Time Machine backs up regularly, but shows up as Empty

Time Machine is doing it's thing, backing up on a regular basis. When I look at the T.M. drive, it's loaded with current files.
BUT...
When I try and enter Time Machine, I'm unable to move back in time at all. It indicates that there's no backups of anything. And even stranger... No matter what finder window I have open when I enter Time Machine, that window switches to a top level view, showing the mounted drives. When I exit TM, the window returns to the previous view.
Any ideas? I'm stumped.

Aftershok wrote:
Hi Pondini, Thanks for responding.
1. Nope, no File Vault.
2. There's a few things in the "Do not back up" box, but nothing relevant. The files ARE getting to the TM drive. They're just not showing up during a TM session.
3. Same thing I described before. No backups available. The only thing on the timeline is "now"
Any other ideas?
Does the "Star Wars" display seem right? Is there a "cascade" of (darkened) Finder windows behind the +Today (Now)+ window? Is the starry background there, and animated?
If they're all "yes," try #E2 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip.*
If any of those are "no," it's likely a problem with the display. This can be caused by any of a number of things. Try these fixes:
If you're using a Finder replacement (such as Pathfinder), be sure the Finder is running.
If you're using Spaces, turn it off temporarily.
If you have a second monitor, or anything plugged-in to a video-out port, disconnect it temporarily.
De-select your TM drive via TM Preferences > Change Disk (select "none"), then re-select the correct one.
Do a "complete reset" of TM, as in item #B3 of the Troubleshooting Tip.
Do a +*Repair Disk+* on your TM drive, via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder.
Try or create another user (System Preferences > Accounts). If it works ok from that user, delete the file:
+*<home folder of the user where it doesn't work>/Library/Preferences/com.Apple.Finder.plist+*

Similar Messages

Time Machine backing up fine but the app won't launch

Hi all,
I've been able to set up Time Machine with an external WD 120GB FW disk, and it appears to be backing up fine - the 'backupdb' folder exists on the HD and the TM system preference pane shows last backup date etc.
However, try as I might I cannot get the actual application to launch. I right-click on the dock icon and click 'show Time Machine', I click on it form the Applications folder - nothing. There is no bouncing icon and no 'error -43' that others have reported.
I can't see anything in system.log that might indicate that it is attempting to launch and fails.
Is anyone aware of an issue that would stop TM from launching at all?
Thanks in advance

Dear all
I discovered what was preventing Time Machine from launching.
I use Cocoatech's PathFinder as a Finder replacement. It is set to close the Finder at launch. With out the Finder running, Time Machine cannot run. Backups still work fine (as I discovered to my great relief when my HDD recently died) but the browsing app will not launch without Finder.
So, if you use PathFinder and need to open TimeMachine.app, just relaunch the Finder in order to do so.
Hope this helps someone.
Yuri

Time machine back-ups do not show or contain home / user folder

I back up my i-mac and macbook the same way using time machine and a hard-wired external hard drive. They both run snow leopard 10.6.5. I recently checked the contents of the back ups. The i-mac back ups contain my home user folder with all the documents in it, but the macbook back ups do not. The only difference I can think of is the file vault I have in the macbook. Do I have to turn it off to do a back up? I there a way around it?

See #25 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine backs up files, but will not Restore within programs like iCal

Time Machine is working great as a basic backup utility to my external HD. However, I cannot, for the life of me get the restore function to work from within a specific Apple program like iCal or Mail. Every time I click iCal or Mail THEN Time Machine, the 'galaxy' view reverts to the Desktop folder.
This is fine for individual files/folders, but where's the built-in restore feature?

I called Apple today, but the support agent didn't seem to know whether or not Time Machine can open with cascading iCal windows. He had me navigate to a folder under my username where the calendars are located....problem is that all the iCal events and Calendars are encoded so it's difficult to find which events you need to restore and stuff. Basically for me, it's SO much easier to go to
File->Back up iCal. Time machine works good for documents...but Apple really screwed up here.

Time Machine backing up all but one folder

Hhurumph! Grrrr! I finally needed to use Time Machine for the very first time today to recover a trashed iPhone development file. But only discovered that my iPhone Projects directory was not being backed up by Time Machine. Any ideas why TM would skip over a folder in its entirety? I tossed the TM plist file and had it recreate that, but still no go.

No idea why TM would miss the folder, but to correct it might be worthwhile forcing TM to do what it calls a Deep Traversal where it verifies its understanding of the file current structure. (you can do that for example by booting from the install disk and then immediately rebooting normally).

