Time Machine - can't select any backups except Today and Oldest

Ever since installing Lion I've noticed that I cannot scroll through the time machine backups using the purple bar on the right as I used to be able to do in previous OSX versions. Because of this, I have not found any way to restore anything other than the oldest backup (from April 2011). I have lost all my Safari bookmarks and was hoping to restore them from Time Machine Backup, but need more recent backup than last April.
Any suggestions?
Thanks

See if this thread is fruitful:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/10394546#10394546

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Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more.

Hi all
Time machine can not select my internal hard drive any more. I only can back up external disks. Does anyone know how to fix this?
All answers are much appreciated

I don't know the answer but I have the same thing happen. I have two external drives I use for backup. Sometimes it can see one and sometimes another. Then sometimes it can't see either one. I will take one out for a while then plug it back in and then it may see it. Maybe it's a cable issue or something but I will be curious to hear what someone more knowledgeable says.

Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Installed GoFlex 1.5 TB external drive on my iMac running OS X 10.7.4 and error says Time Machine can't create a backup folder. Any solutions?

Well, to unmount the drive, you can use the Terminal application.
Start in Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
When the Terminal window opens, type - without the quotes and with the space at the end - this:
"diskutil unmount "
Then drag the icon of the unmounted drive from the desktop into the Terminal window - the drive location will be added to the end of the command above. It should look something like this:
diskutil unmount /Volumes/volumename
Then press enter (return).
That should unmount the drive. Now you can try the Time Machine process again with perhaps a different interconnect cable for the GoFlex.

Lion's Time Machine - Can't create a backup?

Time Machine can't make a backup... I even went ahead and wiped out the drive and tried to create a new backup.
All it says is that it couldn't complete the backup and to try later as it might only be temporary.
This is critical for me and a not at all light in importance. Had I known this along all the other issues with Lion existed I wouldn't have upgraded. For now I am keeping my MBP safe from Lion...
I guess I just have to suffer the damage on my 27" IMAC..
I would use a BR Disk to do a back up of my files, but NO.... MACs don't support Blu-Ray disk drives, STILL!!
Apple you need to fix this and other issues.

Apple's ingenuity in their advances can be hailed by millions as I myself give them credit where credit is due, such as devices like the iPad and iPhone/iPod. But when a company only bothers to alert you to a couple of apps that Lion can't run and moves them to a folder for the user to delete or update but leaves devices and other industry standard software packages rendered useless with no warning when they have extensively tested their OS against 3rd party manufactured devices and software, whom they are partnered with, then yes they can share in the blame just as Microsoft takes the blame for operating systems that do the same such as VISTA.
I am sure that with enough time all of the 3rd party companies will undoubtedly get on board at some cost that will get pushed down to the end users. They will either update, upgrade or conform.
Apples mentality in the past hurt their stock prices, they used to only use their own Risc based processors and they refused to adapt and incorporate to the needs of their users desires for better faster chipsets and industry software such as Office. They adapted!
Refusing to incorporate the ability to use Blu-Ray technologies when companies such as Pioneer,LG, and Cyberlink are prepared to release the software for the Mac, Apple just has to give the go ahead, then yes, its their fault again. The industry in general isn't blind, they have a reason. Manufacturers want to create things that work with Apples Operating system and do, but they aren't allowed to release it without approval from Apple. They need Apple's support and acceptance for something like Blu-Ray to make it. Otherwise its just another hack and shunned by any cautious person that wants to make sure that their purchase won't cause them more problems than its worth. Blu-Ray is a matter of licensing and a major reason that Microsoft won't incorporate it into their own media player, but they leave it up to 3rd party software companies to absorb that cost and create their own players that can play back Blu-Ray movies within the Windows platform. Apple wants to keep Blu-Ray off of their machines as they can't obtain an exclusive license to the codec for Blu-Ray movies for Quicktime. The same mentality that they had before with their processors. So even the ability to read and write to the medium is out of the question.

Time Machine can see my old backups, but not open them

I have been using Time Machine with a Time Capsule (1TB) since last June (on this machine) - quite a few backups in there.
Last night when I went to backup, first time in a few days, it said the machine had never been backed up and started the preparing the disk thing - I couldn't find a problem, everything looked fine on my time capsule - couldn't do anything else, so I let it run. This AM it had finished the backup (in fact several) and when I open Time Machine it shows me as having backups all the way to June '08 -- however, it cannot seem to open anything earlier than last nights -- if I try to scroll to them it greys out. If I try to directly click on one, I get an empty finder window that never seems to update (at least not for 5-10 min) and then I cannot get any response from anything, have to restart to get out.
There are two things that I can think of that could have caused this -- I updated to 10.5.6 since my last backup, and I backed up a second Mac to the same time capsule in the interim (that backup went fine and seems to be working, but very slow)
My console is not reporting any errors (for backup or for anything else). It would be nice to get back to my old files, it certainly seems to know they are there. Any thoughts?
thanks
Jim Hendler
RPI

I'm having this same issue and would like to know what I might be able to do.
I started using TimeMachine so that I could wipe my internal HD and be able to restore the settings. Now that I've wiped the HD TimeMachine doesn't seem to be doing what I expected it to do or I don't know how to restore the files.
Any help would be wonderful!

