Restore impossible with Yosemite Time Machine

I usually never have a problem backing up or restoring and rarely have to do anthying by make sure Time Machine runs and completes.
However, I may have gotten lax and not checked it yet after upgrading to Yosemite the other day.
When I try to open Time Machine by clicking the Time Machine icon -> Enter Time Machine
it immediately comes back with the popup - "Can't connect to a current Time Machine backup disk.
When I click OK it looks like it tries to bring up the interface but fails and just brings up a finder window.
The Time Machine disk is up, accessible and has space in it ... roughly 8TB total, 7TB used and 1 TB free.
The Time Machine disk Backups.backupdb is inaccessible and has the red minus sign on it.
I'm scared to change any permissions or and none of the other questions asked about this here have
any suggestions that have worked yet.
Is there a bug with Time Machine under Yosemite, and if so when will it be fixed?
Is there a workaround?
Should I open the permissions on the Backups.backupdb, and to what?
Has anyone gotten TM to work under Yosemite, or figured out what's in common with we who have this problem?
If it's permissions that does not seem to serious.
Everything else on the system seems to be working OK.

Try E4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Similar Messages

Restore Iphoto with TimeCapsule/Time Machine error

I removed unfortunately the iphoto library. Now I did try to restore it with timemachine and timecapsule. It starts to restore but stops at 1.5Gb from the 20Gb. *The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access iPhoto Library* I also tried to manually restore from the timecapsule but get the same error. I also restored user right in diskutil but with no luck.
Does somebody knows the answer. This question I can find several times on the internet but no solution.

How big is your TM drive and how big is your internal drive?
The general recommendation I've seen is for the TM drive to be at least 2 1/2 times the size of the main drive.
LN

HT201250 My hard drive had to be replaced. I am restoring it with my time machine back up, but it is still (after 30 minutes) "looking for other sources" is this normal?

My hard drive was replaced. I am using time machine to restore. It is about 40 minutes into the procedure and the computer is still "looking for other sources" is this normal?

First go to iPhoto Preferences, look in both General and Advanced tabs to make sure that things are set to import from camera into iPhoto.
Then if that doesn't help, connect the camera and open Image Capture in your Applications > Utilities folder and see if you can use Image Capture to reset the import path from the camera to iPhoto.
Image Capture: Free import tool on Mac OS X - Macgasm
Message was edited by: den.thed
Sorry John, I didn't see your post when I clicked the reply button. Dennis

Help with restoring Address Book from Time Machine

Problem: I really, really need to retrieve someone's number. I know it'll be in an old version of my Address Book. I can see when I open time Machine that my address book is backed up, but no matter the date I go to, it says the Address Book was last modified in 2012! I know for a fact I've updated (and backed up) the Address Book many times since then.
Whenever I try to restore the Address Book, I do Time Machine > Applications > Address Book > 'restore'. But whenever I do this, the mac refuses to open the restored Address Book because it's 'required by mac OS X'.
I don't understand.
Please, how on earth do I dredge my Address Book from the depths of Time Machine?
Please help!
M

Hello mb9236,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with restoring a contact from Time Machine.
It sounds like you are trying to restore the Address Book application. The Address Book application is just the application and does not include the content in Address Book.
Instead, you will want to open Address Book and then launch Time Machine and restore your contacts from there. Use the steps below to restore your contacts form a previous date (in step one instead of opening Mail or Finder, be sure you have Address Book open and in focus):
If you use Time Machine to back up your computer, you can easily bring back one or more items you’ve lost, or recover older versions of files you’ve changed.
Open a window for the item you want to restore. For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock, or open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine. If you back up to a Time Capsule or other network disk, a message briefly appears while Time Machine connects your computer to the backup disk.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the snapshots and backups Time Machine created. Gray tick marks on the timeline represent snapshots stored on your internal drive (portable computers only). Pink tick marks represent backups stored on your backup disk.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it. The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, and then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk. The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
You can use Time Machine from within many applications. For example, you can open Address Book and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to recover contacts you may have accidentally deleted, or open iPhoto and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to view past versions of your iPhoto albums.
OS X Lion: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH4256
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Cannot restore a mailbox from Time Machine

On the recent Yosemithe I cannot restore a mailbox from my Time Machine backup. I proceed exactly as described in the Mail (Yosemite): Restore mailboxes and their content article. However, nothing happens after the process window completes. The restored content does not appear anywhere.
Any ideas?

