Loss of Exclusions in Time Machine on Upgrade to 10.6.1

Am running a 1st Gen Unibody Macbook with FileVault activated + 1TB Time Capsule (latest Firmware). Time Machine has been running perfectly under OSX 10.5.x for more than 11 months.
After upgrading to 10.6.1 from fully updated 10.5.x I have lost all Time Machine exclusions associated with my 'User' (/Macintosh HD/Users/myself/) account folder. All other high level exclusions (/System Files and Applications etc) remain intact.
Upon trying to add the folders lost from the exclusions list in Time Machine again, I found my 'User' folder and all sub-folders are 'greyed out' and not selectable. Consequently, Time Machine backs up my Virtual Machines folder and other large folders I don't need and want to back up.
I have already tried the 'full reset' approach from Time Machine Troubleshooting, without result; and I'm now at the limit of my OSX expertise. Can anyone shed any light please?

that explains it. a filevaulted home directory is stored inside an encrypted sparse bundle. you can not exclude individual items in it from backups. TM can either back up the whole sparse bundle with everything in it or not back up the whole sparse bundle at all. TM has other limitations with filevault. it only backs up your home directory when you log out and you can not restore individual items in your home directory using TM interface.
If you were able to do this before and were able to exclude things in your home directory from backups it means that you were backing up incorrectly and you were backing up your whole home directory TWICE! let me explain. when you log into a filevaulted account, the sparse bundle with your home directory is mounted an a virtual disk image (i.e. like an external drive, but it's hidden from finder). If you go to TM system preferences->options. your home folder will be listed on the exclusion list. DO NOT remove it from there. if you do it will remove the virtual drive with your home directory from the exclusion list. then TM will back up your home directory twice. once as an encrypted sparse bundle and second time as a nonencrypted external drive. you can then exclude some items on that "external drive" from backups but that will not really help you as the whole home directory will still be backed up completely as an encrypted sparse bundle.

Similar Messages

Time Machine and Upgrading to SL

Hello all,
Sorry for the amateur questions, but I'm looking for some guidance on using Time Machine when upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard on my mid-2009 MBP.
I tried upgrading to SL months ago when it first came out. I did not use Time Machine at that time, because I did not want to reformat my external drive and risk losing all my files (music, videos, documents, etc. - I had just switched to Mac from PC). As a result, I lost some stuff when I upgraded (iTunes purchases, some applications, calendars, contacts, etc.). I had back ups of the important stuff on my external, so no real harm done - just a moderate inconvenience. But SL caused some major lagging when playing iTunes or using the internet so I downgraded back to Leopard, again losing the same sort of material along the way. This time Apple would not restore my iTunes purchases, so I was a little more bitter about it. The computer has been running great back on Leopard, but now I want to try upgrading again. I'm hoping to do a clean install, erasing the hard drive, etc. to avoid glitchy or lagging operation - and this time, without losing all my stuff. So here I go, a few basic questions:
1. If I use Time Machine to back up my data before the upgrade, will I be able to restore it to SL and use it just like before? If so, will that include all my iTunes purchases, contacts and applications, etc.?
2. I keep copies of all my videos and music in separate folders on my external hard drive. Will using Time Machine make this redundant? Can I delete those duplicate files for space?
3. How difficult is a clean install? If I have a Time Machine back up on my external, and I follow the on-screen instructions, will I be okay?
Thanks very much in advance for any help!

1. You can use Migration Assistant to migrate your Home folder, third-party applications, network prefs, etc. from your backup. The Setup Assistant will provide the option post-installation if you do a clean install - erase the drive then install SL.
Alternatively, you can simply upgrade from Leopard so you don't need to restore anything from a backup. If you upgrade install then be sure you have done the following first:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. TM is not a storage utility nor can you simply access files as you would on your external drive. TM is an incremental backup system. If you wish to keep your data on a separate drive, then continue to do so. Get a separate drive to use exclusively for your TM backups. That drive needs to have about twice the capacity of the drive or drives backed up. You can use TM to backup the data on your external drive as well as on the internal drive. Backups are never redundant, but redundant backups can prevent data loss.
3. A clean install is simple - erase the drive then install. Since we have no way to know how things are now, there's no way to know if you will "be okay."