Since I installed Yosemite, Time Machine is not doing any backup. It just keep coming with the following message in a window: "Backup Failed. Time Machine could´t back up to "....... Time Capsule". What can I do start backing up again?

Time Machine not working since Yosemite was installed.

I had this issue too and went through all the great suggestion found on this site, but finally was able to resolve it after looking at the system.log to see the reason it was failing. By using terminal and entering:
sudo grep backupd /var/log/system.log
I saw "Backup failed with error:11". Then looking above, I saw many "Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES /Applications/" messages. After "Applications" I saw the culprit files that were causing Time Machine to fail. I deleted some Apps that I didn't need and found Time Machine would get farther than before. I then looked at the system.log again and saw it failing on the remaining Apps. I was able to use Time Machine to restore these App directories from a couple months ago before the Time Machine was failing. Now the problem is resolved. Whew! It seemed to be choking on corrupt files and these can be corrected by restoring earlier ones that were not corrupted.
Well, I thought I should share this with others that may have run into the same issue so they can save time. Hope it helps!

Time Machine can no longer complete backups? How to fix it?

I aborted a download of Maverick after reading reviews and problems. I have an older imac intel. Since then any attempts by time machine to perform backups fail.
Help!

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 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 (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 - Can't Explore Previous Backups, Can't Open Image!

I have a two-fold problem with my Time Machine.
1. I plugged in my USB hard drive into my Macbook Pro, and let it backup. Then, I plugged it into an Airport Extreme n (Fast Ethernet) and it resumed the backups successfully. But, regardless of whether I had it plugged in through USB or wirelessly, I could not see on the Time Machine program any previous backups (i.e. flip through past times).
I had previously been able to see older backups, before all the time machine updates, and when the hard drive had been plugged in through USB only. But after all the updates, my time machine backup failed to recognize, and I deleted the whole thing.
One difference I noticed with the backups with prior to and after the updates, was that before, it would have a backup folder, whereas now, it uses an image format. Which brings me to:
2. When time machine is doing a backup, I am able to see the image loaded. I can browse through it and see all the backups through the finder.
When Time Machine is not backing up anymore, however, I can no longer see the image. When clicking on the “sparsebundle,” I get the following error:
The following disk images failed to mount
Image: Macbook Pro_001b….
Reason: Operation not supported on socket
Anybody know why these two issues occur?
Thank you for your help!
2.2Ghz 15" Macbook Pro
OS 10.5.2 (all updates installed)

The backup can be corrupt.. you are on Lion so this is no surprise. Are you backing up over wireless.. it would be much less of a surprise.
http://pondini.org/TM/D3.html
Read the troubleshooting as TM is much more complex than a simple copy this file over to there.

Time machine can't access the backup disk ''time machine backup'' on WD My Cloud, Time machine can't access the backup disk ''time machine backup'' on WD My Cloud?

Every time I try to start my Mac's time Machine receive above message and it seems no possible to reopen/start properly the application.
What is error OSS 2?

WD Back up connection problems for Networked WD hard drive
“Connection failed”
“Can not find server”
“There was a problem connecting to the server “WD ShareSpace-Backup”.”
There may be two problems and associated solutions:
Read only access
It may be necessary to “create” a disk for the WD back up.
Change Read Only Access
The WD hard drive may automatically create a share for the Time Machine. This share appears in Finder as “WD_Backup”
If you open WD interface through a web browser and go to
Advanced Mode > Users>Folder Share permissions
You will see it as “back up” or similar.
As indicated by others click on the icon on the far left – a pencil and paper – and change the “NFS Access” from “Read Only” to “Full Access”
For Networked back up dives it may be necessary to “create” a disk for the WD back up.
The WD hard drive may automatically create a share for the Time Machine. This share appears in Finder as “WD_Backup”
The password is “backup”, although others have suggested it is sometimes “admin”
If when you open “Time Machine” and “Select Disk” time Machine says it “can not find…” or “can not connect to…” the server/disk it may be necessary to “create”, ”map”, or manually force your mac to connect to the “WD_Backup” folder share.
To do this
Open Finder
Select GO>Connect to Server
In the box at the top enter the IP address for your WD drive. You can find this in the top of your web browser or through your web browser interface with your WD Drive:
Advanced Mode >Network>LAN
The IP address will probably be in the format
“192.168.0.X” where “X” is a number particular to your network
In my case X used to be 2 but then changed to 3 – I don’t know why.
Click “Connect” and enter the Name and password
Name: “WD_Backup”
Password: “backup”
Click “registered user” and click “connect”
Click the “+” button to add the server to the list in the lower box.
Now open “Time Machine”
Click “Select Disk”
Your new “disk” / Folder share should appear in the list with the IP address below it thus:
WD_Backup
On “192.168.0.X”
As in the screen shot below.
Select this disk by clicking on the disk and then on “use disk”.
You should now be away………….