Although you can restore messages from a Time Machine snapshot within the Mail application, it generally won't work with messages that were saved by an obsolete version of Mail. In that case, you have to use an alternative method.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
          Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open. Inside it are subfolders representing your Mail accounts. The names refer to the email addresses you use.
Enter Time Machine and scroll back to the snapshot you want. Select the account folders you want and then select Restore ... to... from the action menu (gear icon) in the toolbar of the snapshot window. Restore the folders to the Desktop, not to their original location.
From the Mail menu bar, select
          File ▹ Import Mailboxes...
Choose Apple Mail as the format and import from the mailboxes in the folders you restored to the Desktop. The imported messages will appear in a new mailbox. Move the ones you want to keep wherever you like and delete the rest. Then delete the folders on the Desktop.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Restore contact groups from time machine

We have had enormous problems restoring contacts from a TIme Machine backup. Does anyone know how to do this so that it works?
1. All contact data disappeared. We still don't know why
2. Opening the contacts program and then opening Time Machine allowed me to restore all contacts but not the contact groups
3. Resptoring Username/Library/ Appication Support/ Address Book failed repeatedly because OSX kept recreating the Address Book folder with Configuration.plist in it before the restore took place. This obstructed the restore process
4. After checking the user groups we turned off iCloud. OSX still kept on recreating Configuration.plist making it impossible to complete the estore from TIme Machine
5. The process that worked (below) is very messy and demands a very quick hand. Please can someone tell me that there is a better and more foolproof method than this:
5.1 Disconnect Contacts from iCloud and Shut the Contacts Application
5.2 Delete Username/Library/Application Support/Address Book
5.3 Restore the Address Book folder from Time machine to a different location
5.4 Rename the restored Address Book folder to "Address Book 2"
5.5 Move Address Book 2 into the Application support folder
5.6 Select Address Book - you've just deleted it but OSX will have put it back. Press Get Info
5.7 Select Address Book 2 (the one you have restored from Time Machine) and press Get Info
5.8 Quickly before OSX has time to think using the two Get Info windows rename Address Book to Address Book Old and IMMEDIATEY rename Address Book 2 to Address Book
5.9 If you are lucky / fast enough the restored Address Book will now be there when you open Contacts
6. I have not yet checked to see what happens when we reconnect to iCloud. According to another user group post we may have to
6.1 Export the (now correctly restored) Address book
6.2 reconnect to iCloud
6.3 Delete all the contacts
6.4 Reimport the exported address book
Please someone tell me there is a better way than this. When it works Time Machine is marvellous. But this isn't how it is meant to be
Many thanks
Julian

With Mail in the foreground and the browser window showing, enter Time Machine. Scroll back to a snapshot that contains the messages you want to restore. Select them, then click the Restore button in the lower right corner of the screen.

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on what other external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and how to configure that disk

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on
what other
external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and
how to configure that disk.
A complication that I need to resolve is the fact that I am using Vmware
Fusion to be able to use Windows on my Mac. Now it seems that Time
Machine is not backing up my files
on that virtual Windows without additional configuration and my question
is whether you can advise me here or whether this is only a matter for
the Fusion virtual machine.

