Locked iTunes won't unlock~ and I need to restore from Time Machine

I have somehow lost all my iTunes. When I go to play something - I get the grey exclamation mark comes up.
In trying to restore from Timw Machine, I find my iTunes is now unlocked. I have gone through the process of unlocking every file I can find and changing all the permissions to read and write. However it is still locked.
Can ypu help me with two things
a) how to unlock iTunes using a defferent technique to that which I have tried.
b) tell me EXACTLY (step by step - because I am a mac newbie!) how I restore from my Time machine preferably. I do have my full collection (about 15 000 pieces) on my ipod if I need that - but I am terrified of loosing everything.
Thanks a ton

OK, I think I found it for you. Navigate to the Itunes Library.itl file I referred to in my last post. Highlight the file and then type Command I and uncheck the box like mine is set in:

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Quirks and problems after a restore from Time Machine

I had need to restore from Time Machine. It did the job, but it wasn't as easy as restoring from SuperDuper. Apple iTunes Store passwords and iTunes registrations were all lost, requiring me to re-enter passwords for the various users' authorizations to play music (and burning a user on each of those accounts.)
As I used the restored system, there were several things that weren't quite right and had to be fixed as I encountered them. One persistent issue is that Safari cookies aren't working. For all the sites that had cookies to recognize me and log me in, the cookies no longer work. I have to log into the sites on each visit now. It will remember nothing.
Is there a general purpose restore tonic that will fix all these quirks?
I'm thinking of going back to SuperDuper and just set it up back up to a different volume each night for a week to have a full week's worth and skip this Time Machine mess.

In Safari, some of that password stuff is indeed handled by cookies from the various sites, but a lot of it is actually handled by the "autofill" function which fills in form fields (in this case name and password) with whatever you last used there -- independent of any cookies.
While running Safari, go to Safari / Preferences... Go to Security. Be sure that you are allowing cookies to be received in the first place.
Then go to Autofill. See if you have the item checked to allow recording and automatic filling of "User names and passwords". You can edit the list of them to see what's currently in there.
If this doesn't do it for you, you might want to try selecting Safari / Reset Safari... from the menu bar. The panel will allow you to select which data items to reset.

HT201250 I recently replaced my 2009 Macbook Pro's hard drive. I had the Apple store upgrade the OS to Mountain Lion while it was being repaired. I want to restore all of my old files and data, if I restore from Time Machine, will it revert to the old O

I recently had to replace my 2009 Macbook Pro's hard drive. I had the apple store upgrade the OS to Mountain Lion while it was in being repaired. I want to restore all of my old data and files. If I perform a restore from Time Machine, with a date prior to having the hard drive replaced, will it revert back to the old OS?

No, it won't revert to the prior OS X but you you may have third party apps installed that were compatible with Lion that may not be compatible with Mountain Lion.
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Missing songs and Playlists: how to restore from Time Machine

Here's my story. I synced my iPod a week ago before vacation (and this was backed up with Time Machine). When I returned and launched iTunes, I found that all my playlists and podcasts had disappeared. I also noticed that on my iPod I had ~4500 songs; iTunes has only 4100, so I'm missing about 400 songs.
If I open up Time Machine and restore my my whole iTunes folder (in User>Music) will that, theoretically, restore all my songs?
If I've added new Music to iTunes (that wasn't in the TM backup), will those songs be over-written by the week-old backup?
It's too tedious (and not at all obvious) which songs are missing, so hoping Time Machine can come to my rescue.
Thanks!
Message was edited by: Argelius

Argelius wrote:
Here's my story. I synced my iPod a week ago before vacation (and this was backed up with Time Machine). When I returned and launched iTunes, I found that all my playlists and podcasts had disappeared. I also noticed that on my iPod I had ~4500 songs; iTunes has only 4100, so I'm missing about 400 songs.
If I open up Time Machine and restore my my whole iTunes folder (in User>Music) will that, theoretically, restore all my songs?
yes.
If I've added new Music to iTunes (that wasn't in the TM backup), will those songs be over-written by the week-old backup?
yes, they will.
It's too tedious (and not at all obvious) which songs are missing, so hoping Time Machine can come to my rescue.
You can do the following. in "view options" in iTunes add a column "date added". sort by that column and back up all the songs added since the time of the last backup. quit itunes and restore the old library and the old itunes preference file. start itunes and import the songs you've backed up.
Thanks!
Message was edited by: Argelius

