Time Machine doesn't notice new files.

Alright, so I have Time Machine set up with my external drive. Everything with the setup process went smoothly, and the initial backup successfully copied everything. Since then, however, Time Machine doesn't notice when new files appear. If I create a new project in Logic, for example, it will never get backed up.
Here's what I know:
-The only thing I have told Time Machine to not back up is the other partition on my external drive.
-Logic project files get stored to the default ~/Music/Logic/ directory, which is on my internal hard drive.
-Time Machine will never notice that new projects have been added, no matter how long I wait (hours, days, weeks) or if I tell Time Machine to back up now.
-Time Machine will back up the files if I format its partition and start fresh with the same configuration.
-Reviewing the Backup.log files shows that Time Machine isn't detecting any significant changes (or new files, in my case).
-Other directories are working fine, such as /Library/WebServer/Documents/
Anybody have any ideas?

According to Ars' Leopard review, Time Machine uses a new file system change notification system framework called FSEvents (which is explained quite well in the Ars article). Since FSEvents depends on the system used by Spotlight, can you tell us whether Spotlight is updating or not?
If Spotlight is up to date, the next thing to see is whether the FSEvents framework is capable of receiving updates. To do so, the fseventsd process must be running (I imagine that you should be able to see if under Activity Monitor). If it is not running, there lies the problem: you must launch it and make sure that is launches at startup.
If the fsevetsd is running and you have free disk space (the FSEvents framework stores files events on a directory .fseventsd at the root of each file system), you might want to check that the .fseventsd directory of the file system where you have your home direcotry does not have a no_log file inside telling it not to log events for that file system. If such a file does exist, deleting it should do the trick (no guarantees though, I don't have Tiger yet to test my words!). If it doesn't exist, I hope someone else can help you further along, because I am afraid that I have run out of suggestions.
Good luck.

Similar Messages

Time Machine Not Backing Up New Files

Time Machine is NOT backing up my recent files.
I recently noticed that Time Machine was backing up really quickly instead of taking several minutes as usual. I checked previous backups and discovered that NONE of my recent files were backed up.
I have a very basic setup. An external usb 1 tb drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) being used as the time machine backup drive. A new i5 mac mini with OS X 10.8.4. About 200 gigs of data with one user on the internal drive.
I have followed all of the Pondini troubleshooting steps. I have restarted into safe mode to force a deep traversal. I have repaired permissions and verified all disks with Disk Utility. I have deleted time machine preferences and followed instructions as per Pondini #A4. The backup seems to run but then finishes quickly but DOES NOT BACK UP any recent files.
I have run TMUTIL COMPARE, it showed that many files needed to be backed up.
I have run TMUTIL ISEXCLUDED on some of the files that were not being backed up. It showed that they were not flagged for exclusion.
I have run a manual backup after starting up in Safe Mode, which forced a deep event scan, but then exhibited the same behaviour..
I have acquired a new external hard drive, backed up the complete main drive (using Time Machine which appeared to be successful on the first time full backup), then run a manual backup on that new drive after adding new files and had THE SAME PROBLEM.
Here's the latest console output, which is typical since I have noticed this issue. There appear to be many megabytes of new files to be backed up, but then the operation completes within seconds and no files are backed up at all.
6/23/13 7:15:16.422 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Starting manual backup
6/23/13 7:15:16.966 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Omnius/Backups.backupdb
6/23/13 7:15:17.916 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Using file event preflight for Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:20.277 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Will copy (375.1 MB) from Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:20.298 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Found 845 files (375.1 MB) needing backup
6/23/13 7:15:20.311 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: 1.91 GB required (including padding), 747.18 GB available
6/23/13 7:15:29.264 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Copied 400 files (1.4 MB) from volume Olympus.
6/23/13 7:15:29.298 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Using file event preflight for Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:29.299 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Will copy (Zero KB) from Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:29.300 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Found 5 files (Zero KB) needing backup
6/23/13 7:15:29.301 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: 1.46 GB required (including padding), 747.17 GB available
6/23/13 7:15:30.439 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Copied 140 files (33 bytes) from volume Olympus.
6/23/13 7:15:30.511 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Created new backup: 2013-06-23-071530
6/23/13 7:15:30.608 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Starting post-backup thinning
6/23/13 7:15:30.608 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
6/23/13 7:15:30.689 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Backup completed successfully.
Please help. Time Machine is currently useless as a backup solution.