How do I make a back up on Time Machine before upgrading to Mountain Lion?

A detailed process would be greatly appreciated. I've heard I should use time machine before upgrading to Mountain Lion for reasons I cannot remember.
Thanks!

Connect an external drive to your Mac. Open Disk Utility, it is in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder, and see if the external is formated Mac Extended (Journaled) and if it is not you can either use the Partition tab to Re-partition it as one partition and format it Mac Extended (Journaled) or you can use the Erase tab to Erase the drive and format it the Mac format. Name it anything you like.
Once that is done close Disk Utility and open System Preferences and go to the Time Machine Applet. Once that is open, If OS X doesn't ask you if you want to use that external as a TM backup disk, select "SelectBackup Disk" and select that external as a place to store backups. Then move the slider from Off to On and then TM will start the process of making a backup of your system. Once it is finished I suggest you turn it back off.

Significant slowdown of Time Machine after upgrade to Lion; indexing problem

After upgrading to Lion over the weekend I notice a significant slowdown of Time Machine processing. I assumed the first backup or two would take some time but it's been a couple of days. The process always hangs up at the "Indexing backup" stage. It takes a couple of hours to finish.
I found several threads relating to slowed down backups on Lion, most seem to hang at the "Preparing" stage (not the same symptom) but I did find some good diagnostic pointers. I installed the widget to see what kind of messages were being produced and found a few dozen "Waiting for index to be ready (100)" messages at the end of the stream. Further research - this is not a good thing :-) It seems a couple of such messages can be ok, but this many usually indicates a problem. I'm going to discount the possibility of a hardware failure because everything was perfectly fine up to the point I made the upgrade. Plus the prepare and copy seem to proceed at the expected speed (I watched the most recent cycle just to be sure).
Here is the full message log (it's still running at the moment):
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Paul%[email protected]/Paul%20DiMarzio's%20Tim e%20Capsul
Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/Paul DiMarzio's Time Capsul using URL: afp://Paul%[email protected]/Paul%20DiMarzio's%20Tim e%20Capsul
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Paul DiMarzio's Time Capsul/Paul DiMarzio’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
12.15 GB required (including padding), 490.69 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
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I further found the advice and instructions on how to run the disk utility on the sparsebundle. I did a verify and repair, and the results came back that the drive appears to be ok (it did not say that it explicitly repaired anything).
But the problem remains.
I use a 1TB Time Capsule with plenty of free capacity (only half full). The TC and my MacBook are both hardwired into the home network, networking speed has never been an issue.
I'd sure hate to delete the backup file and start from scratch, there's over a year's worth of data there and I have, occassionally, wanted to go in there and pick up a downlevel or subsequently deleted file.
Any advice on other diagnostics or repair options to take? Thanks!
Paul

After posting I decided to keep trying to slog my way through the troubleshooting guide. Some of the steps are beyond my understanding but I did follow the advice in #D2 to delete the .Spotlight-V100 file from the sparsebundle. That action does seem to have done the trick, the backups are now completing in normal time. I ran a couple just to be sure. I've verified the backups with BackupLoupe and entered the Time Machine, all appears to be in order and as expected. The only odd side effect is that the backup volume is no longer ejected after completion but that might just be an artifact of all my mounting/de-mounting and playing with Finder. Anyway a very small price to pay for what looks to be a working system again.
Hopefully the good behavior will last through a few days and a few reboots :-)
ps - if you're reading this and don't know about the troublshooting guide it's here: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html (thanks pondini)

Time Machine and Upgrade to Lion

At our office we have a Mac mini Model A1347. It was running Snow Leopard. We went to do some updates and the computer started to lag really bad. We ended up booting in Safe Mode only to find that Disk Utility said the ServerHD drive was failing.
So we replace both drives and now I am trying to figure out what to do. We can´t find our install disks for Snow Leopard. We were wanting to upgrade to Lion so can I:
install Lion
download the Server App from the Appstore
Restore from Time Machine backup
then have everything running ok, or will the upgrade to Lion mess up our Server settings we had before?
Thanks for your help!