Time machine won't back up since I have restored from time machine following hard drive replacement. I am being told there is not enough space, however the back up is less than the hard drive size

We recently had the hard drive replaced on our Mac as part of Apple's replacement programme. Prior to sending it off for repair we did a final Time Machine back up, which was completed successfully. SInce getting the computer back we restored everything from the backup disk using Time Machine, which all worked fine, however now we are having problems with it completing regular backups. We receive a message each time telling up that the backup disk doesn't have enough space on it. It is telling us that it needs in the region of 370gb and only has around 30gb available. The computer hard drive is in the region of 350gb and the hard drive is a 400gb one. It is almost as if it is not recognising that the data already on the disk is the back up of this computer and is trying to complete a completely separate back up as opposed to just updating the backup already on the disk.
Has anyone else got any experience of this and therefore could give me some hints on what to do. I am reluctant to wipe the backup drive and start again, however I would prefer not to have to buy another hard drive if I can avoid it as this one is technically big enough
I look forward to getting some responses

Hi, I never use TM myself.
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.
PS. It's generally recommended a TM drive be at least twice the size of your main drive.

ITunes keeps deleting all info, now can't restore from Time Machine because there is not enough memory?

I have had this reaccuring problem where my iTunes will whipe out all the info in it. No reason as this is a standard Mac with the intel processors. The only upgrade I have done is to get it to Lion 10.8.whatever. The past several times this has happened, I've been able to restore the entire iTunes file from the 1TB external drive I use only for Time Machine. After it whiped out iTunes again last night, it would not let me restore and kept giving me a message that said I did not have enough start-up memory. I went in and deleted a bunch of old videos and it still kept giving me the memory message. I was able to break down some of the files into smaller portions (i.e. apps A-G, then H-M, etc) but could not get any of the actual music to transfer over. I deleted iTunes and reinstalled it to no avail. I have over 30,000 songs, 200+ music videos, a couple dozen movies, and several seasons of TV shows in my iTunes.
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DocDoc, that worked. I read that page and it meantioned how to exactly click what. I'm not sure why TM is so particular, but nevertheless, I was able to open a finder window pre-TM, click on my new hard drive. Then I opened TM and again, clicked on my hard drive in that finder window. Then navigated to the folder I wanted, which was the applications folder.
The "now" image wouldn't do anything when right clicked (on aperture.app) except offer to get info or to delete all backups of aperture. I almost gave up, figuring the purpled out timeline (as previous) on TM was bunk. I couldn't go backwards to a previous image before.
But having navigated that exact way somehow made TM happy. A previous image about 1 month ago was able to be saved to my application folder. 986megs or something like that in a few seconds. When TB works, it zips right along.
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If I preformed a factory restore, and didn't restore from time machine, how can I access my files that were backed up?

I wiped my Mid 2009 MBP and decided not to restore from time machine backups but now I need access to a few of the files from the pervious backup, how do I access those files? The previous backups are purple and inaccessible from the time machine window.
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While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

Ok my phone is i can not make or recieve calls and i need to restore from itunes what do i do

ok my phone is i can not make or recieve calls and i need to restore from itunes what do i do

iPhone User Guide (For iOS 4.2 and 4.3 Software)

Replaced HD yesterday Was able to restore from Time Machine Now, it won't back up to Time Machine. I removed the TM and tried to add it- the error is "The disk image for "computername.sparsebundle" is in use. Try ejecting the disk image - How do I do?

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Hello jfilbey,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Power cycle the disk Time Machine is backing up to.
For more information on this, take a look at:
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Best of luck,
Mario

Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard. It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday. Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set. It failed. I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again. No luck. I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care. Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do. (A quick sideline here: I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't. It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same).
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A few other notes: I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly. It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running. Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning.
One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted. Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it.
If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful! I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed. Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it. I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one.

I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive.
This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
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.
I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Non-constructive rants or complaints
But here is my experieince:
Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

Restored from Time Machine now some songs in itunes not authorised to sync

I started using Time Machine recently (2 to 3 weeks ago). Everything was working before, including my iTunes library. No authorisation issues, no syncing issues to my iphone or ipad. Last night I did a full restore from Time Machine backup and now I get authorisation warnings on some old songs in my itunes library, telling they will not sync to my iphone. The Apple ID it's using is an old one and I no longer have access to the email address. If there weren't any problems before the backup how can there be after the restore. Shouldn't the backup be an exact copy of the HD?

