SPOTLIGHT NOT INDEXING 10.7.5 ! TIME MACHINE SLOW !

Help,
Spotlight is not indexing after 10.7.5. update, please fisx this, it is unacceptable.
Reinstalled fresh, same result !
The problem persists on 2 MB and 1 iMac !
Cmon, Guys ! :-(

Same thing here on 3 iMacs: late 2009, mid 2010 and mid 2012. Each one froze while backing up. Started to back up shortly after upgrading to 10.7.5 then froze. I removed drive and tried with another computer --- same thing happened. After the first computer failed, I went on and repeated the process with other 2 all with the same results. Called AppleCare to let them know about problem. They said the engineers were aware of the problem. When I asked if the tech had any personal experience, he said yes with his computer. I asked how he fixed his and he said he didn't yet. So I too encourage anyone with the problem to take the time to call Apple so they understand the magnitude of this problem. I spent a total of 5 or 6 hours messing with this and finally unplugged the backup drive and will resort to drag and drop my documents folder a couple of times a week on my portable drive until they figure it out.

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Home directory is not being backed up in Time Machine

Problem: It turns out my home directory does not have any backups in Time Machine for the last year. I've never received any error message indicating it wasn't doing the full backup.
Goal: I'd like to get Time Machine to back up my home folder (which contains 100% of the content I care about) again, ideally in a way where I can keep my history from the last time it backed up successfully.
How I found out:
- I opened Time Machine and realized all the "pink bars" were dimmed all the way back up to Sept. 2011 when I navigated to my home folder or any folder within it.
- I cloned a file within my home folder, did a manual Time Machine back up, opened Time Machine and verified that the backup volume did not contain the cloned file.
- I did this again while watching the Console and verified that it did not make a large enough backup to include the cloned file.
- I explored all the backups in Finder and realized that indeed all the backups that corresponded to the dimmed pink bars in Time Machine had no home folder.
- I did an "ls -a" in the backup volume in Terminal and realized that it was not the case that the home directory was present but merely hidden.
What I've tried:
- I created a new admin account, logged into that and did a manual Time Machine backup from there. The new account was backed up, while the original home directory still wasn't. This continues to be true in subsequent backups made while logged into the main account.
- I examined the exclusions list in Time Machine preferences. The only items were the backup volume itself and another partition of that external drive I use for other backups, as expected.
- I did a "Full Reset of Time Machine" (http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html), with a reboot before re-enabling Time Machine. The plist file did change to become much simpler, but the home folder is still not being backed up.
Other notes:
- I run Dropbox, and have those contents in a folder one level under the home directory
- I run Git
- The existing backups have only used 500GB or so of a 1TB partition, so it's not filling up.
- I ran Verify Disk in Disk Utility on both my backup volume and the mac's HD. The backup volume appeared OK, but the mac HD was "found corrupt and needs to be repaired". I could boot into the Recovery HD and repair it, but I feel like this is a risk and I'd like to have a working backup before I do that (I don't have another external HD around to make a temporary backup). Could the corrupted drive be the reason Time Machine has been silently skipping the home folder?
- My home folder is named "apple". Might this be a problem? I'd rename it, but that's a risk and I'd like a verified backup before doing that.
- The Time Machine plist file in /Library/Preferences is pretty hard to read in pico, TextEdit, etc (maybe this is normal?)
I've scoured the forums and pondini's very thorough troubleshooting pages to no avail. Please let me know if anyone has ideas. Thanks.

Latest update: Bought a new external harddrive, set that up as the new Time Machine volume, but got the exact same results (all but my main user directory are backed up). This is after another Time Machine reset (deleting the .plist), starting up in Safe Mode, and trying to initiate the backup from both the account that doesn't get backed up and another administrator account.
Here is some of the output from the Console when filtering messages for "backupd":
10/5/12 2:51:23.572 AM com.apple.backupd[13529]: Backup content size: 481.57 GB excluded items size: 11.31 GB for volume Macintosh HD
10/5/12 2:51:23.572 AM com.apple.backupd[13529]: Found 1437613 files (470.25 GB) needing backup
10/5/12 2:51:23.573 AM com.apple.backupd[13529]: 564.3 GB required (including padding), 1.5 TB available
10/5/12 2:51:23.581 AM com.apple.backupd[13529]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
10/5/12 3:40:33.297 AM com.apple.backupd[13529]: Copied 763432 files (21.54 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Put the relevant parts in bold. No messages about why it only backed up 21.54GB when it found 470.25GB that needed to get backed up.
Does this make sense to anyone??