How does time machine back up separate but computers on the same drive

Thinking about hooking up a hard drive to APBS to use as a time machine for several macs /iPads, how does time machine keep these different devices separate? How does it keep the backup info separate? Thanks

APBS is usually called AEBS or Airport Extreme Base Station.
You can only do Time Machine to the newest one.. it is not supported on earlier models.
See http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Look for Gory details about airdisk.
Also it is going to help you to actually read how Time Machine works on network drives.
What you are asking has all the answers there.
http://pondini.org/TM/Works.html
ipads do not backup like macs.. there is no time machine.
ipads backup to itunes or to icloud. The backup to local itunes can then be backed up by TM to the disk you are using.
Please note even though Apple now says it works.. I have seen reports where the old problem has come back.. it works for 6-8weeks and then the backup corrupts itself and you have to start over.

Time Machine Backs Up, But Can't Do Anything Within Interface

I'm on a newish Macbook Pro, OS 10.6.3, and Time Machine backs up to a OWC Mercury Elite AL Pro drive via Firewire 800.
Time Machine backs up correctly, but I can only access the backed up files via Finder. "Enter Time Machine" shows me the proper interface, but absolutely nothing therein is clickable.
There is no "sparsebundle" file on the drive.
Option clicking to "browse other time machine disks" shows me no options.
Help...?

james a Leff wrote:
Thanks (though I've found that genius bar guys, if you hit the right one, are better than applecare guys; the latter follow scripts and flowcharts, but the former are freer to think on their feet, not assume you're a newbie, etc etc).
In most cases, that may be true. But the folks at the Apple Stores rarely know much about Time Machine, since they don't actually use it. It's worth a try (and cheaper if you don't have AppleCare), but we get many reports here of wrong advice from the Genius Bar about Time Machine.
I guess one option is to wipe the disk, wipe my time machine and finder plists, and start again.
I'd lose all previous backups, but I'm pretty sure (knock formica) I haven't suffered any data loss recently.
That's always an option. Do you have another drive? I always recommend secondary backups, on separate hardware, anyway, but especially if you're thinking of doing that. Once you hit Erase, you have no backups.
Just to be sure we're on the same plane......I'm talking about going to the TM icon in menu bar with option held down, and choosing "browse other time machine disks". I get no choices. But with the wording of "other", should I see my main TM disk there?
Yes. It should list all TM backups that OSX can find, for any Mac, including yours. The only exception is, if they've been marked as corrupted. See #E2 in Troubleshooting.

Time Machine Back Up Discrepancy...

Hi All,
I have a June 2010 17" 2.66 i7 UMBP which has a 500GB internal HD. I recently purchased an external HD of the same capacity so I could keep a full back up of all my data.
The internal HD shows capacity of 499.76GB with 160.24GB free. After connecting the external HD to the UMBP & doing a back up via Time Machine, it shows capacity of 499.76GB with 166.99GB free. This means there is a difference of 6.75GB between my internal HD & the back up one which to me seems a large amount.
I can only assume that Time Machine has not backed up this missing 6.75GB of data & would like to know why this is so & what I can do to correct it. I have run Time Machine again a few times but the numbers still stay the same. Please can anyone else help me out here as at present, I just do not feel comfortable with they way things are & there is no way I can tell what data is missing on the back up HD - my luck is that it will probably be something(s) that might be important/critical in future!
Many Thanks,
Suave!

Suave! wrote:
I read somewhere that one should ideally use Firewire Drives for mac back ups instead of USB 2.0 as the latter can cause some problems - any truth to this?
Some. FireWire 400 is somewhat faster (and F/W 800 much faster) than USB for sustained copying, but other than your first (full) backup or if you have to do a large or full restore, the speed isn't much of an issue.
Also the FireWire chipset does some of the work that has to be done by your Mac's CPU for USB, so if your CPU is maxed-out while a backup is running, it may make some difference.
And many folks think FireWire is more reliable; I'm inclined to agree, but don't know if that's really true.
Also, is it possible to simultaneously run both Time Machine & SuperDuper on one external back up drive
I'd avoid putting all your backup "eggs" in the same basket. Use two different drives, if at all possible. Otherwise when (not if) that drive fails, you may lose both sets of backups. And if you use a portable external for the SD backups, you can take it to a secure off-site location, such as your safe deposit box, workplace, or relative's house, so you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lighting strike on your power lines, etc.
If you do use the same drive for both, partition it, so each has it's own, exclusive space. See #5 or #6 in the FAQ if you need instructions.
And be sure the clone is excluded from TM backups, per #10 in the FAQ. Note you'll have to connect it to exclude it, and the exclusion won't appear while it's disconnected.
I think I read somewhere that the latest version of SD was "Compatible" with Time Machine?
That probably means SD can copy TM backups. CarbonCopyCloner (similar to SD) will copy them in "block copy" mode, but not "file copy" mode. But there's usually no reason to copy them, and other ways if you really want to.
Finally, my UMBP does have 4GB of RAM built in so I guess this "Sleep Image File" you mentioned would also then account for 4GB missing out of the 6.75GB amount on my Time Machine Back Up Drive but this then still leaves 2.75GB un accounted for - would things like system work files, most caches, logs etc (my trash is empty) really take up such a large amount of space?
Yes, easily. See the blue box in #11 of the FAQ for instructions on seeing the sizes of some of them (note that their sizes right now may not be the same as when you did the backups).

