Time Machine does not backup home folder

I upgraded to Lion recently and time machine was working properly, my hard disk failed and apple replaced it, but put in a HD with 10.6.8 on it. I then restored from time capsule (1 TB- first gen) and eventually it worked and everything seemed to be working. However it also changed the name of my home folder (reversing the name) and now my home folder is not backed up on to time capsule, local snapshots include it but not on the tc. I have reset (using pondini guide) the preferences and also eventually deleted the previous time machine and completely set up a new one but still no luck. Can anyone help as i am uncomfortable without a backup of my home folder. Nothing is encrypted and file vault turned off. Please help.

No one with a clue?

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Time Machine does not backup home/user directory (on separate drive)

I recently installed a SSD into my Mini. Due to size restrictions, my home/user directory has to be kept on another drive. I retained the stock 1TB drive that came with the Mini for this.
Ok, installed the SSD, restored a Time Machine backups (sans user data). Used a different admin user and configured my user to use the 1TB drive for it's home directory (/Volumes/1TB/home/<user>). Restart, log in as my user, all is good. All data, settings, etc is there. Everything looks normal.
Time Machine REFUSES to backup this directory. It will backup the 1TB drive and anyting else I create in it, but not the home directory. I tried every permission trick I could think of or found online. I even tested it further by formatting the 1TB drive fresh, adding a new user, configuring the user to use the 1TB for their home directory and it still won't back it up (this was a test of permissions the OS set, to make sure I didn't change my data perms somewhere along the way). Time Machine would not backup the new user's home directory on the 1TB drive.
Any thoughts? I can't be the first person to have their home directory on a non-OS drive.
If I were to create a folder/file in /Volumes/1TB/<test file> ... Time Machine gets it perfect. It just will NOT touch /Volumes/1TB/home/<anything here>
Thanks!

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.

Time Machine does not backup all of my files

Hi,
If I compare my Dropbox folder to what Time Machine backups there are differences which means that Time Machine does not backup all files:
diff <(cd "/Users/phil/Dropbox" && ls -R | sort) <(cd "/Volumes/TimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/Dropbox" && ls -R | sort)
There are also differences if I compare my user folder to the Time Machine Backup:
diff <(cd "/Users/phil/" && ls -R | sort) <(cd "/Volumes/TimeMachineBackup/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Macintosh HD/Users/phil/" && ls -R | sort)
I did not exclude the folders affected from the Time Machine backup.
I have verified this behaviour on other computers as well.
Does anybody else have this kind of problem?
Philipp

These commands solved the problem for now:
1) Stop the Dropbox desktop application (if needed)
- Click on the Dropbox icon.
- Choose Quit/Stop/Exit
2) Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
3) Copy and paste the following lines into the Terminal, one at a time, and press RETURN after each one. PLEASE make sure you copy and paste these commands (don't type them by hand), as getting them wrong could cause some harm. You'll be prompted for your computer user's password (not your Dropbox password) after entering the first command. Keep in mind that the password field in the terminal will remain blank as you type your password. After you type it, just press ENTER.
sudo chflags -R nouchg ~/Dropbox ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-master
sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"
sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/Dropbox ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-master
sudo chmod -RN ~/.dropbox ~/Dropbox ~/.dropbox-master
chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-master

Time machine does not backup anymore

Hello all,
I've been using my time machine for a month now, I kept it turned off and only connected the disk when I wanted to make a backup. Then I just hit Back Up Now from the menu and it always backed up everything (I used to check it afterwards). FYI, I've got a 500GB drive and for backups I use a 500GB partition on an external disk, where about 100GB is still free. All of a sudden, my time machine does not backup anymore. It does its run, whether a scheduled hourly one when turned on, or an on-demand one, but it only lasts a split second as though there is nothing to backup and when I enter the time machine, the files are really missing. I can't make it backup anything anymore. What is going on?
thanks everyone

cukerko wrote:
Hello all,
I've been using my time machine for a month now, I kept it turned off and only connected the disk when I wanted to make a backup. Then I just hit Back Up Now from the menu and it always backed up everything (I used to check it afterwards). FYI, I've got a 500GB drive and for backups I use a 500GB partition on an external disk, where about 100GB is still free.
It's not related to this problem, but that may not be large enough. What's important is not the size of your internal HD, but how much is on it (or is expected to be on it in the next year or so). It varies widely, of course, depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up.
. . . it only lasts a split second as though there is nothing to backup and when I enter the time machine, the files are really missing.
That sounds like the year-old unfixed bug detailed in red in #D5 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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.

Time Machin does not backup automatically

First backup worked fine, and also the subsequent hourly automatic backups. But then the automatic backup stopped, and it does no longer show the next backup time. I can again manually backup but the automatic backup does not work any longer.
Who has similar problems?

