Time Machine always switches to my home directory. What to do?

D'oh, need to restore a file, which happens to be in a root folder of my iMac's HD.   No prob, Time Machine is on duty!
The usual procedure: In Finder, bring the containing folder to the front, select the file, go to the clock icon at he upper right, pull down, and choose "Enter Time Machine". TM takes over the display with the distinctive Star-Field background and offers to restore in that folder.
Up until today that that's worked in every version of MacOS that includes Time Machine.
Today: No matter what I do --including after a system restart-- Time Machine switches the front-most window to display my home directory, first, THEN goes into Star-Field mode.
Note 1: Yeah, I can work-around by navigating to my HD and then to the specific file I need to restore.
Note 2: This problem occurs even when the file I need to restore is in the hierarchy of my home directory.
So: Why does TM now insist on switching to my home directory and what to do about it?   Without endangering my existing files or TM backups?
TIA

Link Dupont wrote:
I'd plug in and run a Time Machine backup about once a day, on average. I've been scouring the logs, and the only thing I notice is the "deep traversal" message, which I'd expect occasionally as it needs to reindex files (especially after a restore).
This also happens if the TM disk isn't dismounted, etc., exactly the way TM expects; or if there's an abnormal power-down. It means TM isn't sure about just exactly what is where, so it looks at every file and folder to be sure.
I've run long S.M.A.R.T. scans on the drive (via smartctl on a Linux LiveCD and SeaTools via a Windows installation), I've run Repair Disk (via Disk Utility) and I've defragmented the filesystem (iDefrag). All the diagnostics come back healthy, and iDefrag had little to do. My gut tells me the drive is failing, but I can't actually prove it. My next step is to reformat the drive and create a new filesystem; I'll see if Time Machine is happy with a clean start.
I'm a MobileMe subscriber, so I downloaded and set up the old .Mac Backup.app, and will be running that daily to shove my important files up to my iDisk (and probably to various other locations), in case backupd decides to choke again, at least I have a backup to my backup.
Good plan. I run CCC daily, in addition to TM's hourly backups, and use Backup to iDisk daily for fairly small stuff, plus others to DVD/RWs kept in my safe deposit box. May seem like overkill, but I've learned, usually the hard way, that when it comes to backups, paranoia is prudent!

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Time Machine not backing up my home directory

One day, I came in and booted up my Mac. I began my usual practice of pairing my Bluetooth mouse & keyboard, but this time, it failed to pair. The Bluetooth prefPane was acting weird (beach-balling, garbage characters appearing in the "is the name Bluetooth devices use to connect to this computer" title). I rebooted, and much to my dismay, Bluetooth was no longer detected by the system (both in System Profiler and System Preferences).
I assumed this meant the Bluetooth module was failing. I contacted Apple support, and we concluded that it was in fact the Bluetooth module that was failing, and no the connector cable. I filed a GSX ticket to have the entire display assembly replaced (since that's how these new aluminum uni-body MacBook Pros are built). The Bluetooth module has been failing intermittently, so I cancelled the GSX ticket to do more research (and to make sure it wasn't a software problem with my OS). I planned on doing an Archive & install to see if a new OS fixed it.
I ran a Time Machine backup to make sure I had the latest and greatest copy of my data, and ran an Archive & Install. As expected, the Bluetooth behaved identically in the clean OS, so I rebooted again, and ran a Restore from Time Machine, selected the most recent snapshot I had just created. After the restore completed, the machine rebooted, and an old desktop & Dock greeted me, much to my dismay. I checked and double-checked, and determined that Time Machine had been maintaining a week old copy of my home directory files, but had been continuing to update the rest of my computer (so my Applications folder was up-to-date).
I don't know how Time Machine could think that my Home directory hadn't changed in a week, but now I'm running an extended S.M.A.R.T. scan on the drive to make sure it's not failing. And yes, I made sure my Home directory was not in Time Machine's exclusion list. The reason I think the drive is failing is because when backupd tried to run after I restored from Time Machine, it ground a whole lot, and took forever to backup 90 MB. Like, a lot of grinding to get from 30 KB to 70 KB.
Does anyone know why/how this might've happened?
Message was edited by: Link Dupont
Message was edited by: Link Dupont

Link Dupont wrote:
I'd plug in and run a Time Machine backup about once a day, on average. I've been scouring the logs, and the only thing I notice is the "deep traversal" message, which I'd expect occasionally as it needs to reindex files (especially after a restore).
This also happens if the TM disk isn't dismounted, etc., exactly the way TM expects; or if there's an abnormal power-down. It means TM isn't sure about just exactly what is where, so it looks at every file and folder to be sure.
I've run long S.M.A.R.T. scans on the drive (via smartctl on a Linux LiveCD and SeaTools via a Windows installation), I've run Repair Disk (via Disk Utility) and I've defragmented the filesystem (iDefrag). All the diagnostics come back healthy, and iDefrag had little to do. My gut tells me the drive is failing, but I can't actually prove it. My next step is to reformat the drive and create a new filesystem; I'll see if Time Machine is happy with a clean start.
I'm a MobileMe subscriber, so I downloaded and set up the old .Mac Backup.app, and will be running that daily to shove my important files up to my iDisk (and probably to various other locations), in case backupd decides to choke again, at least I have a backup to my backup.
Good plan. I run CCC daily, in addition to TM's hourly backups, and use Backup to iDisk daily for fairly small stuff, plus others to DVD/RWs kept in my safe deposit box. May seem like overkill, but I've learned, usually the hard way, that when it comes to backups, paranoia is prudent!

