluded.
    (110331)

  • Time Machine backs up but backs not up

    Time Machine is running normally under SL.
    But when I check by entering Time Machine,
    I can see that in my last backup dated today
    19:43 (7:43 p.m.), the Dekstop is not up to
    date : it's still the items of my desktop
    date 9/24/2009.
    When checking individual files, they're all
    old versions, none is updated today.
    Nice !
    A solution ?
    Thanks
    Message was edited by: Hellstan

    Hellstan wrote:
    Not so anymore : when I check "Option" in Pref, I see the disk
    I choose for TM backup in the list of EXCLUDED disks, appearing in
    full (black lettering) while the disk I normally exclude that day
    appears normally in gray.
    That just means that TM is not going to back-up it's backups. Not a problem.
    Now there is more ANNOYING : while typing this, I left "Options"
    dialog open to be sure I'm not daydreaming. And I SAW automatically
    my third external disk, called Archimages, which is NEVER chosen
    for TM backup, but only for Images copy I do manually, launch
    a backup.
    Which one is selected in TM Preferences > Change Disk?
    Which is a big mess, because I dont' want my HD to copy on this
    3-d disk, but only on disk 1 or 2.
    Am I clear ?
    About what you want, yes. About what you've done and what's happened, no
    All this since I installed SL 10.6 in a clean install and update to 10.6.1
    PS : Now I forced TM to stop any backup on Archimages 1, and it launched automatically the initial backup I've asked, namely on TM 1 disk. Currently,
    it's "calculating modifications" since 10 minutes. Bloody mess, and I guess the culprit in SL.
    Your posts are a bit hard to follow (perhaps the language difference).
    If you're saying that TM is not backing-up changed items, then:
    1. Are you running File Vault?
    2. Is there anything in the +Do not back up+ box that's excluding them?
    If both of those are "no," your preferences file may be corrupted. Do a "full reset" per item #B3 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* and Restart your Mac.
    From your previous post:
    Backing up to: /Volumes/A-Time Machine 1/Backups.backupdb
    Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/A-Time Machine 2 reason:must scan subdirs|
    That indicates that the exclusion for +A-Time Machine 2+ was removed somehow.
    Copied 3 files (228 KB) from volume A-Time Machine 2.
    But since TM won't copy TM backups, those are probably some of the hidden files not included in the backups.
    You might want to do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on both your TM drives, via Disk Utility in your Applications/Utilities folder.
    That, plus the things above, including the Restart, may re-set whatever's wrong with your setup.

  • TS3423 Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not s

    Mac book pro stops responding after Maverick OS restart. Currently have a circle with a line through it after 20+ hours. Tried to shut it down and use the Time Machine to restore but no response. How can I restore with Time Machine if it will not start?

    sonjadg,
    you can purchase a replacement pair of grey installation DVDs for your MacBook Pro from either Apple or iFixit. If Startup Manager is only showing an OS X Installer volume, then it sounds like the Mavericks installer had a problem midway through its installation process. To fix this, you’re going to need to erase your internal disk and reïnstall your original version of OS X from the grey Mac OS X Install DVD, use Software Update  to get it back to 10.6.8 (presuming that your MacBook Pro originally came with Snow Leopard), and then restore from Time Machine.

  • Mountain Lion will not install says HD is time machine back up but it isn't

    I downloaded ML and it state will not install as HD is time machine back up but it is not, I have another external drive
    for time machine back up.
    I have OS 10.6.8 which a I read the information should be what is required to intall ML.
    How can I get the program to recognize that my HD is not the back up disk?

    OS X- Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups

  • Time Machine not recognizing full space available on NAS.