The file could not be saved in folder "Time Machine Backups"

I've tried to setup TM with several external drives (USB and Firewire) and I get the same results... the file "xxx" could not be saved in folder "Time Machine Backups". Any ideas?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
If that's exactly what the message says, it's a new one. If it's actually "An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume" or "Aborting backup because indexing a file failed," see #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If not, see #A1 there for a handy widget that shows the backup messages from your logs. Download and install it, then copy and post all the messages for one backup attempt here.

Since I upgraded to OSX 10.7 I can not browse my photos in Time Machine

since I upgraded to OSX 10.7 I can not browse my photos in Time Machine.The instructions in Help do not help.

This option was removed in v9.1.5
IPhoto menu -> Provide iPhoto Feedback

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfully use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme? Some forums say yes, some say no.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfuly use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme. Some forums say yes, some say no. I'm also curious about formatting the hard drive to work both on my wife's MacBook Pro and my PC. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

You may be going on a recollection, that I share, that at one time Apple stated this would be possible:
In fact, Apple’s Time Machine Web page touted this very capability as recently as last Tuesday, as you can see from Google’s October 16 cache of the page
Effortless meets wireless. With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.
But if you look at the current Time Machine page on Apple’s Web site, that text is nowhere to be found.
That was a long time ago, it has never been officially implemented, and at present they specifically say it cannot be done.
In summary, it may work, but probably won't, and even if it does it may not be reliable.
Reference:
Disks that can be used with Time Machine
Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme, or...
and
Mac OS X v10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks

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My backup hard drive does not have enough space for time machine to perform a back up even after erasing entire contents of bu hard drive. The hard drive has been in service for almost two years performing this function with no sign of failure. How do I adjust time machine perameters?

The only way to limit the size of the backup is to exclude data from the backup, which you can do in Time Machine preferences.
If you use multiple browsers, have you tried clearing your browser caches? However, that's just a stop gap if it works. You either need to limit what you backup or get another drive.

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?

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Notes App note being backed up by Time Machine.

I'm having issues with the new Notes application in Mountain Lion not being backed up by Time Machine. If it is being backed up then the new OS is keeping me from accessing the time stamps or backups. Normally I could just open up an application and enter into the time machine to find the stored local time stamps but the Notes screen minimizes and the finder window opens automatically keeping me from accessing stored backup of the new Notes app. Is anyone having this same issue?

Thanks a million for your assistance.
I did disconnect first the Mac from Internet and restored the contents of ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes directory. It worked like a charm as I could see again all my previous notes listed in the main window of Notes app.
The hiccup is that it only lists Icloud folders and I can't seem to find a way to create 'On My Mac' folders so that I can copy them to a local folder. The moment I turn internet on, there are automatically deleted as you rightly suspected. If I only wanted to restore them and have them on Icloud that would be just fine. In my case, I want them away from Icloud and only stored locally hence the initial decision to untick the sync with Icloud which triggered the whole havoc...we are getting close though...

I try to backup my Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt with my Time Capsule but the Lacie is not active (grey) in the Time Machine preferences. Why ?

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@LaPastenague
Morning / Afternoon.
We may have an unfair advantage in that the Internet gets here faster than it does "down there".

Spotlight search doesn't work on Time Machine after Lion

I've got a new (couple of months old) iMac that came with Snow Leopard. Since updating to Lion however, I've been unable to search for any files on my Time Machine drive (external USB connected HDD).
I've tried forcing Spotlight to re-index my external drive by adding the external drive to the Spotlight Privacy and then removing again but I'm not convinced It's doing anything. I've also tried repairing the time machine disk in Disk Utility (which completed with no problems)
The strange thing about this problem is that if I set Finder to show all hidden files (via the "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE" command), after I reboot and go into Time Machine, it starts picking up files that I'm searching for. But when I disable the hidden files again, Spotlight goes back to returning 0 results.
This is really frustrating as everything was working before I updated to Lion. I've tried searching for other clues to clearing my Spotlight cache on the external drive but nothing has worked. Some methods (such as this:- http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/A5.html) refer to repairing a sparse bundle on my external drive but I can't find the file it's talking about. Am I missing something obvious here?
Any help would be most appreciated.

Anyone can help on that topic ?
I'm looking for a solution for that too ...