I did the restore from the most recent backup in Time Machine after booting from the Snow Leopard install cd. (The reason I needed to restore is because I was planning on selling the computer but then changed my mind. Stupid, I know).
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Full Restore from Time Machine, will iTunes recognize my iPhone or...

Hi All:
About ago my MB Pro was stolen. Fortunately, I had strong security settings and was diligent about backing up to Time Machine.
I am about to purchase a new iMac to replace the MB Pro, and will be doing a complete restore from time machine to recover my data. However, since my computer was stolen, life has gone on. I have purchased music from iTunes via my iPhone and also added many new contacts. Does anyone know what will happen the first time I try to sync my iPhone to my fully restored image on the new computer? Will iTunes recognize the iPhone as it was before and do a 2 way sync (new music and contacts sent back to iMac) or will it want to override all data on the iPhone and replace it with the existing contacts and music from the restore?
Thanks!
John

All of your iPhone data (the iPhone backup done by iTunes) is stored in your user folder's library as: USER/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. I believe some iPhone data is also stored here: USER/Library/Application Support/SyncServices. For some reason, the folks at Apple thought that this was NOT information that needed to be backed up in Time Machine.
So unless you copied and pasted the backup folder into your external drive, your migration of info from the drive to the iMac will not carry any iPhone info to the new computer.
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Csound1, William & Sig .... thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I fear you are right - I'll need a new disk. I'm booked in at the Apple Genius Bar in Bordeaux, France on Wed ... quite a challenge as my French isn't great! The current internal disk is 500gb, does anyone know whether I can upgrade my 21.5" iMac (circa Oct-2009 vintage) to a larger size internal disk, 1Tb or even 2Tb? I already have one external 2Tb drive and another one on order (I have masses of media stored and more planned as I've just taken up photography). Seems a bit of a pain managing with only 500gb internal storage. OR, can you advise me on how I can store all my photos on my new 2Tb external drive - I can't seem to figure out how to set the path for iPhoto to see them (I can't even figure out where they are stored right now!). Same with iTunes, how do I set the default storage to the external drive (I moved everything manually and then imported them all from the new drive - it worked but seemed very convoluted). Any advice on how to manage multiple drives gratefully received. And thanks again for previous replies.

I tried to instal 10.8.3 to my MBP and it crashed. I then tried to restore from Time machine but when it is about 50% through a message comes up "the files cannot be restored"

I tried to instal 10.8.3 to my MBP and it crashed. I then tried to restore from Time machine but when it is about 50% through a message comes up "the files cannot be restored" Can anyone help me to get out of this mess?

Back up all data.
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, follow the prompts to reinstall the OS. You don't need to erase the boot volume, and you won't need your backup unless something goes wrong. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.

System Restore from Time Machine Back up and Mail

Hi
I have around 16,000 Messages in my Mail 3.2 Inbox. I use Gmail IMAP service. One thing I like about Mail is that next to all my messages there are these arrows that indicate whether I have replied to or forwarded a particular message and clicking on them takes me to my response to a particular email.
I need to reformat my MBP HD and want to do a system restore through Time Machine.
My question is, will Mail return to my current state (with all the arrows and tags) after I do the complete restore from Time Machine.
Any help on this is highly appreciated.
Cheers!

Mheck21 wrote:
I replaced the internal because I need more space, I'm not an expert, but I've done it before. I wasn't having trouble I was just running out of room and decided to upgrade?
Ah, ok, that rules that out.
I think it wasn't backing up because it was showing I had files on the external but I couldn't locate them. It's my understanding that the external must be blank to back your computer up with time machine.
No, it doesn't have to be empty (although Time Machine works best if it has its own, exclusive space). Without the error message(s), we don't know what is/was wrong.
I have run the Verify Disk on the internal and it says its all good.
Ah, good. That means you don't have directory problems.
I have not run a Repair Disk Permissions. I am not sure how to do that? Is that also located in the Disk Utility.
Yup, same window, different button.
I tried to just run the update from the update software option in the apple on the top left. I also then ran the combo that I downloaded from the apple site.
With what results? Did they compete? If not, what message did you get?

Locked iTunes won't unlock~ and I need to restore from Time Machine

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