Results (username obfuscated in exclusionpaths):
   -=-=-=-=-=--
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
          <key>sourcePaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/</string>
          </array>
          <key>standardExclusionPaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups</string>
                    <string>/MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/.TemporaryItems</string>
                    <string>/.Trashes</string>
                    <string>/.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist</string>
                    <string>/.fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
                    <string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DB</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DF</string>
                    <string>/Network/Servers</string>
                    <string>/Library/Updates</string>
                    <string>/Previous Systems</string>
                    <string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
                    <string>/Users/Guest</string>
                    <string>/dev</string>
                    <string>/home</string>
                    <string>/net</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/com.apple.backupd.backupVerification</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/efw_cache</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/private/var/lib/postfix/greylist.db</string>
                    <string>/Volumes</string>
                    <string>/Network</string>
                    <string>/automount</string>
                    <string>/.vol</string>
                    <string>/tmp</string>
                    <string>/cores</string>
                    <string>/private/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/Network</string>
                    <string>/private/tftpboot</string>
                    <string>/private/var/automount</string>
                    <string>/private/var/folders</string>
                    <string>/private/var/run</string>
                    <string>/private/var/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/var/vm</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/Library/Logs</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
                    <string>/private/var/log</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/cups</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/fax</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/uucp</string>
          </array>
          <key>systemFilesExcluded</key>
          <false/>
          <key>userExclusionPaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/Users/USERNAME/Pictures/cam_in</string>
                    <string>/Users/USERNAME/Epsilon</string>
                    <string>/Users/USERNAME/Desktop</string>
                    <string>/Users/USERNAME/Pictures/cam_out</string>
          </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Time Machine doesn't see new AirPort Extreme

My old Time Capsule died. Hardware failure. Too bad. So I bought a new one, a 2TB AirPort Extreme. 'Upgraded' to OSX 10.9.1 (which crippled a lot of my software, and seems generally more buggy & slower than 10.6.8, but that's beside the point) just to be able to administer it. Setting up the WiFi network was easy. Fine.
Now when I go into Time Machine preferences and click on the "select backup disk" button, the new AirPort Extreme is not listed. There is an option for "Other Time Capsule." If I click on that, the AirPort Extreme shows up. OK. If I click on it, I get a window with IP info, etc. There's an option to "edit". Clicked on that but found nothing about setting up the Time Capsule. I tried clicking on the disks tab, but that returns an empty list of partitions and file-sharing options.
I tried reseting the device with the little button on the back and starting again. Same story. What am I missing?
To be clear, I am not trying to use an external disk. I am trying to use the 2TB disk I am told is inside the AirPort Extreme.

Is it possible to know from the serial number whether I have a misbehaving Time Capsule presenting itself as an AP Extreme, unaware of the hard disk it conceals, or a perfectly functional AP Extreme?
That would be a question for Apple Support.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
If you can locate a model number on the device....it might be on the bottom in very small print.......it will start with an "A" followed by four numbers.....we can tell you what you have.
But a clue might be that an AirPort Extreme sells for about $200. A Time Capsule sells for $300-400 depending on the size of the internal hard drive.
And to anyone from Apple reading this, could you please make your new software compatible with hardware you produced in last 3 yrs?
It is extremely unlikely that anyone from Apple will ever see your post on a user-to-user support forum. Best to contact Apple directly with your comments:
Apple - Time Capsule - Feedback

Time Machine Won't read new files

Today I purchased a bigger a hard drive. I put it in and everything was good. When I tried to restore my system through time machine (which was from a external hard drive) it only read backup files from July 29 to July 21.
Why can't I open the last saved backup and restore it, which was yesterday 8/07/2013. I moved a lot of files and deleted stuff since 07/29 and I want that system, not the 7/29/2013 backup.
Any ideas what I need to do? What is the point of time machine if I can't restore my last system settings?
Thanks for reading.

