Time Machine does backups, but cannot find those backups

I have a 27-inch iMac (mid 2011) what is wirelessly connected to a 3T Airport Time Capsule.
I am running Yosemite 10.10.1
In the Time machine preferences, the latest backup was made at 5:54p (C) today. The earliest was made in July 2014.
My problem is that I cannot access the backups. When I enter time machine I get the "waiting" window title and then a message that says the backups cannot be found and a referral to the time machine preferences. When I go the the preferences, everything looks OK. The proper disk is selected.
I read another post that seemed related to this, but there were so many abbreviations, that I could not understand anything. If anyone does understand this issue, could you explain it in plain terms? Thank you.

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 and start typing the name.
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.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try to enter Time Machine. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
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. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
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 or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

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Time Machine does Backup to Disk Image but won't browse.

Hi Everyone,
I really enjoy using Time-Machine as my backup-utility as it's build into the system, updated by Apple and comes at no extra cost. Still, there has never been an option to encrypt the Backup. As I'm usually keeping my Backup in the Office, I wanted it to be a little more secure otherwise everybody could just pick up the Disk and read all my private files.
Anyway, I went ahead and manually created a TimeMachine Sparsebundle on my Local Partition (The ones TimeMachine usually creates on Network Volumes). I chose 256bit encryption and pointed the TimeMachine preferences at the Partition where I store my TimeMachine Sparsebundle.
External HDD > Partition 2 'TimeCapsule' > Encryptet Sparse bundle 'TimeMachine'
I had to manually create the TimeMachine Plist on the Volume and now it automatically mounts the Sparse bundle and does the Backup once every hour.
THE PROBLEM: The issue is, when I decide to go back and restore files trough TimeMachine, it'll present me with the Partition the Sparse bundle is located on, which contains nothing. I can only get TimeMachine to browse trough my Sparse bundle (Backup) if I manually choose to browse other Backup disks.
Is there any way to tell TimeMachine to always browse this particular bundle. I don't understand why it doesn't work as it also does the Backup.
I hope somebody can help me with this.
Thanks,
OldSchoolMacs

You can do it your way, but the intended way is to use FileVault to encrypt your Home folder. When you log out of your account then TM will begin the backup of the encrypted Home folder. No need for you to encrypt or decrypt your own disc image.
If you allow TM to run hourly backups as you now do, then both your Home folder and your backups are not secure.

Cannot set up Time Machine because Airport Utility cannot find it. What do I do now?

Sorry, I meant to say Airport Utility cannot find Time Capsule. The TC is not listed as an available drive in the TM setings panel. Trying to set up a MBP. iMac TM settings panel lists TC but if I search for it from either machine, iMac or MBP it is not found. Repeated rescanning doesn't find it. Also trid Airport Utility from iPad and iPhone, still not found. When I first purchased it I set it all up so I have logged into it before. That was a couple of months ago, now I've got around to setting up TM I can't access it. It is continuing to provide my wireless network though.

OK, turned off all devices, pulled the plug out of the TC, waited then plugged back in. Started everything up again and Airport Utility can now find the TC.
Thanks to you both for trying to help. Next time I'll try this first but it didn't seem like a very elegant Apple solution to the problem.

Cannot open time machine; message on screen: time machine in backup. I want to find last 12 mos. of pictures.

cannot open application to time machine: Message on screen: time machine in backup.
Purpose to get into time machine; is to pickup lost photos

northernresort wrote:
I workedwith apple support on the phone it believe the backup is corrupt.
Yup, sure sounds like it.
It does have a .sparsebundle for the machine that is backup up. There is only 52G free on the 1T time capsule, so it seems that the data is there,
That's good, obviously. Often it won't mount at all, and you're in a very large pickle.
I'm not seeing nor beleive I'm having a hardware issue with the time capsule.
Probably not.
I'm wondering if I have some sort of version issue between 10.7.x that the Time machine on the time capsule was created with and 10.8.4
No, at least not that's been reported. A sparsebundle is a sparsebundle, as far as we can tell.
I don't use hdiutil or fsck, so bear with me. Drag the sparsebundle into Disk Utility's sidebar and try Repair Disk on it. See what messages it shows. (They may not appear in the window; click the Log icon or select Window > Show Log from the menubar.)
Do you have a copy of DiskWarrior? It can operate on a sparsebundle, and sometimes can fix things Disk Utility (and hdiutil or fsck) can't.
I haven't found any good way to parse out/copy files from a sparse bundle
If you double-click it, does the disk image (named "Time Machine Backups") mount (should appear on your Desktop and/or Finder sidebar)? If it does, can you open it via the Finder? If so, you'll find the usual Backups.backupdb folder inside, with one folder named for your Mac, and inside that all the date-stamped backup folders, each with one folder per drive that was backed-up, and inside that the full folder structure.
If so, you can probably drag & drop, but depending on what kind of damage there is, and where, that may not work well, if at all.
Best, of course, is if you can repair it and just do a full restore.