I have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8 and want to restore my i photos from time machine. can not find iphoto libary in time machine, can"t not find home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine

i have reinstalled snow leopard 10.6.8, and want to restore my i photos from time machine. Can not find i-photo libary in time machine, can't not find > home-pict. iphoto lib. in time machine. Please help.

On my HD it does not say ,restore, in yourname -pict. Iphoto lib.,
On the time machine, it , yourname etc, oes not show up at all.
Only right side of TM, your name etc. does not show.

My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.

My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. I have tried everything and even did time machine in safe boot as told by an apple suppoprt advisor. still the same error after 16gb

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an 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.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to a failed backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showning, 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 (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
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.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Time machine always backs up same amount of data

When backing up with Time Machine it always backs up the same amount of data each time (140GB). I am not modifying 140GB of data each day or even each week so why does Time Machine always default to this amount of data?
I would like TM to only backup modified data so that I am not waiting hours for TM to complete backup. Looking for a reset or workaround for this issue.
Mac Pro 10.8

See D4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time machine always backs up a minimum 2GB to Time Capsule

For some reason Time Machine always likes to back up a minimum of 2GB, even with virtually no use of my laptop. I do not think it did this before I got the Time Capsule, but its quite obvious now since the Time Capsule is noticeably slower.
Does anyone else have this occur and is there a way to prevent it?

Welcome to the discussions!
Are you running Aperture, Entourage, VM Fusion or other programs with a monolithic file structure? One small change in one email results in the entire Entourage data base being backed up since the program views any change as a total change. Same for the other programs. This can fill up a drive really fast.
Download Time Tracker to get a look at what is being backed up on each pass that Time Machine makes.
It takes some time for the program to load, so allow 4-5 minutes before you start to click on the backups to see what is taking up all of the space.

Time Machine stopped backing up my user directory

After many successful back-ups Time Machine stopped backing up my user directory. After reading many blogs I delted everything (it took days!) and started with an empty externel HD. To my suprise the new back up has the same problem. HELP!

I have the SAME problem with my imac 7,1 (2007) running os 10.8.5. What is the fix?
i checked and i do NOT have FileVault enabled. so, why is TMachine NOT backing up? this is a rather horrifying discovery. i only learned
about it when i tried to restore some downloaded files. Thanks for any help.

Time machine always unlocks after restarting

Time machine always unlocks after each restart - only on MBA my MBP 2010 always stays locked and I need to put in password to open it -- any advice please I mean the locked to prevent changes lock

Turn off TM, delete the file com.apple.timemachine.plist from the folder ~/Library/Preferences, reboot, and re-set-up TM. See if that helps.

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

Time machine only copies User Info and Users (Applications, Library, and System are missing) from my quad core Mac Pro. 45 Gb of 162 Gb are missing. Any one having success with time machine copying all folders using Mavericks? What do I need to do dif

Time machine only copies User Info and Users (Applications, Library, and System are missing) from my quad core Mac Pro. 45 Gb of 162 Gb are missing. Any one having success with time machine copying all folders using Mavericks?
What do I need to do differently?

The late, great Pondini was investigating that issue before he passed away.
See here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5125969
I think there might be information there on how to reset Time Machine to do a full backup. I think you basically have to reset it and start over.

When attempting a restore from Time Machine I get error code -8004. What is this and how can I correct it? Thanks

when attempting a restore from Time Machine I get error code -8004. What is this and how can I correct it? I use OX 10.9.3
Thanks

Run it in compatibility mode and input the credentials.
Mylenium

Time Machine Failure - Unable to create backup directory

I've been using time machine for months with no problems. It seems like since I went to the 10.5.2 update I started having problems.
Time machine fails and says a problem occurred creating a backup directory. I'm running an external drive formated to the MAC Extended Journeled. I also set my computer share name with no punctuation and no spaces.
Today I got the failure and I ran repair disc in disk utility and it could not repair the disk. So I erased it, rebooted and reconfigured time machine.
Started running the backup and about 30 minutes into it stopped with the same error.
Any thing I can try?