New TC but now Time Machine can't find network backup drives

I had a 2 GB TC replaced under warranty (many thanks to LaPastenague who suggested I may be able to get a replacement under warranty). Configured the TC using Airport Utility, and after a bit of messing around (had to delete and re-find the USB printer) everything seemed to be working fine. However ....
I have a MyBookWorld network drive as an alternate Time Machine backup disk, and my MacBook found both the TC and MBW and backed up to them alternately just fine.
However on another MacBook I removed the MBW drive as a backup disk in TM preferences, and now I can't add it back to that Macbook's list of backup drives. I get the "can't find that server" error dialogue. Which is crazy because the other shares on the MBW drive are visible - it's just the backup partition (WD_Backup) that isn't found. I figure it's trying to connect to the IP address of the previous TC, which probably changed when I replaced the TC, or something.
Help please !
TIA ... John.

Manually mount the directory in finder.
This is so much more important on Mavericks than it used to be due to its default to SMB networking.
I guess I also do not know if you should mount this via AFP or SMB but try both.
So in Finder.. Go.. connect to server.
Type in the actual name or IP of the device.
AFP://MBW.local/WD_Backup (where MBW is the network name of the device. local is the domain (assuming it is connected to the TC))
No luck try AFP://MBWIPaddress where you simply type in the IP.
You might find it is easier to pick up the directory from the other Mac where it is working.
Click on Get Info and look at the directory URL info.
If no luck use SMB://MBW.local etc.
Come back to us if it still does not show up.

Time Machine: Can I use my backup to setup my new iMac?

Hello
I'am planing to change my 20" iMac white 2.16GHz to a 24" iMac alu 2.8 GHz .
Is it possible to restore my 20" iMac's data from the back up drive to this bigger machine, without to lose anything?
With TimeMachine of course.
Thanks

I read it somewhere (I don't remember it now) that in the set up process of a new computer it asks if you like to transfer information from some other place and you need to select an account in the time machine and choose what (like applications, folder, some settings) you want to transfer. So I think the configuration would not be a problem.
You can search for some support articles at http://www.apple.com/support/find/ and see if you can get some information.

Time machine can't find older backups

Hi guys,
I am experiencing issues with Time machine, which can't find older backups after clean install of OS X Yosemite 10.10 to my MacBook Pro 17 early 2011 model.
Important to say, I am using NAS Synology DS213j as my Time Machine backup disk.
When opening Time Machine window, I am getting only one restore date (actual date) even my TM folder contains backups since February 2014.
Curious thing is, that Migration Assistant utility can access the data when restoring my old profile.
Can anyone please advise what's wrong?
Thank you
Brachaci

Even weirder -- the problem I described above happens only with certain windows. WIth others, I can open the earlier backups.

Time Machine: Can't Select Files/Folders to Restore

Hi:
Time Machine has always worked superbly for me in the past. However, today, I tried to restore a desktop file from last week. When I open Time Machine and hit the arrows to navigate it takes 10" or so, but eventually gets there. However, when I click on any file or folder that is visible, nothing happens. Thus, I cannot select a file/folder to restore it.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

See if this thread is fruitful:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/10394546#10394546

Time Machine: Can I make a backup of the original backup?

I use Time Machine. Once a month, for corporate security reasons, I need to move a duplicate of our company's Time Machine backup hard disk to an offsite storage spot 30 miles away. (Just in case of hurricanes, civil unrest, uncivil unrest etc.)
If I just drag and drop all folders from my Time Machine backup disk to another recently reformatted blank hard disk, will that new 'clone' disk be as good as the original Time Machine backup disk?
Thanks for noodling it over.

Unfortunately, no. but there are utilities like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper that will do that.
Cheers!

Time Machine can not complete the backup...what's up?

I'm getting this error message which keeps me from backing up: "The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/....sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1)."

I have not found a long-term solution (fix), but in my case the volume where the Time Machine backup should occur usually is mounted on the desktop but not as a shared volume (incidated as a drive with the people holding hands superimposed over the drive icon). If I drag the drive to the trash (unmount it), the next time Time Machine is scheduled to run, it completes successfully.

Time Machine - can't select any backups except Today and Oldest

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