Time Machine Back Up (External)

Hey Guys
Love the time machine back up feature but I cant get it to work outside my network. I can access the TC outside my network and see the items and make changes etc. However when I try to back up Time Machine it says it cant find the disk, even though I can access the disk??
Thanks
AC

Apple may have removed the ability to backup over remote access in Time Machine.. even when you could do it on earlier OS.. Apple strongly recommended not doing so. And do not support it. The reason is the backup is easily corrupted beyond repair.. and the amount of data that is required by TM to function makes local network access the only viable one unless you have high speed dual direction fibre on both ends.. !! Don't even bother attempting this with 1-2Mbps uploads at either end.
From a previous post I did.
You are doing this against Apple's explicit advice not to do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3486
Can Time Machine remotely back up or restore data from Time Capsule or its attached hard drive via Back to My Mac?
Backing up or restoring Time Machine backups remotely (that is, via Back to My Mac and the Internet instead of your local network) is not recommended. If you want to back up or restore with Time Machine and Time Capsule, you should do so while directly connected to your Time Capsule's local network.
The possibility of corrupting the backup already on the TC is very high.
You can apparently force it to happen.. but I think apple made it harder in the latest updates to help you follow the advice.
Good luck if you do it..
You will need to manually mount the disk in Finder.
Type in Finder main menu, Go, Connect to server.
AFP://TCpublicIPaddress (the IP wan address of your TC)
And give the disk password when asked.
Good luck with the corruptions.

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation: What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Time machine back-up stuck on "cleaning up" before actually showing back-up progress

On my MacBook Pro running latest Snow Leopard, after replacing the internal HD and restoring the data from the Time Machine back-up apparently seamlessly, when starting back-up again to the the same external disk connected to another mac on the network, this happened. Almost 12 hours now. There is activity on the external back-up disk as the LED light is blinking and I can hear it work.
The message in Time Machine Preferences pane is "cleaning up" which usually shows at the end of the back-up but this time it is before any progres has shown.
I have Time Machine Buddy widget installed and this is what it says, again for the last 12 hours or so:
Starting standard backup
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/TM WD Book-1
Failed to attach to image: /Volumes/TM WD Book-1/Vladskibook.sparsebundle, DIHLDiskImageAttach returned: 35
Disk image /Volumes/TM WD Book-1/Vladskibook.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
Should I just wait patiently or perform a repair of the back-up disk or do a full reset of Time Machine?
If I should wait, can I use my mac without affecting this process?
Thanks

Yellowvan wrote:
Hi Pondini,
Yes, I bought DiskWarrior 4.1.1 - it came up with this report:
" DiskWarrior has successfully built a new optimized directory for the disk named "Untitled."
The new directory is ready to replace the original directory."
Did you let it do that? If not, nothing was changed!
The drive is still under guarantee - can they really fail this quickly?
Sure, a few drives from any production run will be D.O.A, and a few others will fail very quickly, as with nearly any manufactured product.
But you don't know yet whether the drive is bad. If you didn't let DW replace the directory, run it again and do so.
If it's still troublesome, try the other things in my last post before deciding it's the drive.

Is it possible to change the read/write permissions on a time machine back-up of iTunes? I need to restore it, but old version is locked....

Is it possible to change the read/write permissions on a time machine back-up of iTunes? I'm needing to restore it as my phone deleted half our playlists during sync & am not seeing a way to unlock the permissions. I have the current version unlocked, but can't seem to get the backed-up version. When I click on restore I get a pop-up that says iTunes can't be deleted as it is part of the OS. I'm not even trying to delete, just restore the old version. Any suggestions?