Most likely, some folders were inadvertently excluded from your backups, and as a result you can't restore your data in Recovery, Setup Assistant, or Migration Assistant.
Starting from a fresh installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Follow the instructions on this page to associate your existing backups with the new installation.
You should now be able to enter Time Machine and restore your user data from a snapshot.* I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Time Machine is not copying new files to new drive

I was just searching thru my TM to restore some old files and realise that my TM has not been backing up new files after a certain date. After much pondering, I realise that was when I changed my old TM drive to a larger drive. I copied all my old backups from the old drive to the new larger drive using this method shown in https://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096. After which TM has been backuping up the files with no errors so I thought all was well.
What i didin't realise was that TM has been backing up the same 43 files over and over again and they are all dated 20 March 2013.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/an_mew backup/Backups.backupdb
1.42 GB required (including padding), 874.70 GB available
Copied 20 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh SSD.
Copied 23 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted /Volumes/an_mew backup/Backups.backupdb/Angela Wangsawidjaja's iMac/2013-04-24-021045 (24.0 KB)
Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
Nothing after 20 March 2103 has been backed up.
I have tried repairing the TM drive thru Disk Utility, removing the TM drive from Time Machine Preferences and re-adding it back, turning Time Machine Preferences off then on again, and restarting from Safe Mode to force a deep traversal scan. Nothing works... my latest backup still shows my latest files as 20 March 2013 only.
Can someone tell me how I can make Time Machine to do a full backup of my SSD and HD without losing all old my backups (before 20 March 2013) that I copied from my old drive?
Thank you.

Looks like it didn't work for http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
I checked a few days later and none of the newer files are being backup again!!
when i check the TM messages it give me the same thing for the past backups from 25 April 2013.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/an_mew backup/Backups.backupdb
1.42 GB required (including padding), 873.27 GB available
Copied 20 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh SSD.
Copied 23 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
any other advice or help please?

Time machine doesn't restore all files

Recently I did a complete format and restore in Mavericks. Prior to moving to Mavericks I did a complete backup in Mountain Lion. After restoring from Time Machine many files were missing for Adobe CS4. When I look at the backup disc with Finder I see all the tiles that I need are listed but when I open Time Machine only a third are retrieveable. Without the files that are missing Photoshop CS4 will not run. How can I get the remaining files?

OK, I;m back up and running. Found out that /Library/Applicaiton Support/Adobe was in two places. One was at the root level and another was in my account area. Each had similar files but the root one had the ones I was missing.

Time Machine doesn't back-up files at desktop

Recently I connected a 3TB drive ( USB) to my iMac (10.8.5 - 3,4 GHz Intel Core i7 - 32 GB - 3TB Fusion Drive), but when I go to latest back-up on my drive there is nothing on the desktop.
The rest of the folders are fine.
Am I doing something wrong?

quicklook the file /library/preferences/com.apple.timemachine.plist. make sure it's not listed among any exclusions there. some of things listed in that files don't show up in the exclusion list. if it's there then delete that file and set up TM and the exclusion list from scratch.

Time Machine doesn't backup Virtual Machines files

I've 90 GB of disk space to backup included 2 Vmware virtuale machines files in a 250 GB external drive. The first file is a Linux Server of 2 GB. The second file is a Win XP installation of about 13 GB.
I've started Time Machine on 21 november and both files have been backuped correctly for 2 days.
After this, none other backups of these files have been made despite their size changes almost every day.
I've checked a little adn it seems those are the only files excluded in Time machine backups and I'm sure that they are not excluded.
Can someone says to me why it happens and how to solve it?
Thanks