If you want to use Time Capsule you can.. you simply bridge it and plug it into the existing router.. wireless can be either turned off or used to reinforce the existing wireless.. eg use 5ghz in the TC which is much faster than your 2.4ghz.
You can also use a NAS.. many brands available but the top brands are synology, qnap and netgear readynas series. These will all do Time Machine backups although how well always depends on Apple sticking to a standard. There are cheaper ones.. I bought a single disk zyxel which was rebadged and sold through my local supermarket. It actually works very well for TM at least on Snow Leopard. Major changes were made in Lion and again ML so do not instantly think it will work on later versions. I haven't tried it yet with those versions.
Any external drive can be plugged into the mac. Use the one with the fastest connection or cheapest price according to your budget. USB2 drives are cheap and plentiful. But no where near as fast as USB3 or FW800. So just pick whichever suits the ports on your Mac. Interesting Apple finally moved to USB3 on their latest computers.
TM should exclude the VM partition file.. it is useless backing it up from Mac OS side.. and will slow TM as it needs to backup that partition everyday for no purpose.. TM cannot see the files inside it to backup just the changes.
You need to backup windows from windows. Use MSbackup to external drive.. if you have pro or ultimate versions you can backup to network drive. But MSbackup is a dog.. at least until the latest version it cannot restore the partition without first loading windows. There are about a zillion backup software versions for windows.. look up reviews and buy one which works for you. I use a free one Macrium Reflect which does full disk backups and is easy to restore.. to do incremental backups though you have to pay for it.

I just had my hard drive replaced and restored everything from a Time Machine external hard drive backup and now my "note" widgets won't load. Any ideas ?

I just had my hard drive replaced. I restored it using a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. When I open Dashboard none of my "note" widgets will load. The other widgets open, such as weather, weather radar, calculater, dictionary, stock... Even the iPhoto Mini widget works, just not the notes ( Sticky Notes and K-Notes ). Any ideas on how to fix this ?

I did some research and found the solution to my problem. So I hope it's okay to answer my own question.
When you reinstall the OS, your Preferences go back to their default settings. Apparently Preferences is where this widget information is stored. This Preferences folder is located in the user Library folder which is hidden by default. You can access it using "one, or the other" of the following actions.
Action 1:      (1) In the Finder, choose Go > Go To Folder
                     (2) In the Go To Folder dialog, type ~/Library
                     (3) Click Go
                                                      -- OR --
Action 2:     Hold down the option (alt) key when using the Go menu. The Library folder is listed just                            below the Home folder.
After opening the Preferences folder, the file that you want to locate for k-notes is named
widget-com.rakoth.lichlord.widget.k-notes.plist
After you locate it make note of the byte size of the file. Now, with the Preferences folder still open, open Time Machine and go back in time until you see a big jump in the file size. That will be your uncorrupted plist. Restore it and close Time Machine.
Then Restart your computer.
After following this procedure I brought up Dashboard and my blank k-notes were now refilled with the previous text and color that occupied them before I had to restore the OS.
This procedure also worked for Sticky notes, which in the Preference folder are named
widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist

How do i restore my computer using time machine to how it was a few days ago?

I installed Maverick. It was not a horrid idea but I cannot sync my iphone and ipad mail/contacts etc except through icloud. And that just doesn't work for me. The solution seems to be to restore my HD to its state prior to when i installed Maverick. But that was a few days ago. Luckily, I do have Time Machine. Things are backed up, but I am a little unclear how I go about restoring to a previous incarnation of the harddrive, rather than the current one. When I got a new HD it was easy, just plugged it in and TM transferred everything. But I don't want to transfer the current version, I want the version from a few days ago. How do I do this?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
To restore a Time Machine backup, hold Command and R keys while your MacBook Pro is starting up to start up in OS X Recovery. Then, plug the external drive with the Time Machine backups, and choose the option to restore a Time Machine backup.
It will let you choose which backup you want to restore, so select it and follow its steps. The hard drive will be erased

Had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I rest

I had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I restarted the computer and tried again to run Photoshop and the same error message appeared. The message was followed by a message that stated that I needed to contact Adobe technical support and mention Error: 150.30. I need Adobe technical support to provide me a solution for my problem so I can continue using my Adobe products installed on my computer.