Your network drive isn't compatible with Lion. See #C16 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Cannot restore from Time Machine since upgrade to 10.7.3

I am using a Mac Mini (Mid 2010) using the 2nd HD for backups of Time Machine.
Yesterday, the Mac could not start up and always stop at the First Aid panel (which contains i) an option for restoring from time machine, ii) reinstall Lion, iii) help online ... Whenever I choose restore from backups, the Mac was frozen at the multiple language choice panel. So, I have to reinstall OS Lion. It's successful. Then I restore from backups in 2nd HD and the strange thing happens. It doesn't matter what version of backup I choose, it appears that the contents in my wiki is updated only to March 2012. When I browse the Time Machine, it's really a surprise that I update 10.7.3 by the end of March 2012. Since then, despite the fact that the backups run regularly and backups versions appear in Time Machine, the contents of my wiki (which is added and modified everyday) are not updated. All backups under 10.7.2 are okay.
Can anyone know about this problem?
Best regards,

Well, I know about the problem but do not know a solution I am afraid. I had the same problem where the wiki, calendar and addressbook were a couple of months old after a restore from time machine two weeks ago. I did not relate this to the upgrade to 10.7.3, but that could easily be the case. I never did time machine restores before.
I was able to restore calendars from client side time machine backups (a lot of work), but the wiki I could not restore to an up-to-date version. My guess is that files were restored correctly, but not the postgresql databases. So I started to make daily backups from postgresql myself now. This post helped me with that:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/17008934#17008934
Another thing I started doing was creating a bootable clone on a usb disk with carbon copy cloner, which is incrementally updated twice a day now.
But I hope that Apple will fix this in an upcoming update. I would be nice if you could rely on Time Machine backups.

How can I resolve backup time machine after upgrade to Mountain Lion?

Time machine backup is "failed" and message reads: The backup disk image "/volumes/data/lynnblake's MacBookPro sparsebundle" is already in use.
I have no idea what this means or how to solve. It started after my upgrade to mountain lion.

Shut down the computer then restart it.

Time Machine after upgrade to Mountain Lion need help

Just had Apple store upgrade my iMac to Mountain Lion and I had taken my 2T external drive with me with my most recent time machine backup. I am home and hooked up the driveand in preferences it says oldest backup; and latest backup none. The drive doesn't show up on my desktop. I thought they were going t be sure all was working.

Now I know why I was nervous about doing this myself - the power cord wasn't plugged in all the way. It seems to be backing up now. It says 228 GB of 2 TB available - backing up 2.22 of 13.33 GB - oldest backup none - is this just an incremental backup and are all of my old backups still there. This is one of the main reasons I went to the store for the install of Lion as I was concerned about my computer being completely backed up first. The assured me the time machine backup was all I needed. I guess I need reassurance right now.

Time Machine after upgrade to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard

Hi,
I upgraded my Macbook pro to Mountain Lion yesterday from Snow Leopard. I just did the upgrade over the top of snow leopard so all of my apps and documents are exactly as they were (right down to the wallpaper)
However, there is a problem with time machine.
Time Machine no longer automatically backups to the drive I had been using for my snow leopard backups (I assume this is because I have changed operating systems).
How can i continue to use this drive for time machine?
Can I just select it again and will it retain my existing snow leopard backups?
Or do I need to format it?
Cheers guys.

Thank you, so that will retain my existing snow leopard backups and just start making new mountain lion backups? (There is more than 1TB of available space on the drive still)

Server randomly unavailable for Time Machine after upgrading to 10.5.7

My MacMini server has file sharing permanently on. Since upgrading to 10.5.7 (not the server edition) it seems to stop being available at about 4 PM every day. I notice this as Time Machine stops working (it backs up to the server).
If I link to the server with Screen Sharing or Remote Desktop I can see and access it. If I however try to contact it via any sharing method it does not show.
A restart fixes it for the rest of the day. (BTW server starts at 06.00 and shuts down at 23.00)
Any idea how to fix this?