I have some additional suggestions for you -- mainly trying to find a workaround for you.
First, if you haven't done so already, make sure your virtual environments are shut off while you do a Back Up Now just in case there's some issue with access to those files while the virtual environments are running.
Next, create a small file (e.g., a Text Edit file) in the folder containing a virtual environment. Do a Back Up Now. Does Time Machine back up that new file? If not then the problem must be at the level of that folder or higher in the file structure (i.e., it's not the virtual environment file itself that's got the problem).
You can work your way up the file hierarchy to find out which folder finally will cause an added file to be backed up.
Next, try this:
Open the Console (all messages) and leave it on screen so you can see if any error messages get thrown.
Open System Preferences / Time Machine. Click on the lock and authenticate if necessary. Click on Options. Drag your virtual environment file into the Do Not Back Up list. If you find an enclosing folder also seems to have this problem drag it in as well (shouldn't hurt to have them both in there).
Now click OK and then exit System Preferences. That should be enough to make this take effect but just to be certain, quit the Console (presuming no useful messages) and Restart the machine.
Once you have logged in again, re-open the Console and then go back into System Preferences / Time Machine / Options. Click on each line you have added to the Do Not Back Up list, in turn, and then click on the "-" at the bottom of the list to remove it from the list.
Click OK to accept these changes. This may trigger an immediate back up but if not exit System Preferences. Now open Time Machine preferences again to watch what happens and do a Back Up Now. Again, keep an eye on the Console for errors.
If this gets your virtual environment files backed up, then try making a change to one of them and do another Back Up Now to see if it is picked up again.
Failing all that, if you have enough disk space on your main drive, try making a copy of a virtual environment file and see if Time Machine will back up the copy. If it does, you might try switching to using the copy. It is possible there is some sort of permissions error in your original that may get corrected when you make the copy.
The last suggestion is even more drastic, but AppleCare will probably ask you to try it:
Create a new user account. Create a new virtual environment from scratch in that user account (do NOT just copy your existing file over). Does Time Machine back that up?
If so, try copying over your original environment file (you can do this through the public "drop box" for example -- make sure the little "+" symbol is showing before you release the file so that a copy is made as opposed to just moving the file (hold Option during the drag and drop to make this happen if it doesn't happen automatically). Does Time Machine back up the copy of your original environment file now in the new user account?
This will isolate whether the problem is system-wide or specific to your current user account.
--Bob

Replaced internal hard drive, time machine doesn't recognize as same volume

Howdy,
The hard drive (call it drive "X") on my iMac (one of the 2005 models) was dying so I had it replaced. I rebuilt the new drive (drive "Y") from my most recent time machine backup (from external drive "A"). I am now having problems with one of my backup devices, in that time machine doesn't recognize that the new disk is conceptually the same thing that had been backed up before (same volume name).
More details... I rotate my backups monthly through three external drives (I store the most recent offsite). After the disk replacement and restore process, I continued to use that backup drive (drive "A") without noticing any problem. Then it came time to rotate my external drives, and time machine doesn't find enough space on the next backup drive (drive "B"). Presumably this is because it doesn't realize that the drive I am backing up ("Y") is a copy of the drive that had previously been backed up on "B" ("X").
Is there any way to convince it they are the same? Or am I in the same boat as this poster:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2770362&tstart=0
Basically I just want to verify that I am in that same boat before I remove old backup files on "B". If I do decide I need to remove those, are the instructions linked in thread 2770362 correct, or are there better ones?
Thanks for any help,
Bob H

Actually, the backup I deleted above was the backup for the new internal drive. Apparently TM had created the (incomplete) backup during the failed attempt that ran out of space on the backup device. Since the new internal drive had the same name as the old internal drive, I didn't initially realize that's what I was deleting. Not that deleting it causes any harm, but it didn't address the original problem of freeing up space on the backup device.
Not to worry though. I've figured out how to get at the backups for the old internal drive, and am in the process of deleting those. I was about to follow the instructions in your troubleshooting items E3 and E2, but upon attempting to enter time machine I stumbled into the right place. Since I had previously told TM to do no backups (because there was still not enough disk space), and since I'd left the backup device connected, when I pulled up the TM menu from the menu bar, the usual "Enter Time Machine" menu was replaced by "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" (or perhaps "Disks" was "Backups"). This then gave me a list of the machines that I'd backed up on this backup device (in my case machine names and internal drive names are the same). Of course one of those was for the old internal drive, and after choosing it I roughly followed the same course of action as I did a few days ago, to initiate deletion.
I also saw how I could delete each of those old backups individually, but decided against that as I did not expect it would free up enough space. My expectation is that nearly all the space is shared among all the backups for the same source drive, since relatively very little changes between backups.
Bob H

How can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files?