Unfortunately when Adobe products are restored from backup, especial CS4 and especially Mac, it breaks licensing.
There is a python script included in the license recovery kit that should work if you are familiar with Terminal.
If not, you must reinstall your CS4 suite. You don't need to delete your preferences, so it should be the same as before.
Error "Licensing has stopped working" | Mac OS
Gene

Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
Q: Can I restore my Macs’ entire system, and how is Time Machine involved?
A: Yes, you have several options, each involving increasing degrees of severity. In all cases Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) will be required as previous OS X versions do not work with Time Machine backups. Naturally, all of these methods will require a significant amount of time, so plan accordingly.
*Archive & Install*
An Archive and Install is the least invasive of the 3 methods. This approach results in a fresh copy of the Mac OS system software while at the same time preserving all current user accounts on your Mac. Additionally, this method will permit Time Machine to continue backing up to the same set of backups it did prior to the installation.
Procedure:
Verify that your Mac has uninterrupted AC power.
Turn “OFF” Time Machine in the Preferences.
Insert your original Mac OS 10.5 Leopard DVD and reboot while holding down the “C” key.
At the “Welcome” screen click “Continue”.
At “Select a Destination” choose your Macs’ hard disk.
Click “Options” in the lower left.
Choose “Archive and Install”.
Ensure that “Preserve Users and Network Settings” is checked.
Click “OK”.
Back at the “Select a Destination” screen click “Continue”.
At “Install Summary” click “Install”.
Once the installation is complete, use Software Update to bring your Mac up to date.
Next, Launch Disk Utility, select your Macs’ internal disk on the left, and click “Repair Disk Permissions”.
During this initial period, Spotlight is going to re-index your Mac’ hard disk. This can take up to several of hours depending upon the volume of data. Allow it to complete before resuming Time Machine backups. You can monitor its’ progress by clicking on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar.
During the installation a new folder was created at the root level of your hard disk labeled “Previous Systems”. These are all the system files that were just replaced with fresh copies. If you are comfortable, you can delete this folder right away. Otherwise, wait a week or so incase there is something you wish to retrieve, then delete it.
Finally, turn Time Machine back “ON” in the Preferences. Time Machine should continue to backup to the same set of backups that it did prior to the Archive & Install. However, due to the extensive changes to the systems’ directories, the first backup will require a lengthy session of “Preparing...” as Time Machine performs a “deep traversal”. Allow this to proceed uninterrupted. Naturally, this first backup may be a significant one, perhaps involving several GB of data, so attempting this wirelessly will require time and patience.
*”Restore System From Backup...”*
If however, your system has experienced a serious malfunction, or a Mac OS software update has produced undesirable behavior, you can perform a full system restore from your Time Machine backups. This will result in a system virtually identical to the OS environment that existed on the date of the backup you choose to restore from. All system software, applications, and user accounts will be replaced with copies as they existed when that backup took place. The advantage here is that, generally, no further installation of 3rd-party software is required and all of your personal & system settings a preserved. The disadvantage is that because you retain your personal settings and system files, you run the risk of reintroducing any problems you experienced with the previous installation, including issues that necessitated the full restore in the first place.
Naturally, the time and date you choose to restore from can make a significant difference in the state of your resulting OS environment. Choosing the most recent date from which to restore is most desirable. If, however, one or more Time Machine backups occurred after you began experiencing issues with your system, then going farther back in time to restore from will be more advantageous. Files created or modified after you began experiencing system issues may later be recovered via Time Machines’ “time travel” interface (“Browse other Time Machine disk...”).
Unfortunately, restoring your system by this means will result in Time Machine abandoning previous backup sets and beginning a new set. So verify ahead of time that you have enough space on your backup drive for another full backup. Alternatively, once the full restore is complete, you can delete the old backups to free space on the drive. Or you can begin backups on a different hard disk while retaining the older backups until you are satisfied that the current set have accumulated enough history.
Procedure:
Verify that your Mac has uninterrupted AC power.
For faster installation, Time Capsule/AirDisk users should connect their Macs directly to their Airport device via ethernet.
Insert your original Mac OS 10.5 Leopard DVD and reboot while holding down the “C” key.
At the “Welcome” screen go up to the “Utilities” menu and select “Restore System From Backup…”.