Restore from time machine does not list all my backups. I know they exist but there dates are not present on the restore list. Any help appreciated.

Restore from time machine does not list all my backups. I know they exist but their dates are not present on the restore list. Any help appreciated. If I must use one of these older dates to restore, how do I then get the more current data off time machine?

Ok, so am i correct in saying that the steps to fix are as follows.
That's one option, but not what I meant by restoring in the time-travel view. The latter is what you get when you enter Time Machine.
is the fresh install not going to be able to "see" the time machine backups that I have at the moment.
It should, but sometimes people report that it fails. I'm not sure why that happens.

Time machine does not find my external hard disk.

is this because it is formatted ms-dos. it has been this way since i've had it and have used it to manually back up photos and other things, which worked fine. i see back up folders on there but time machine does not recognize it as its back up. can anyone enlighten me.

Your external HDD needs to be formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended - Journaled) for Time Machine to use it as a backup destination. You can move your current data off the drive and format it via Disk Utility.
You mentioned there are TM backup folders. Curious that you cannot access them. How are you trying to access them? Are you using the TM interface or viewing it via Finder?

Time Machine does not backup all files

I recently did a clean install and to my horror i can see that Time Machine does NOT back up all my files.
It seems to be worst in my music library which fortunately is pretty easy to rebuild do to itunes index.
But is there any way to make sure that Time Machine does in fact back up all files?
Or is it just broken and should be avoided?
I have 1,5 year old Macbook Pro Retina 15 inches 500 GB SSD

If you use the third-party application "Dropbox," you may see files in the Finder that are not present locally, but are actually on a network server. Those files won't be backed up and won't appear in Time Machine, even though they show in a Finder window. If the files in question are in a Dropbox folder, disable the software or refer to its developer for support.
Continue only if you've ruled out Dropbox or any similar product as a possible cause of the issue.
Open the Time Machine preference pane and unlock the settings, if necessary. Click the Options button. If there is one particular folder with items that are not being backed up reliably, add it to the list of excluded items. If there are many such folders, add your home folder to the list, or add a whole volume (i.e., what Apple calls a "disk.") Save the changes.
Start a backup, or wait for one to happen automatically. When it's done, open the preference pane again and remove the exclusion(s) you made earlier. Back up again and see whether there's a change.

"Your Time Machine back up disk cannot be found." What does this mean?

I have an external hard drive that has never been disconnected from my iMac.
About 3 weeks ago, I started noticing that some of my iTunes library songs had "!" in front of them, and I wasn't able to find them to play. Over time, more and more iTunes songs had this problem. Someone recommended that I look in the hard drive library, for individual titles, and sure enough, there they were! I've been dragging them back to iTunes but this is going to take forever, because I'm a music teacher and I have a lot of songs in my library.
In this process, I decided to see if the songs were still on the external hard drive, the Time Machine. However, I get the message "your time machine back up disk cannot be found." I have no idea what this must mean, because the Time Machine has been plugged in for a couple of years now. But somehow, the computer doesn't recognize it any more.
Are the two problems related? And what should I do?

There is no relation.
Time Machine backups : my opinion is that this is a real waste of disk space, usefull for a few number of files but that's all ! In case of a reinstallation, everyone is performing a fresh installation ... In addition, after a certain time, TM erases the oldest files.
I personnaly backup only on mediums (CDs, DVDs, DVDs) etc ... then i'm always sure to find again what i'm searching for.
iTunes : a "!" means that you have moved from one place to another an audio file (or erasing it by error) and iTunes has just stored a link to the file and not the file inside its own folders. Probably you have never consolidated you library. The question is : where are you storing your files ? inside your mac plus inside external drives ? Please make sure, if you are managing often files in iTunes, to consolidate them in order for iTunes to copy them inside its own folders, else it becomes quickly a nightmare.
iTunes manages files on 3 different ways now :
- real files inside it
- links to files out of its folders
- files from iTunesMatch