Seems I have same problem, I came here for the answer, only to find there appears to be none!
I started off with a new 250Gb internal drive, 50 "Real" Gb to Boot Camp, rest to Mac. Re-installed from original Apple install disks to TIGER, then upgraded to LEOPARD with the Apple upgrade disk that came with the machine as an uninstalled upgrade. All firmware and software updates up to date.
First tried a Maxtor 4+ ext 750Gb Firewire drive for Time machine, 400Gb to Time Machine, other partition for other stuff. Every backup failed with Time Machine, same as the unfortunate gentleman in the pages above. Super-Duper backup to that same drive/partition worked perfectly.
So I bought a 250Gb 2.5" Western Digital drive, put it in a USB/Firewire case and tried that, but every time same problem. It would stall once 123.85Gb of 143.8Gb completed, and get no further. After a few days a reboot or forcequit was needed to stop the process, and on attempting to restart time machine later would only get to about 32kb and fail stating there was not enough space on the drive. (123Gb already backed up, only 19Gb to go, and 106Gb free on the backup drive)
I have re-formatted (Standard Mac extended/journalled format) the drive several times now, and always same result. I have checked the drive, repaired it, and written it over with Zeroes after formatting even, still same resuly, exactly 123.85Gb into the backup it stops and goes no further. I have tried with both the firewire, and the USB plugged into the drive, same result. Time Machine does not even have the courtesy to report which file it got stuck on, so that I could manually delete it if that was the problem. Anyone found the answer to this yet?

Time machine not backing up user home directories

Hi All,
I set up my users to have their home directories on a seperate partition: /Volumes/Data/homes/<name>.
I confogured time machine to back up to an external USB hard drive. The exclude list is empty, exept for the backup disk, of course.
When i do an initial backup with TM, i notice that /Volumes/Data/homes is skipped, whereas /Volumes/Data/kits is backed up.
I also see a console message:
8/15/13 3:21:29 PM
com.apple.backupd[621]
Backup content size: 119.8 GB excluded items size: 113.6 GB for volume Data
Why is this? How can i force TM to backup all files?
Thanks for your help,
Heinrich

HeinrichFromBremen wrote:
Of course not. But there is a difference between lack of perfection and deliberately building bugs into the software.
It's not really deliberate. The number of folks who do what you are is very, very limited.
How can i know that homeis the only omitted directory?
It isn't. As noted in the other thread, dev and net are also omitted. Many other things, are, too - see the tan box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11 for details.
With this behaviour, i simply cannot trust TM backups.
A bit of an overreaction, I think, but your choice.
What would be the alternatives? tar? ditto? dump does not seem to exist.
See #27 in the FAQ link above. As far as I know, they all omit some things.

How to PREVENT Time Machine from switching disks

I have two USB drives. I use one for iTunes and the second for Time Machine backups. Problem is, when I plug in the iTunes disk, if the Time Machine disk is not connected then Time Machine switches to this disk and initiates a backup. I have specified in Preferences that the other disk is for TM; also tried 'locking' the preferences screen. But, still TM continues to start backups onto this iTunes disk when I plug it in (assuming, as above, that its regular disk is unavailable).
How can I prevent TM from doing this; and force it to wait until its own drive is available? Have checked forums and found no answer. Any help appreciated. Thank you.

BordeauxQuill wrote:
If it is useful to anyone else, these are Western Digital My Passport Studio 640GB drives.
Yup, you're the 3rd or 4th to report it with various models of WDs (one fellow had 3 of them!), and a few weeks ago someone had some Iomegas, I think, too.
This confusion may well also explain some weird stats in Get Info I noticed last week (such as the drive apparently having used more bytes than its capacity, as I recall).
Quite likely.
Thank you for your support. I shall come back and mark the thread resolved when I have reformatted the drive.
Cool. Also double-check the contents of the one you don't erase; you may find some extra stuff there.

Time Machine always reporting wrong size after several full resets

Good afternoon,
I have been using Time Machine on a Macbook Pro 2012 backing up to a QNAP NAS TS-419 P II
After a year of using Time Machine without any issues I've now ran into a situation i do not seem able to resolve.
For several reasons I wanted to do a full Time Machine reset and do a new full back.
For that, after trying various solutions with no succes, I've deleted the sparse bundle, switched off Time Machine support, restarted the NAS, switched on Time Machine support again. Furthermore i did full reset on the Macbook following as per http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
However every time I start a new backup Time Machine seems to limit the sparse bundle to 1.07 TB, while I have not set any file size restrictions. Next to that it's also reporting only 657 GB of the 1.07 TB is actually free. As if the old sparse bundle with the backups were still there.
Anyone who has been facing the same issue?
Thanks,
Gijs

Actually, I can shorten this down to just:
Mount TimeMachineBackup disk, it reports ~95GB free.
Repair it, it reports 800+GB free
Unmount it
Remount it, it again reports ~95GB free.
Rinse. Repeat.

Time Machine always switches to my home directory. What to do?

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