The “Restore Your System” window reminds you that this procedure will erase all data on your Macs internal hard disk. Click “Continue”.
At “Select a Backup Source” choose your Time Machine backup disk and click “Continue”. (If the backup disk you are restoring from is a network drive then click “Connect to Remote Disk”. Next, choose the disk image from which the restore will be drawn from and click “Continue”.)
At “Select a Backup” choose from which set of backups you would like to “Restore From” in the drop-down menu. (If your backup drive only has one set, this will be grayed out.)
Next, highlight the date and Mac OS X version from which you would like to restore.
Click “Continue”.
At “Select a Destination” choose your Macs’ internal hard disk. Give the installer time while it calculates the space required for the restore. When ready click “Restore”.
Confirm your desire to erase the drive by clicking “Continue”.
Obviously, this will take quite some time. But when the installer finally announces it has finish, click “Restart”.
After logging in, immediately go to System Preferences --> Time Machine, and turn “OFF” backups, even if a backup attempted has begun.
Next, Launch Disk Utility, select your Macs’ internal disk on the left, and click “Repair Disk Permissions”.
During this initial period, Spotlight is going to re-index your Mac’ hard disk. This can take up to several of hours depending upon the volume of data. Allow it to complete before resuming Time Machine backups. You can monitor its’ progress by clicking on the Spotlight icon in the menu bar.
Finally, turn Time Machine back “ON” in the Preferences. Time Machine should continue to backup to the same set of backups that it did prior to the restore. However, due to event logs being out of sync, the first backup will require a lengthy session of “Preparing...” as Time Machine performs a “deep traversal”. Allow this to proceed uninterrupted. Additionally, the subsequent backup may be quite substantial involving many GB of data, but don’t be alarmed.
Your system has now been restored to virtually the same state it was in on the date of the backup you chose. (See this article for a list of files that TM does not restore, http://shiftedbits.org/2007/10/31/time-machine-exclusions/)
*Erase, Install, & Migrate*
A final option, reserved for last resort, is to erase the hard disk, install a fresh copy of the Mac OS, and then use Migration Assistant during the installation to restore your user accounts. This is the Mac equivalent of ‘Slash and Burn’, and really should only be necessary if you require a completely fresh start.
Procedure:
Verify that your Mac has uninterrupted AC power.
For faster migration of user data, Time Capsule/AirDisk users should connect their Macs directly to their Airport device via ethernet.
Insert your original Mac OS 10.5 Leopard DVD and reboot while holding down the “C” key.
At the “Welcome” screen click “Continue”.
Click “Agree” to the user agreement.
Select you Macs internal hard disk and click “Options”.
Select “Erase and Install”.
Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” for disk format. (Avoid selecting “Case-sensitive” unless you know what you are doing.)
Click “OK”.
Click “Continue”.
At “Install Summary” click “Customize” if you would like to eliminate certain Print Drivers, Fonts, or Language packages from being installed. Otherwise, click “Install”.
If you wish, you can click “Skip” when the DVD integrity check begins.
After the initial installation completes, your Mac will restart and you will see the video introduction.
At “Welcome” select your country and then preferred keyboard.
At “Do You Already Own a Mac?” you are asked “Would you like to transfer your information?”
+from another Mac+
+from another volume on this Mac+
+from a Time Machine backup+
+Do not transfer my information now+
Select “from a Time Machine backup” and click “Continue”.
At “Select a Backup Volume” choose your Time Machine backup disk and click “Continue”. (If you are attempting the migration wirelessly, then click “Join...” and select your network first.)
At “Transfer Your Information” check all the categories you wish to migrate over. If you wish your Mac to be in the same state as your last backup, then check everything. Give the installer time to calculate sizes.
Once that is complete, the “Transfer” button will become active and you can click it.
After the install, verify the registration information, click “Connect” and you are done.
After logging in, immediately go to System Preferences --> Time Machine, and turn “OFF” backups, even if a backup attempted has begun.
Next, Launch Disk Utility, select your Macs’ internal disk on the left, and click “Repair Disk Permissions”.
Interestingly, no Spotlight indexing appears necessary, so, once the permission repair is complete, turn Time Machine back “ON” in the Preferences. Time Machine should continue to backup to the same set of backups that it did prior to the restore. However, due to event logs being out of sync, the first backup will require a lengthy session of “Preparing...” as Time Machine performs a “deep traversal”. Allow this to proceed uninterrupted. Naturally, the first backup after a significant installation like this will be quite large so don’t be alarmed.
Do you want to provide feedback on this User Contributed Tip or contribute your own? If you have achieved Level 2 status, visit the User Tips Library Contributions forum for more information.