I did and I could find nothing hat I could relate. however I keep finding blocks of the below and am not sure as to what it could mean and if it could be the culprit. FYI I have a quicktime process running all the time on the server.
Jun 26 12:09:22 861 /Applications/QuickTime Player.app/Contents/MacOS/QuickTime Player[216]: _RemoveTimeTask(), the current time manager task 0x2a959c being removed is also currently executing its tmAddr routine, so unexpected things may result ( Radar #4555679 ).
Jun 26 12:12:37 861 /Applications/QuickTime Player.app/Contents/MacOS/QuickTime Player[216]: DTUninstall(), the current deferred task 0x2a9614 being removed is also currently executing its dtAddr routine, so unexpected things may result ( Radar #4555679 ).
Jun 26 12:30:38 861 /Applications/QuickTime Player.app/Contents/MacOS/QuickTime Player[216]: DTUninstall(), the current deferred task 0x2a9614 being removed is also currently executing its dtAddr routine, so unexpected things may result ( Radar #4555679 ).
Jun 26 12:31:17 861 /Applications/QuickTime Player.app/Contents/MacOS/QuickTime Player[216]: DTUninstall(), the current deferred task 0x2a9614 being removed is also currently executing its dtAddr routine, so unexpected things may result ( Radar #4555679 ).

Cannot eject USB HDD that is being used for Time Machine after upgrading to Lion

After upgrading to Lion from SL, I have had only one issue. Amazing! Great job Apple with making the process smooth, but my issue is this. Ever since the upgrade, I cannot eject the external USB HDD that I use for Time Machine. I get the following error:
The disk "Time Machine" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it. To eject the disk immediately, click the Force Eject button. There is the little spinning fan and the message "Trying to eject" and then the fan disappears and where it said, "To eject the disk immediately..." it now says "You can try to eject the disk again or click Force Eject to eject it immediately." I can click Force Eject and it will work, but seems like there is an issue that needs to be addressed. Any thoughts anyone?

Ok, I think there's a slightly better way, but try this:
Open the Terminal app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Be very careful with this app. It's a direct link into UNIX, the underpinnings of OSX, but without the protections of OSX.
In Terminal, the prompt looks like this: <Computer Name>:~ <your name>$
(where <your name> is your short user name). It's followed by a non-blinking block cursor.
Copy the following after the prompt:
lsof |grep
and leave a space. Then drag the Backups.backupdb folder on the TM drive from a Finder window into the Terminal window (Terminal will convert that into a "path").
Press Return.
You should get a list of geeky stuff; but the first thing on the next line should be the process that's using the drive (Finder in the sample), followed by another prompt:

Losing connection to time machine since upgrading to snow leopard

My wife's mac mini has routinely started saying 'no connection available' since we upgraded to snow leopard. It also keeps asking for the network password, which it has never done before on my time machine. I thought it was a fluke with the mini, till my macbook started doing the same thing.
Please have someone look at the issue between the dual band time capsule and snow leopard.
Thanks.

You're not talking to Apple here -- this is a user-to user forum.
Try just re-selecting the Time Capsule in TM Preferences. If that doesn't help, try restarting both the Macs and the TC.
To contact Apple directly, call AppleCare at (800-275-2273), or make an appointment at the Genius Bar at your local Apple store, and take your TC and one or both Macs along.
This appears to be a Time Capsule problem, not a Time Machine problem, so you'll probably do better in the +Time Capsule+ forum, hiding in the +Digital Life+ section, at: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1253