Hmmm, ok I'll give it a shot. I've always had the iTunes sync w/ my phone set up to only load selected playlists to the phone b/c there's a lot more in iTunes than I have room or desire for on my phone. A few months back I started having trouble w/ trying to sync everything & subsequently adding more to the phone than it could hold. The quickest thing at the time was to unclick the sync music option in iTunes so I could still backup the phone to the computer & not have a problem.
When I asked about it during one-to-one session shortly after, they advised me to delete the music off my phone & then re-sync it to the computer, run a backup of the phone & redownload the music to the phone. When I tried this it ended up deleting all my playlists (but not my husband's) from iTunes. Irritating, but I've been rebuilding the playlists since. I had also unclicked sync music again & an Apple person told me the most likely best fix was to delete & reload iTunes completely.
A few days ago I realized I hadn't backed up the phone to the computer in over a month so after deleting & reinstalling iTunes, & w/o changing anything (sync music was STILL unchecked) I ran a backup & my phone went from having 4 GB free space to being 2 GB over capacity due to iTunes trying to download the entire music library to the phone. I made a one-to-one appt again & it was suggested AGAIN that I delete all the music off my phone & then resync it to the computer & redownload the music. We did this (though a few random songs that had previously been purchased somehow remained on the phone), I got home, connected the phone & instead of the music that shows as 'on my device' disappearing from iTunes it just sat there, so, as the guy had told me I MIGHT have to do, I threw all those songs showing in iTunes as being on my phone, in the trash so that it was completely clear.
At this point I checked sync music, made sure the options were 'selected playlists only', checked the ones from my own list that I wanted (I usually have one playlist of comedians from my husband's folder that I also have on the phone, but didn't check it at this point). It uploaded all my stuff just fine, but for whatever reason when it saw that I wasn't uploading that comedy playlist any longer, it not only didn't upload it but proceeded to delete my husband's entire folder of playlists from iTunes. -_- I got on the phone w/ an Apple support person right away but he wasn't able to tell me anything .. basically said we'll have to rebuild everything. I asked about the possibility of using time machine, he said he's not qualified to answer that, so that's when I started looking around online & found, among others, the link I referenced a couple replies ago.
I hope this all makes sense. It's been a long-term issue so I'm trying to go from memory as I figured to begin w/ that I had just made a mistake somewhere, so didn't try to document anything. Now w/ it having happened a 2nd time, I'm not sure if it was 'user error' or something else.......

I would like to access an old Time machine back up from a Core 2 Duo Macbook, but no longer have a Mac. Can I access the backup from a cheaper old ibook, or would I need a Macbook. Is the OS important?

I would like to access an old Time machine back up from a Core 2 Duo Macbook, but no longer have a Mac. I am going to buy a used machien to acess this. Can I access the backup from a cheaper old ibook, or would I need a Macbook. Is the OS important?

right click on the folder that shows with the red negative sign, and select to "get info". In the long skinny window that appears, look in the "sharing and permissions" section. In the "name" column, you should see your current user name. Ensure the "privilege" is set to Read and Write. If your user name is not in the name column, click the + sign, and add it, ensuring the privileges are set to Read and Write

I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

I have partitioned my time capsule, but I can't get it to work as a Time Machine back up and permanent media server for both mac and PC. What format do I need to partition the drive to so that it works for both mac and windows and so that it will be visab

I have partitioned my time capsule, as I want part of it to act as a media server for both mac and windows. However I don't know what format that I need to partition it to. I also can't make it a permanently accesible drive. I want to restore the drive to the original format (which I don't know) and start again and re-partition the drive in a format that can be used for media by both mac and PC and for time machine back-ups and make the media part of it permanetly accesible so I can add and acccess my files.
Thanks

You are mixing up a couple of things here.
The TC drive cannot be partitioned without removing it.. did you do that?
If you partition it you must use a Mac disk utility and use the HFS+ ie standard Mac format. And GUID partition table not windows type.
You can select erase disk in the airport utility.. that will take the disk back to original format. No partitions. TC is deliberately not partitioned as it is not a media server.. it is a backup device for TM. Over time .. the disk will be filled with TM backups so you have a long history of file changes to your computer.
There is no media server in the TC.. it is merely disk storage.. you can serve files from it to a media device.. but the TC itself is dumb as dumb.
Now the actual format of the drive is irrelevant to the PC.. The TC offers SMB file services to the network. You can copy files to and from the TC as if it was a local disk without caring one iota about the format. The TC handles that .. it is not a local disk .. it is a network drive.
Although you cannot partition the TC. you can still copy files to it.. this does have implications for TM.. but as long as there is plenty of free space should not be a major issue.
You can create a disk image via the disk utility in a Mac.. and as stated you can create partitions if you do it on a Mac with the disk directly connected which means breaking warranty if any exists on the TC.

Time Machine backs up regularly, but shows up as Empty

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