Spotlight doesn't find files after Time Machine re-load

So I just got a new macbook pro and transferred everything from my old laptop onto it using Time Machine, which worked amazingly ... only weird thing now is when i search in the Finder Search bar or in Spotlight, it doesn't find any files that were on my old computer. I can find them manually, for example, I can be looking at a file called "house-info.rtf" in my Documents folder, but if i search "house" or even "house-info" it comes up with 0 results.
Any new file (I've made or downloaded on my new machine) comes up fine in the search, it's just files from my previous computer moved over via time machine...
any ideas?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Time Machine does not save Spotlight's index, so your drive has to be re-indexed. It may be that it just hasn't "caught up" yet. Give it some time.
If you're pretty sure it just hasn't done it, you can usually get Spotlight to re-index by excluding your internal HD from Spotlight (System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy) for a few moments, then removing the exclusion. That should make it start over.

Time machine slow at everything (not only copying ...)

Hi,
Though i loved the concept, on a day to day basis, i find time machine almost unusable.
I am up to trash this thing and never retry it ... but may be its me who is stupid but not Time Machine ?
Whats happening:
* Time machine is definitely quite slow to back up
* But more than that, time machine is super slow to initialize a back up or close the job after a back up
It can some time stay 10' to look at what should be back up, and then 10 (or definitely more ...) minutes to close and clean the job (though the back up is finished). This even if it was even not a Mb to copy ! And you go no estimated time, you just wait ... arg ....
This is extremly frustrating, i have the impression my computer is constantly interrupted, this prevent me from using correctly the Net as network is totally dead ... just unsable !
Though my configuration is very standard:
* Standard 1 Tb time capsule
* Standard OSX.6 on a macbookpro
* Approximately 120 Gb of data but no specific use ....
This is vey deceptive. I think i'll go back to Carbon Copy cloner and wait for the apple engineers to put more effort into time machine ... except if someone raise my ignorance ? Anything i could do wrong ?

luro wrote:
Thank you. It might be this spotlight thing then (strange that spotlight would index TC in a standard default setup though).
No, many folks want to use it to find backup copies of things they've deleted.
I removed it and hopefully this will improve the situation.
Don't stop there. By all means exclude it from anti-virus, and try the other things, too.
Your description sounds like there may be more going on than that. Get the +TM Buddy+ (per #A1) and see if TM's having trouble deleting old backups. If so, the +*Repair Disk+* may be called for.

IPhoto/Spotlight not indexing SOLUTION

For those iPhoto 6 users whoose comments and keywords not being indexed by Spotlight, here is the solution to your problem!
If you are getting * Parsing file: '~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml'
ERROR: syntax error (<key>PhotoCount</key>) when you try to manually index your iPhoto library with mdimport, this will solve your problem!
You can only have single-line comments on your photos:
- Create a smart album: "Comments... contains... [option][return]"
Note: press option+return with your keyboard... the box will appear blank
- The smart album should become populated with photos where you entered a comment containing a character return
- Click the ( i ) in the bottom left-hand corner to draw up the info for each file, and manually remove the character break until your smart alum is empty OR go to Photos -> Batch Change and enter a new comment. Make sure that "append" is UNCHECKED -- This will overwrite all of the comments.
Now, you must also make sure you only have single-line comments on your rolls:
- From the iPhoto Library, go to View -> Sort Photos -> By Film Roll
- Hold the Apple (command) key, and click the drop down triangle once or twice (until all are collapsed)
- Manually examine each roll and make sure that the comments (if any) are all on one line.
Note: If the comments are all on one line, the whole line will be visible in the collapsed view under the Film Roll name
Quit iPhoto
Open Terminal (in the Utilities folder)
- Type mdimport -f ~/Pictures and hit return
- After some time, a message should come up saying:
* Parsing file: '~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml'
As long as there is not an error message underneath, this is good!
- When the command has finished running and you're at a blank prompt again, quit Terminal
Open iPhoto
- Click iPhoto in the menu bar, and go to Preferences
- Click the Keywords tab
- Click the "+" and create a new keyword called Spotlight
- Close out of iPhoto preferences
- From the iPhoto Library, select all of the photos (Edit -> Select All)
- Get info on the files (Photos -> Get Info)
- Select the Keywords tab
- CHECK the box that says [Spotlight] *THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE
- UNCHECK the box that says [Spotlight] * THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE
Note: This forces all of the pictures to be updated in the database
- Quit iPhoto
Search for your comments and keywords with Spotlight