I read that iWeb stores one's website pages in the domain folder which can be located at ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb. Can I use time machine to recover my iWeb09 files? If so, how? -I tried. I entered my Time Machine back up, and went back in time and brought the domain file forward but it opened only my current site pages, not the ones I am trying to recover. And it says the Domain file was last modified in October 2007 which is crazy because I've been using iWeb a lot and have published many pages. It seems like the uncorrupted pages, which I am trying to recover, existed somewhere on my computer at one point in time and space, less than a week ago, becuse I just published my site to a new hosting service since Apple will soon stop web hosting. So why can I not find them using time machine?

I continued searching and read another person's advise to down load an app named "Find File," then search for .sites. She said spotlight doesn't always find all files. So I did and sure enough, when I searched for .sites I found another Domain package, which I have no idea how it was created but which, it ends up, was the one actually being used by iWeb. So I went to that package then did the time machine and went back to before my web pages became corrupted. I had to delete corrupt blog pages out of my website menu to get iWeb to upload the other page changes even to a local folder.
So I went to that newly found Domain, went back in time, then brought that forward and as you pointed out the domain package had the parts of the pages, the files and jpegs, but not the structure/layout of the pages. So, I guess I gave up on finding the old pages.
Those pages still exist on the Apple hosting server but iWeb doesn't not reverse publication. Cyberduck would bring back the files and bits and peices but again not the pages as a total entity. I'm preparing for the end of Apple website hosting (next month?) and am republishing my old site. I decided to use a new domain name. So my entire original site is still totally intact on the web under the original domain name, on my mobile me site, I guess it will be there till sometime in June?
My problems started when I tried to publish my website to the new server. It just would not publish the whole website in one session. So I decided to do it a few pages at a time. Some pages went up, but as I added more, for some unknown reason the, blog pages, (about 70 subpages), which had aleardy uploaded just fine to the new server, became corrupt and locked up iWeb. Of course once I deleted the corrupt pages I didn't want to continue publishing the site to the host until I found and reinserted uncorrupted pages, knowing publishing changes would delete the already published pages.
At first I thought it was the hosting server's fault, but when I discovered that it wouldn't publish even to a local fold I was able to locate the cause within iWeb, deleted those pages then tested by publishing to a local folder. iWeb worked locally, so I knew I had found the problem pages. Well this is way more than you wanted to know. Thanks for your advise but I'll just start the blogging pages over.

Using Time Machine Backup Drive with NEW Macbook Pro

I just got a new Macbook Pro. I migrated from my old MacBook Pro. Now I want to use my Time Machine Disk with this new machine.
When I connect the external drive, and select back up now, it says there is not enough space (due to the fact this is a new machine and it wants to backup the entire thing)
Also, when I go into the TimeMachine, it doesn't show me anything past today. . . all of my backups are not displayed over the past year. . .
How do I make it so that the external drive displays all my old backups. . . ??
Thank you for your help.

Turn off TM or set the backup drive to null. Rename your computer in Sharing preferences to the same computer name of your old computer. Turn TM back on and reselect the backup drive. TM will behave as you expect. Of course if the file dates on the new machine are all changed since the migration, then TM will correctly assume that they require backing up. You will then find that there will not be sufficient space on the drive for the new backups. If this occurs then you should simply erase the backup drive and start your TM backup anew.