    I recently purchsed and set up an Iomega Storcenter ix4-200d NAS with Time Machine support.  The NAS has 8 TB storage total, with ~4.6 TB available.
    I have TIme Machine support turned on in the Storcenter, assigned to a folder called "Time-Machine."  In my OSX Time Machine preferences, I select the "Time-Machine" folder on my NAS as the back-up disk, and my Mac connects to it just fine.
    The challenge is Time Machine returns an error saying there isn't enough space on the backup disk to complete the backup.
    For some reason, Time Machine is only recognizing 536.36 GB of space available on the backup disk, even though there are ~4.6 TB available.  I tried manually moving my iTunes media folder (~700 GB) to the "Time-Machine" folder on my NAS to see if the Iomega NAS was arbitrarily setting a max size to a Time Machine folder.  I was able to manually move just under 1 TB of data to the same "Time-Machine" folder that Time Machine says only has 536.36 GB of space.
    I tried deleting the Time-Machine store on my NAS, turning Time Machine support off, then turning it back off and creating a new "Time-Machine" folder.  I did this several times and still get the same behavior.
    I even tried running Time Machine piecemeal, excluding larger folders at first and running a back-up, to see if maybe Time Machine wasn't liking that large of an initial backup.  This worked, and then I gradually removed some exclusions and ran back-ups again, so each back-up size was never more than 200 GBs or so.  However, after several back-ups, I received the same error message saying there wasn't enough space on the backup disk when the total sparsbundle size reached 536.36 GBs.
    Since I can manually move more than 536.36 GB of data to the backup disk, I'm guessing it must be something with Time Machine not recognizing the full space available on the NAS.
    Any ideas?  Has anyone seen this before?

    Hello,
    not that it helps, but I see the same on the exact same configuration. My message is also about not having enough space, ip-to exactly the same amount of room being available (only 536.36 GB available)?
    I tried everything, including a full reset of the StorCenter, but to no avail. The timemachine backup used to work, however I thought that this was just because it didn't exceed the limit of one physical disk in the StorCenter (I've got 4 x 1 TB).
    What is strange is that the original author has 2TB disks and still has the same problem? So it likely isn't related to the physical disk size. It seems like the maximum backup can only be 536.36 GB ??

  • Time Machine not backing up iPhoto changes (Events, pictures, etc..)

    So I finally decided to buy a external hard drive (WD) and backup some of my data to it using Time Machine. The initial backup went well with no problems but what I noticed is as I added events and pictures they were not appearing in Time Machine.
    I could open time machine and view that my iPhoto had the current events when the date selected was "Today (now)", but as I went back in time the events that SHOULD of been there were not.
    Browsing the folders on the backups showed the iPhoto database to be 13.5gb when actually the new size on my iMac was 19.5gb.
    So why does Time Machine not detect these changes? For my backups I have excluded all folders except for the Users folder which contains the iPhoto library. Time Machine is not detecting the changes and backing it up. How can I fix this?

    Yeah. At first I thought it was:
    http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/D5.html
    Because I was doing that earlier. But then realized I did repair permissions, not disk. But anyways decided to reboot (because I haven't up to this point).
    Once it came back up I tried doing another backup. Didn't see it. Opened iPhoto again and exited it (checked Force Quit to make sure it wasn't open). Told it to do a BACKUP NOW. This time it saw a difference of like 7mb.
    After it was done, went to iPhoto -> File -> Browse Backups. Went back a couple minutes when I did the backup and my event now has a place holder within the Events but it is pure black. I double clicked the event and it opened up and saw there were 3 files in there. They had default icons and were not showing as pictures like they were. (even though they display fine in iPhoto).
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  • Time Machine not copying all I want it to

    OK, so this is odd... I have an external 250 GB fw drive from G Tech and an iMac G5 running 10.5.1 I started using time machine happily the other day having it back up to the fw drive. Well it was almost full so I deleted some other stuff off of the fw drive and I also deleted some of the oldest backups (which may have been a mistake, I am not sure). Anyway, now there is way more than enough room on the fw disk to back up the whole system, but it basically stops once it gets to the applications folder. I have tried deleting the time machine plist folder but that did not help. Any ideas?