Beardpapa wrote:
-I popped in a laptop hd I had lying around while waiting for the RMA replacement on the dead one, and did a remote restore in Snow Leopard Dvd utility using my latest TM backup (used mount_afp afp://user:pw@host/ etc etc etc in terminal).
Did you do a full system restore, per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum)?
If so, everything should have been restored, just like they say, unless things were excluded from Time Machine (there's some very bad advice about that on the internet).
All the things you describe are in +*<home folder>/Library/Preferences.+* If you used +Migration Assistant+ instead, you may have an extra user account, that has the restored preferences.
-I also looked over at the User Tips post by Glenn Carter on Restoring Your Entire System / Time Machine.
That applies to Leopard only.

Having issues with my Time Machine backups...

my mid-2009 MacBook Pro seems to be having an issue with time machine.
I have an external, 1TB western digital harddrive that I used for my backups. it's about a year old. last weekend I took the harddrive with me on a trip - I kept it inside it's own neoprene case that was in my backpack for the entire weekend. the drive functioned without issue afterwards for almost a week.
then, last Friday, it wouldn't complete a backup. I wasn't sure what the issue was so I (foolishly) erased the drive and just began again as a new TM. now it's still having issues backing up.
I've tried repairing the disk permissions of my internal drive, and that actually seemed to help the TM complete a backup.
usually it will just stop backing up, and sit there for ages without doing anything. I choose "skip this backup" in order to end it, and then try to force another backup right after. the problem, then, is that it will start but won't do much after it reaches 4kb backed up or 23kb. that's not a typo - it really says kilobytes!!
not sure what the issue is at all, or how I can fix it. I have completed a backup since I erased the drive, but it's doesn't seem to want to carry on with regularly scheduled backups.
is it an issue with the time machine harddrive, or something deeper with my computer? are the backups that I have done safe? as I said, I was able to perform an initial backup after I erased the drive... if I end up replacing this computer, will I still be able to restore from the back up?

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. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
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.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
☞ 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.

How do i restore photos after a time machine restore

I have had to restore my macbook pro with a time machine backup & all of the photos from iphoto are not veiwable ..Is there something i can do before i lose my photos to get them back ????

click here and scroll down to restoring via iPhoto.

Restoring hard drive from Time Machine

I was having trouble starting up my computer, the gray screen with question mark was appearing over and over after other attempts to correct it I reinstalled the start up disk and then restored my files from Time Machine. Everything seemed fine for a day then my computer was freezing up again and grey screen with question mark appeared again. Is it time to go to the apple techs? Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks,
Cindy

Cindy 2 wrote:
I did as you suggested and my computer is running but Time machine will not back up. I tried to verify disk and got an error: filesytem verify or repair failed also incorrect number of extended attributes. Do I need to reformat it somehow?
This is for your internal HD, right?
If so, you need to repair the file system, as that can cause various other problems. Insert your Leopard Install disc and start up while holding down the "C" key. This will take a few moments. Select your language, then on the next screen select Utilities from the menubar, then +Disk Utility.+ Use that to +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) on your internal HD.
Most likely, all the errors will be repaired. If not, run it again. If they still don't repair, you've got a more serious problem.
Then reboot normally.
Do a +Repair Disk+ on your Time Machine disk (you can use the version of DU in your Applications/Utilities folder for this one) to be sure there isn't trouble there, too.
Then try a +Back Up Now.+ If it fails, download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
My partition map scheme reads guid partition table, is this correct?
I don't know, since you still haven't specified what kind of Mac you have in your profile. But if your internal HD is GUID you must have an Intel Mac, and it's correct.

HT4413 What if migration assistant isn't recognizing my external hard drive with my time machine backup on it.

Tech department updated my computer to Lion and wiped it clean. I'm trying to restore my documents/photos/etc from a Snow Leopard time machine backup. When trying to use Migration Manager, when it asks for me to "Select my system," my hard drive with the time machine backup doesn't appear.

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Restore impossible with Yosemite Time Machine

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