Time Machine full restore to new hard drive

I'm going to change the internal hard drive of my laptop and before I do that I want to do a full restore of my last backup to the new drive via USB. I restart the computer with the Leopard installation DVD and use the Restore using time machine option under the Utilities menu. I choose my external hard drive as the source and the new internal hard drive connected via USB as the destination. Then I boot via USB to check that the copy was made ok before changing internal drives and I see that many files weren't copied. The applications folder wasn't coppied, and my home directory was 6 GB less. Even when I logged in my user icon was missing (not the other users ones)
Why Time Machine decided to copy some files and not others? Is there any other solution for performing the migration?
Thanks!

The PSU and then HDD in my iMac G5 both went (cause and effect!) and so I too replaced the hdd, although in my case, out of necessity.
I fitted the new hdd, then booted from 10.5 Retail version DVD.
First I had to format the hdd via Installer/Utiities/Disk utility. Then I installed Leopard. I did not take the first opportunity to Restore from TM (this first opportunity is after you select the Language, you select Options from toolbar, then use the bottom one Restore from TM) which is what they guy did in the weblink from the previous post.
I installed Leo, then it rebooted, then it went through the Welcome/StarTrek routine, then I did the restore from TM back up, after registration when it offers you the opportunity to restore from a previous Mac and it offers TM as an option. It looks like Migration Assistant but it isn't coz at that moment, nothing has been added etc. It doesn't give the dated options, and it took overnight, but hey presto! it was all there in the morning. Mail had to re-import the messages, other than that, it was fine.
BUT TAKE CARE.....After the overnight restore, and before it all worked hey presto!, I had a nightmare moment coz it wouldn't take the Password. In the end, I had to reset the password using the Leo CD/DVD (stick in the CD/DVD, select language, then use Options menu and select reset password [NOT the Firmware password option].
So, TM is impressive. But you MUST have the 10.5 DVD too.

Time machine doesn't recognize external hard drive

Recently I went to the apple store to get help to switch from Mavericks to Mountain Lion (I had some problems with Mavericks). They used time machine to bring back my applications (from my external hard drive, LaCie) on the Mountain Liion software. They said my time machine/external hard drive should work the same when I got home. Now, when I go to back up my computer, time machine doesn't recognize that I've backed up my files before. In the past, when time machine was working, every time I plugged in my hard drive the icon for it would turn blue, time machine recognized it, and it would back up my files. Now, the icon for the hard drive shows up, but time machine doesn't recognize it.
Some other things:
- when I open my external hard drive on finder, it shows all of my previous back ups
- I used disk utility to check my hard drive and macintosh HD - both are OK
How can I use time machine to continue backing up files? Or am I going to have to partition or erase the hard drive and start a new back up?
Thank you in advance

nevermind! time machine suddenly recognized the disk after half an hour. sorry, I don't know how to delete this post!

Time Machine after reinstall and new user acct

3 TB eSATA drive used for months as TM back up. Drive had 300GB or so free space available after last B/U before having to format my boot drive.
Following reinstall of OS 10.9.2,I was not able to transfer user files using TM after several trials - it simply locked up with no error message. So, I skipped using B/U and created a new uswer account with same name as previous user account but with a new password. I then used the last B/U to manually restore user files and selected Apps.
In System Preferences/Time Machine, I selected the same 3 TB TM drive I had been using and left the excluded items unchanged. The B/U calcualted size was 2.72 TB, the same as before my set up with new user account. Prior to starting a new B'U I checked TM and found B/Us going back for quite a few weeks.
The next B/U for lack of space, with the mnessage that I only had 1.12 TB of space and the B/U needed 1.26 TB. I recalled that I had added some items to one of the included external drives prior to the restore and after the last B/U, so I excluded those new additions. The next B/U also failed and now the required space for the B/U was listed as greater than the first attempt. More disturbing, the ONY remaining B/U on the 3 TB drive now, after several mnore effrots to exclude as much as possible, is the last B/U I did before the format and restore process.
In Finder, the TM disk shows 1.12 TB free. It lists 2 B/Us - the last successful one and one fron this mornign listed as inprogress.
I changed my user account password to be the same as previously and logged out then bac in, then tried rebotting and after both times, the same failure occurred. I used Sstem OPreferences to unselct the 3 TB drive and select another one, then reselected the 3 TB again - still no joy.
It appears that TM is unable to add to the exsiting B/U and is trying to create a new one, or that it doesn't see existing files in the old B/U as the same as the new ones and is trying to create lots of duplicates.