I am also having problems with TimeMachine failing to continue to backup.
I have reformatted (even though disk already had correct GUID format) a couple of times.
Here are my symptoms after about a dozen hourly backups:
TM gets itself in an endless loop.
It acts like it is performing a backup
the disk indicates it is busy
a *.inProgress file is created on the backup drive
my machine slows to a crawl, and
no new backups are created.
I really like the features of Time Machine, but can't seem to find a way to make it work for more than a day.

Time Machine does not backup the HD, but an old version on itself!

I had to find a file in a Time Machine backup of my Macbook Air running Lion, to transfer it to my desktop computer.
To my horror, the entire TM backup was NOT of my Air as it was when I did the backup yesterday, but of 5 months earlier! So I checked a whole string of TM backups over the last couple of months and they were all the same! Even though 100's of files have been added, deleted and edited since then. TM seems to be copying old backups from its own folder on the backup drive! I've had to manually copy my Air onto a new folder in the backup drive, to be safe.
I cannot find anything about this problem in the forums or on http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can anyone help please?

Time Machine will only back up HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) formatted drives. Reformatting will erase the drive so make sure everything on it is safely copied elsewhere and verify a few test files before erasing the drive. Getting rid of the FAT32 formatting has been problematic for quite a few people. The directions in this article are for good for getting rid of the FAT32 formatting. They are for formatting a Time Machine disk but the directions will work just as well for your purposes.

Time Machine does not backup after using second Mac on different volume.

Hi.
I use an airport extrem with an external usb hdd. It has 3 partitions. On the first one I made an TM-backup (MBP 2.2 Leo), all worked fine. Then I made a second TM-backup (MacBook) on the second partition. Worked fine too. But now TM on my MBP is not able to backup any more. When TM starts, it just "prepares" but never actually backs up.
What is the Problem and how do i fix it?
08.05.08 19:43:48 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[192] Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Thomas MBP/Backups.backupdb
08.05.08 19:43:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[192] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Mac HD
08.05.08 19:43:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[192] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
Message was edited by: Thomas_xp

Time Machine will only back up HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) formatted drives. Reformatting will erase the drive so make sure everything on it is safely copied elsewhere and verify a few test files before erasing the drive. Getting rid of the FAT32 formatting has been problematic for quite a few people. The directions in this article are for good for getting rid of the FAT32 formatting. They are for formatting a Time Machine disk but the directions will work just as well for your purposes.

Time machine will not backup my home folder

I am having problems with time machine backing up my home folder. There is nothing in the TM exclusion option except (time machine backup) which is understandable. Even if I wanted to exclude it from backups it does not give me the option like its not recognized. Could this be a problem because my home folder is encrypted? I have talked to someone at the apple store about the issue and they where unable to help.

Yes, it's because it's encrypted. Time Machine does not backup a File Vault protected Home folder as it would an unencrypted one. The File Vault disk image is only backed up after you log out. If you never log out then it will not be backed up.
If you want a "normal" backup of your Home folder you will have to turn off File Vault.

Time machine will not backup but does restore

My Time machine will not backup, but will restore from prior backups - the last made three months ago (end of January). Can anyone help? When trying to run a backup the screen shows:
Select Disc (which I have already done)
704 GB of 1 TB available
Oldest backup: none
A continuosly revolving progress bar
"Preparing Backup"
Note that when I run Time Machine in order to restore, all backups prior to Jan 30th are there.
I am running OSX Mountain LIon Version 10.8.3

Mickmannock wrote:
I followed the proceedure described to delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist. However I note that there are very many versions of this file in other locations.
There shouldn't be. Delete any others.
Make sure the one you deleted was in your top-level /Library folder (not the Library folder inside your home folder). If you got the right one, when you went back to the Time Machine Preferences window, it should not have shown your TM drive or anything else.
I am running Parallels 8 and windows 7 in a Virtual machine, but these do not appear to have created problems in the past - over two years now.
You probably should exclude the VM files from Time Machine backups. That shouldn't be the cause of much of this problem, but may be a problem in the future. The reason is, to OSX, a VM file is one huge file -- if anything at all is changed, TM considers the whole thing changed, and will back it up again, taking time and lots of space on your backup disk.
Have you Verified your internal HD, and Repaired any other disks being backed-up, and your backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting?
What are you backing-up to (external HD, Time Capsule, etc.)?

HT3275 My time machine does not back up and giving me this error message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Amiel's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use. Pls help.

My time machine does not back up and giving me this error message: The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Amiel’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use. Pls help.

Make sure that there are no other Macs backing up at the present time.
Pull the power cord from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cord back in
This will "fix" things about 98% of the time. Post back if you are in the unlucky 2% category.

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?

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 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 not appear to backup an external HD. how do I get that included in the backup?

time machine does not appear to backup an external HD. how do I get that included in the backup?

In the Finder, press the key combination shift-command-C, or select
Go ▹ Computer
from the menu bar. A window will open showing all mounted volumes. Select the one in question and open the Info window. What is shown as the Format in the General section? If it's not "Mac OS Extended," Time Machine can't back up the volume.

Time Machine does not backup home folder

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