Time Machine thinks backup disk is full but its not

I just purchased a new 1 Terabyte hard drive for backup. In the past I backed up both my internal Mac harddrive (250 Gb with 8gb free) and an external iOmega archive drive (DRIVE H 320Gb with 41Gb free) to a 500Gb Lacie drive. I purchased an iOmega 1 Terabyte drive (DRIVE G) because the Lacie drive was full. I went into Time Machine and changed the backup drive to the G one terabyte drive and did a full backup of my internal hard drive. When I did this I did not have the external H archive drive attached so Time Machine didn't back that up. I did it that way because I wanted to first backup the internal drive then do some work and then go backup the external archive drive over night. I plugged the H archive drive in, so it show up in the finder and then told Time Machine to Backup Now. It started the back up but right after doing the initial computations when it actually started backing up I got the standard error message that "the backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly..." I've double checked that the backup disk is set correctly in Time Machine to the 1Tb G drive and when I do a Get Info on the G drive it shows Capacity: 1TB, Available: 713.54 GB.
Is it possible something is wrong with the new drive? Can I test that?

Its funny how sometimes asking a question can prompt your thinking. As soon as I finished posting this I thought "of course Disk Utility". I ran a check disk and got the following error message:
Unused node is not erased (node = 107)
I did a restore which corrected the error. Turned Time Machine back on and its backing up the rest of my data now.

Does Time Machine bundle backup sets when it deletes a month's daily sets?

I'm asking this question to find out if I can delete the all but the last week in a month, each month, in order to extend the useful capacity of my backup drive.
In some backup systems, a periodic "bundle" is made when previous sets are deleted, so for instance, the last backup of the month has the cumulative hourly changes of that month. In this way, transient files which appear and disappear within the month are retained in the monthly backup.
Is this true of Time Machine? Exactly what does Time Machine do? Does it simply wipe out the daily sets and chose the last one to be the "weekly backup?" Or something more sophisticated and useful?
Thanks for any insight!

I've devised a little experiment to discover Time Machine's behavior in this regard:
On my Time Machine's backup schedule, August 27 corresponds with the end of a week. So, on August 26 at 9:15AM, I created the following [folder]/file structure:
[Time Machine Test -Transient Roll-up]
   [Time Machine Test - 1. Hourly Transience
      A one hour lifetime file.rtf
   [Time Machine Test - 2. Daily Transience
      A one day lifetime file.rtf
   [Time Machine Test - 3. Weekly Transience
      A one week lifetime file.rtf
At 10:10AM of that day I removed
[Time Machine Test - 1. Hourly Transience
      A one hour lifetime file.rtf
At 10:10 the next day, August 27, I removed
   [Time Machine Test - 2. Daily Transience
      A one day lifetime file.rtf
On August 28 at 10:30AM, acheck today of the earliest backup of this structure reveals only the following:
[Time Machine Test -Transient Roll-up]
   [Time Machine Test - 3. Weekly Transience
      A one week lifetime file.rtf
I draw the conclusion that transient files within a time period are not subject to a "roll-up" mechanism that displays all changes after out-of-date files are deleted by Time Machine. Thus, for instance, any file that appeared and disappears during an hour will be lost in Time Machine's daily history. Similarly, files that only persist for a day will be lost in the weekly history. And, presumably, if one wanted to choose a week which represented an accumulation of transient changes during the month it would be impossible to do so.
Even so, if one wants to manage only one backup volume, rather than accumulating a stack of them over the years, one might well think about selectively deleting all but one week per month in the earliest backups available, as the projected remaining time approaches less than a few weeks. BackupLoupe's Statistics gives an estimate of remaining time left for backups on a volume, and I would suggest using that as a forecast, unless others have experience to the contrary.
Hope this is useful. It certainly is to me.

Can't Find Slideshows within Time Machine iPhoto Backup

I have spent quite a lot of time setting up a slideshow with Ken Burns effects and added music. Large slideshow with 367 photos, went to send it to iDVD and it doesn't work...can't export it as it seems it's too large but that is another story (I think a bug with iPhoto 09)...even after the update! Anyway...someone suggested splitting the slideshow up to export it to see if that worked. I did that and the two new parts of the slideshow no longer have the Ken Burns effect applied. My stupid fault, but I already deleted the photos that weren't required from the original slideshow and the Undo worked once but then greyed out. I'm guessing it must have saved in the middle...typical! So...having backed up with Time Machine the night before I plugged in the drive and navigated to iPhoto from yesterday. Photos all there but no Slideshow in the left hand pane. Maybe I'm missing something or does Time Machine not backup slideshows that have not been exported?
Thanks

Solved, restored the iPhoto Library from the finder and it worked!