Can I ask, does this need to be done every time you add photos to iPhoto, or is this a one-off trick to get Spotlight to look at iPhoto keywords in the first place?
My first experience with iPhoto is iPhoto6 so I don't have any baggage that I am bringing from earlier copies of iPhoto. I've imported in 1500 photos and am working my way through tagging them with keywords and am hoping that spotlight will index them. Is this bug related to keywords applied in older versions of iPhoto, or does the issue manifest itself even on a brand new library? Are Apple looking to patch iPhoto / Spotlight to resolve this?
Thanks.
Graham

IPhoto/Spotlight not indexing SOLUTION *edit

For those iPhoto 6 users whoose comments and keywords not being indexed by Spotlight, here is the solution to your problem!
If you are getting * Parsing file: '~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml'
ERROR: syntax error (<key>PhotoCount</key>) when you try to manually index your iPhoto library with mdimport, this will solve your problem!
You can only have single-line comments on your photos:
- Create a smart album: "Comments... contains... [option][return]"
Note: press option+return with your keyboard... the box will appear blank
- The smart album should become populated with photos where you entered a comment containing a character return
- Click the ( i ) in the bottom left-hand corner to draw up the info for each file, and manually remove the character break until your smart alum is empty OR go to Photos -> Batch Change and enter a new comment. Make sure that "append" is UNCHECKED -- This will overwrite all of the comments.
Now, you must also make sure you only have single-line comments on your rolls:
- From the iPhoto Library, go to View -> Sort Photos -> By Film Roll
- Hold the Apple (command) key, and click the drop down triangle once or twice (until all are collapsed)
- Manually examine each roll and make sure that the comments (if any) are all on one line.
Note: If the comments are all on one line, the whole line will be visible in the collapsed view under the Film Roll name
Quit iPhoto
Open Terminal (in the Utilities folder)
- Type mdimport -f ~/Pictures and hit return
- After some time, a message should come up saying:
* Parsing file: '~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/AlbumData.xml'
As long as there is not an error message underneath, this is good!
- When the command has finished running and you're at a blank prompt again, quit Terminal
Open iPhoto
- Click iPhoto in the menu bar, and go to Preferences
- Click the Keywords tab
- Click the "+" and create a new keyword called Spotlight
- Close out of iPhoto preferences
- From the iPhoto Library, select all of the photos (Edit -> Select All)
- Get info on the files (Photos -> Get Info)
- Select the Keywords tab
- CHECK the box that says [Spotlight] *THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE
- UNCHECK the box that says [Spotlight] * THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE
Note: This forces all of the pictures to be updated in the database
- Quit iPhoto
Search for your comments and keywords with Spotlight

Can I ask, does this need to be done every time you add photos to iPhoto, or is this a one-off trick to get Spotlight to look at iPhoto keywords in the first place?
My first experience with iPhoto is iPhoto6 so I don't have any baggage that I am bringing from earlier copies of iPhoto. I've imported in 1500 photos and am working my way through tagging them with keywords and am hoping that spotlight will index them. Is this bug related to keywords applied in older versions of iPhoto, or does the issue manifest itself even on a brand new library? Are Apple looking to patch iPhoto / Spotlight to resolve this?
Thanks.
Graham

Can not see historical data in Time Machine backup

Hi folks
First my setup:
   MBP Late2012
   Samsung Evo 840 SSD
   external USB 3.0 1TB as TimeMachine HD
   Mac OS X Mavericks
Now my problem.
After updating to Mavericks I've made a full backup with Time Machine.
Then I swapped the former 500TB HDD to the Samsung Evo 840 500TB.
A clean setup of Mavericks follows.
After that I restored the Backup from Time Machine.
Everything ok. Til now.
Because everthing works fine in the past, I did not control the Time Machine.
Today I wanna restore a File from my "Pictures" folder.
So I opened Time Machine.
Oops.
There I can only see the latest run.
Also in the timeline on the right side the only entries are TODAY and NOW.
I can not scroll into the past.
All windows behind the current window have a black titlebar.
In Mountain lion the titlebars are grey if there is data available
and the title contains the date of the backup.
What is the problem?
Is there a bug?
Did I something wrong?
Thanx in adv.
      Stoiker

Hi masong517
What a treasure trove of hints and solutions.
I didn't know this page.
But you are right with "E2".
This solved my problem.
Thank you very much.

SPOTLIGHT NOT INDEXING 10.7.5 ! TIME MACHINE SLOW !

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