    First, run Disk Utility's Repair Disk on the TM volume to make sure its file system is OK. Do the same with Permissions Repair on your normal volume to make sure the apps installed via Apple's installer (those that leave receipts) don't have permissions problems that prevent their being copied. Then make sure none of the apps not being backed up appear in TM's system preference exclusions list.
    If you have deleted some of the contents of old time-stamped backup folders via the Finder, you probably have not broken anything -- because each is really just a hard link to the file's actual location on the backup drive, all you are doing is deleting the reference to it in those backups. Assuming the file appears in later backups, you can still access it from within TM by going to any of them. (You cannot access any versions of the file older than the last backup date deleted because when the last hard link to it is removed, so is the file.)

  • Time Machine not saving all Users

    Hi,
    I have just used Time Machine for the first time and noticed that it was saving "x" of around 142gb as its first save.
    However, I noticed that when I go through the back up history, whilst it saved my wife's account/user files it hasn't saved mine. The icon of my "house" in the Places section doesn't highlight when you scroll over it with the mouse. It does in the "Now" window.. but page through the back up history and it's not saved. My files are also not found in the Users folder.
    Any help really appreciated.
    Mark

    Are you using File Vault?
    That's the only reason TM won't save your home folder on each backup. It should, however, save the encrypted disk image when you log out.
    If not, start with a Finder window showing your home folder, then go into Time Machine. It should appear that way.
    And be sure you're not looking at the first (lowest) window in the "cascade" of the "Star Wars" background; that's the +Today (Now)+ window, representing what's currently on your system. Navigate to the actual backup (behind the Today window) or via the timeline on the right.
    You might want to review these:
    Time Machine Tutorial
    Time Machine 101
    How to back up and restore your files
    Time Machine Features
    Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
    and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
    If you have a problem setting-up or using Time Machine, start with the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.

  • Time machine not adding to existing backups.

    I have a Late 2013 MBP. i7,16GB RAM and 500GB HD.My Time Machine is a WD My Passport 2GB partitioned into to two 1GB partitions. Time Machine had 472GB used of 1GB in backups.
    I was having issues with apps (Ableton Live 9, Serato, MS Word, and several others) NOT opening and freezing. And I had to force close them. And at times I would have to reboot. I finally decided to wipe the SDD, reinstall the OS. These are the steps I did.
    Backed up on Time Machine
    CMD+R on reboot to launch OS X Utilities
    Used Disk Utilities to erase SDD
    Reinstall OSX
    Once fresh OS was installed. I selected to use Time Machine when prompted by Migration Assistant to recover ALL files (Applications, 2 Users, and computer/network settings)
    Everything was loaded and transferred from Time Machine as I had expected. Launchpad apps had to be reorganized (grouped back together), but everything seemed to be ok. Then I waited until the next day to back up to Time Machine again, in case something didn't work right.
    So here is the crux of my problem and question. Since everything is exactly the same (computer name, user names, locations of files, apps, SDD name, etc),
    Why did Time Machine start making a new 472GB image, thus now using 954GB out of 1GB available? Instead of just continuing to make an additional snapshot and adding to the original "set / group" of backups already there? To further my point, I had 14 separate backups (Jan 4th - Feb 22nd) all totaling 472GB. Then on Feb 23rd Time Machine backed the same EXACT files as the previous backup I had restored from in the SAME Time Machine folder (right underneath the Feb 22nd), yet the newest backup is ANOTHER 472GB.
    Does Time Machine know that it is a restored "version" of the same MBP? And Time Machine is making a completely new backup of the same files to be "safe" since there is room on the HD? Im assuming that as time goes on and more backups are made the older ones will be deleted. Thus the original 472GB of backups will be freed up?
    My apologies if I am not using the correct terminology and verbiage. Any thoughts or answers would be appreciated.

    Hello there, Kip057.
    The following Knowledge Base article provides some great information on how to troubleshoot your issue:
    Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275
    Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
    Cheers,
    Pedro.

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