Hi VK
A supplementray question:
I have one i-mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (stops the fighting!) and propose to use migration assistant to move my [admin] account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts on the old one. I see from your posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups. But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? If so, should I partition the external drive and start the new back ups from the new i-mac on this new partition. I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Does this make sense? I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expandin mac world.
MVBW
Mervyn

Time Machine doesn't make backups

Hi,
I have problems with Time Machine. I deleted by error the backup file in Time Capsule, but now Time Machine doesn't create a new one, simply it doesn't work. External disks are recognized (Time Capsule or USB disk) but it doesn't make backups, only appears the "preparing" for one or two seconds and then nothing. It's the same if I try to make backups on a external USB disk.
I can not enter to Time Machine to see the backups.
Looking at "Console" for the last logs there many crash reported, for example:
18/02/09 11:59:26 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3053] Backup requested by user
18/02/09 11:59:26 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3053] Starting standard backup
18/02/09 11:59:27 ReportCrash[3054] Formulating crash report for process backupd[3053]
18/02/09 11:59:28 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd[3053]) Exited abnormally: Trace/BPT trap
18/02/09 11:59:28 ReportCrash[3054] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/backupd2009-02-18-115926GK.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
Any one with a similar problem???
Is it possible to reset Time Machine in order to restart the backups?
I bought Time Capsule and I can't use Time Machine!!!!
Thanks.

magali mistral wrote:
Hello!
Thanks for your message. The Time Machine Buddy widget was helpful. Although I couldn't mark the text, copy and insert it here.
You should be able to highlight them by dragging your mouse over them, then cmd-C to copy to the clipboard, then cmd-V to copy it here.
Event store UUID don't match for Volume: Macintosh HD
This means TM isn't sure whether the last changes to your internal HD got logged to OSX's File System Event Store, a log of all changes that TM can normally use to see what needs to be backed-up. Most commonly caused by an abnormal shutdown.
Node requires deep traversal:/
Reason: kFSEDBE even FlagMustScanSubDrs /kFSEDBE vent Flag Reason Deep Backup/
Since it can't trust the Event Store, this means it has to examine every file and folder on your HD. Quite a lengthy procedure, of course.
Then it said - I didn't copy that - something like "thinning out" isn't necessary because there was still 368 GB or so space left - 7 GB were backed up - but it did "thin out" some outdated file afterall, whatever that is - hope it didn't delete something I wanted to keep.
All normal. TM automatically deletes it's hourly backups after 24 hours, except the first of the day, which is called a Daily backup. That is kept for a month, when a similar process converts the first of a week into a Weekly backup, and deletes the others.
Only when the disk is near full (TM does need some workspace) will you see deletion of one or more of the oldest weeklies, instead of the first message.
Then the next problem started. It wasn't possible to eject the external drive. I waited for quite some time but each time tried to eject it, a window opened saying that it was still in use and could not be ejected. Although it had defenitely finished doing the backup and the next one was to be done about half an hour later.
Is there anything else on your external drive, besides TM backups? Could you have been looking at it via the Finder, when you tried to eject it?
Try this: de-select the drive (chose the "none" icon) in TM's preferences, then quit System Preferences. Then go back and re-select it. Sometimes this resets TM's lock on the drive.
If not, and it happens again, try turning TM off, then ejecting the TM drive. You shouldn't have to do this -- TM is supposed to let you eject it, then automatically do another backup whenever you re-connect it.
Now that you have a good full backup, just keep an eye on it. Your incremental backups should be very, very quick under normal circumstances.
There are a few things that may cause long backups, such as an abnormal shutdown, certain hardware repairs, not letting TM back up for several days (seems to be about 10, some say), and the use of certain apps. File Vault, Entourage, vmWare, running Windoze are a few. If you do see long backups, post the messages here in a new thread.

Time Machine doesn't notice new files.

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