When time machine does a backup I get an error message

Added a new Seagate 3T external as a backup drive Every time Time Machine does a backup I get an error message that the disk was not ejected properly, no bid deal just a pain. System 3.5GHz Intel Core i7... 16GB DDR# memory ... OSX 10.8.4. How do I get rid of this error??

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Time Machine does not see original backup file on Time Capsuel after reset.

I recently moved. I have a Time Capsule which is also my airport base station. I have about 7 months worth of back-ups on the drive for an iMac and a MacBook. The local cable company would only hook up the modem directly to my iMac and would not set up through the Time Capsule as it is not one of their routers. No problem. I did it once -- I could do it again. After discovering that it was not as simple as plugging the ethernet cable into the Time Capsule (after doing so, the Time Capsule recognized it had internet feed -- the iMac recognized the Time Capsule/Airport network -- but I could not get onto the net.) I discovered that I needed to do a hard reset. The instructions said the files would not be erased. They were not. I can still see the original back-ups for both computers in finder. But Time Machine does not recognize that either computer was ever backed up. There is no history and when I try a back-up it begins from scratch and creates a brand new back-up file.
How do I get Time Machine to recognize the original back-up files? I tried "choosing disk" in Time Machine preferences but it only lets me choose the actual disk (the Time Capsule) and not an individual back-up file
Thanks in advance to the collective brain trust.
Robert

I saw a post on another discussion about this subject, and one user found this workaround:
2) Start the backup via wireless connection. Stop the backup. Unplug external HD and plug in via USB or FW (you want FW800). Time Machine appears smart enough to continue your backup in a manner that is useable by the AEBS.
This only makes sense for the first backup (or if you have a lot of data for one particular incremental backup), as it removes the whole convenience factor of wireless.
The post got this reply:
Thx for your #2 tip on using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Base Station, then switching to a wired connection. Worked perfectly.
Started the TimeMachine b/up wirelessly, allowed it to run for a couple minutes, then stopped it, unplugged the USB drive from the AEBS, plugged it into the computer directly via FW400, opened TimeMachine and it recognized the Disk. Ran TimeMachine via the wired connection, after it finished I ejected it, plugged it back into the AEBS, initiated the AirDisk in the finder, then opened TimeMachine and presto!!
Awesome tip. Note: this works for first-time TimeMachine wireless backups only. Saved me over 40 hours of wireless waiting!!
http://gizmodo.com/370017/how+to-use-time-machine-with-an-airport-extreme
Can anyone confirm that this will work?

Time machine working well but I can't find backed up files fast enough?

Time machine working well but I can't find backed up files fast enough. When I look in Time machine backups I'm looking in a folder and I can't remember what it was, but I go back in time and the finder goes from 98 files to 100 files, how do I find which 2 files were the ones deleted? Going back and forth from past to present is a pain! I need to figure out which file it was faster? Have any ideas?
With the new "Find" feature it actually highlights what you are looking for such as in Safari. Does Time Machine have a feature to highlight the files/folders that were deleted really from the present?

It sounds like you aren't looking for any file in particular, but notice a change in number of files and would like to know what changed rather than knowing that a specific file is now missing.
that's a good point, and it appears that TM is not setup to describe the changes over time. If I recall correctly, it has a plug-in ability, so maybe somebody will fill in that void.
Sheldon

Time Machine does not recognize my iMac backup. Reports: not enough space; can't back up. How do I get it to recognize the backup?

Time Machine does not recognize my 430 GB iMac backup on 1 terabyte Time Capsule. Reports: not enough space; can’t back up. How do I get it to recognize the old backup and continue backups?

Thanks for the Time Machine Troubleshooting link. Apparently things have changed since 10.7.0. Backups.backupdb doesn’t exist. Path now is: Time Capsule/Data/Daru’s iMac.sparsebundle. So I did Terminal (I usually avoid Terminal) using the instruction in B6. It does not appear to be working. It went through looking for backup, preparing backup, and is now stopping backup, and the TMBackup has disappeared from the sidebar.
Well, just now Time Machine progressed to preparing backup again; the Tiime Machine Backups appeared in sidebar, and with it Backups.backupdb/Daru’s iMac/2012-04-21-112939.inProgress. So it does exist... I’ll let it run, see what happens... But that is a strange date. Today is 28.
I’ll let you know the outcome.
Oops. Just ended! Real time report: “Backup too large for disk...“ So it is not recognizing the old backup. I’ll look at those instructions again, see if I can do the Terminal thing with the backup running. I doubt I can damage anything except the existing baackup which I'll lose anywy if I can’t achieve recognition.
Daru

Time Machine does backups, but cannot find those backups

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