Cannot enter Time Machine after upgrading from Snow Leopard

Hi all,
I've had Lion installed for a few days now and am enjoying the changes to OSX.
Last night I wanted to delete a few redundant files out of my TimeMachine backup and found I could not open the application at all.
I can still backup to Time Machine successfully (so it indicates with preparing, backing up progress (xGB of yGB), finishing, etc). So for the last few days everything appeared to be functioning as expected until last night, when I tried to enter Time Machine.
My specs:
iMac (Oct 2010), 4GB, 1TB, 3.6GHz, backing up to a WD My Passport Essential (1TB) via USB 2.0 (25% full)
I can see the destination drive (and its contents) on my desktop, via Finder and can select it via TimeMachine System Preferences (Select drive). There are no issues 'seeing' or accessing the drive in normal use.
Trying to open the Time Machine application, I have tried via the TimeMachine icon in the TitleBar (ie 'Enter Time Machine'), via Mission Control (double-clicking on Time Machine), typing 'Time Machine' into Spotlight and selecting it from the resulting list, but in all scenarios, nothing happens. Nothing at all. And yet I can backup to Time Machine without a hitch.
I have seen a number of online conversations about the AFP spec having been changed by Apple and third party periphial manufacturers being slow to comply, but using USB, I'm not sure this applies to my case? I have used Macs at home for 8 years and have never heard of AFP until now... So I don't really know if I am impacted by this or not (don't think so).
There have been some troubleshooting solutions involving identifying and deleting the com.apple.timemachine.plist from the Library/Preferences folder (going from memory here) which I did (had to use PathFinder to find the file).
Unfortunately that did not help and Time Machine still refuses to open. There are no errors appearing as a result of trying to open TimeMachine. I have checked the Console, but nothing obvious appears there. I have read others are prompted with an error about AFP, but I get no such error. I can copy files to the drive okay so I can't see how it is the drive. Just Time Machine not wanting to play...
Can anyone suggest anything?
I do have Snow Leopard SuperDupered to another 320GB WD drive if I need to go back, but I don't really want to if I can help it...
Thanks,
Alex Makin

Well finally, after 2 days of trying to work out what was the issue, I have resolved the problem.
Its very strange given that I can successfully back up but not restore, as described in my original post.
One thing I neglected to mention was the fact I had set up my Time Machine backup to use 'sparsebundles'. This allows me to have the external drive plugged into my Airport Extreme and use much like Time Capsule.
It didn't seem relevant at the time since I could backup successfully (and still now, I can't understand why Time Machine knows where to back up to, but doesn't know where to restore from).
I didn't have the Time Machine icon sitting in my dock (never needed to since if I need to restore, I access TM from the TitleBar icon). So in putting the TM app in the dock I played a little around with it by clicking it (as you would normally for any other app in the dock) and eventually held down the mouse key to bring up the menu. Tried 'Enter Time Machine' a couple of times without luck, before trying a menu item along the lines of "Try another backup destination' and voila!! Time Machine opens, animated stars, vertical time line, etc.
Well hang on now... Why the heck can't TM have worked this out already?? Why do I need to look somewhere else for my Time Machine backup, when I've already told TM (in System Preferences) where the backup is?
Pretty darn odd, but there you have it. It was there the whole time, but according to TM, it wasn't...
I still have to select the menu item 'Try another backup destination' each time I want to enter TM, but at least I know where to find it...
I'm assumming its the sparsebundles setting (which I'm sticking with), but at least I know its not my iMac, its not the hard drive, its not Lion (well, it sort of is as Snow Leopard knew where to find it...)
Alex Makin

After restore from Time Machine Software Upgrade is not working.....

After I restored my complete system from Time Machine, some parts of it is not working and announcing problem to start, e.g. Software Update, My Day from Office 2008....what should I do?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
First, are you running Leopard or Snow Leopard? Your settings at the bottom of your post say Snow Leopard, but this is the +Leopard > Time Machine+ forum, so I'm not sure which is right.
Did you do the full system restore, starting by booting from your OSX disc? If not, what exactly did you do?
Exactly what is wrong with Software Update? What happens, or doesn't happen?

Can't backup in time machine or upgrade to Maverick or Yosemite, can I still transfer via thunderbolt?

I have a macbook pro 17 inch, Mid 2010 OSX 10.8.5. I currently have no back up as both my previous seagate and now my Lacie external drives won't back it up with the time machine. I get a box stating an error occurred and it quits after about 10GBs. In addition, the laptop fails to install Maverick and Yosemite when I have attempted to install them. For work I have just got a 15 inch Macbook Pro Retina. I obviously need all the data and files from my old laptop, if I were to transfer all the programs etc, would it likely transfer the problem that stops my computer from backing up? or is it more likely a hard drive problem and won't affect the new laptop?
I have followed trouble shoot and looked at previous posts but haven't been able to find a solution. Also I have gone on disk utility and verified the disk and all is fine there, so I am unsure what the problem is.
Ideally I can get working on the new 15" soon but I don't want to transfer over any problems.
Thanks

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console 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 and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Loss of Exclusions in Time Machine on Upgrade to 10.6.1

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