Time Machine excludes all of my files

When I try to back up my Time Machine to an external drive, TM excludes all of the file son my computer and does not back up. I have used an extrenal drive for 6 years without any issues and this problem started last week.
Any ideas what to do?
Thanks,
Mark

I don't have any idea what's causing this, but it's not a good idea to trust just one backup method.
Most commonly used backup methods

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Exposé hot keys disabled after Time Machine "Delete all backups of file"

I have been having the same problem that was initially mentioned in this topic:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5850265#5850265
Namely, sometimes after I restart all of my Exposé and Dashboard hot keys have been turned off (but not the Spaces hotkey, just F9-F12). My hot corners for turning off or on the screensaver work just fine, but I have to manually go in and turn back on my Exposé hot keys. Some people said it was associate with WoW, but I am not running World of Warcraft. This last time it happened (this morning), I had removed all backups of a few files in Time Machine (what's the point of having a backup of a rented movie after the 24 hour viewing period has expired?). I have been looking for a way to report this to Apple, but have been unable thus far.
I just tested it to see if you have to restart, and you do not. About thirty minutes ago I turned all the Exposé hot keys on, and just a minute ago I deleted a backup of a file on my Desktop in Time Machine (by selecting, "Delete all backups of file ______") and the hot keys had been disabled again.
Does anyone know if there is a way to fix this?

Mechanist wrote:
At some point I told Time Machine to get rid of backups of a particular file using the "Delete all backups of ..." option. Time Machine duly deleted the backups of the file and stopped making new ones.
Not exactly. It did delete the existing backups, but didn't make any new ones because the file hasn't changed since then.
The easiest way to get it to back it up is to make a minor change to it (the name or something in the contents), then change it back. Time Machine should back it up on the next backup.
Alternatively, you need to force a "deep scan," where Time Machine compares everything on your system to the backups. Usually, just starting up from your Recovery HD will do that, although sometimes you have to start from it and Repair your internal HD to trigger it.
If you're not sure how to do that, see Using the Recovery HD and/or #6 in Using Disk Utility.

Time machine deleted all my HD files

Hey,
So im pretty new to mac so bare with me..
I have a 2TB hard drive that i used to store my files from my PC and when i plugged it into my mac for the first time it asked me if i wanted it to be used for my time machine. Thinking that it would just save my back up into the Hard drive i clicked 'Yes'.
Then after completing the back up i noticed all my files on the HD have dissapeared and its only my files from the time machine..
Is there anyway that i can access these files again? Or use my HD as a normal HD again? My PC wont even recognize it anymore.
Plleeaassee heellpp mmee.
Thanks Muchly.

I'm not going to be able to fully answer your question however perhaps I can offer some advice. As a general rule of thumb it's not a good idea to share a backup drive to do double duty. The reason being is if that drive does crash you will have lost not only your backup but other valuable data. External HD's are inexpensive enough these days where it's viable to have multiple HD"s connected to your system.
Also I'm going to direct you to the Time Machine forums where I'd recommend you start by reading the TM FAQ's, there is a lot of valuable information. I would also recommend reposting there. The link to the TM forums is:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard then click Refine This List and choose Time Machine
Finally I would correct your profile, it indicates you have a Mac Pro, I suspect you are using a MacBook Pro which is a totally different machine. Also input the version of OS X you are on. If you purchased your machine new recently you should be on 10.6.x. You can find this information by clicking the Apple symbol in the upper left of your keyboard and choosing About This Mac.
Best of luck.
Roger

Time Machine locked all my song files...any way to "mass unlock"?

Awhile back I installed a wonderfully speedy SSD in my mid-2009 MBP. I used Time Machine to "restore" my stuff. I thought it odd that after that, song files would come up as "locked"...after awhile I realized that EVERY song file in the iTunes Library was now "locked". The FOLDERS are NOT locked, but all the mp3 files within each folder ARE locked.
I know, of course, that "command-i" and uncheck the locked box works on each individual file, but how do I do this on the entire library? Is that even possible? The tedium of opening every single folder and unlocking every file individually would be insane. Is there any way to select the iTunes Music folder and have all the files in all subfolders "unlocked" at once?

Thanks, I tried that and it didn't work. The song files themselves were still locked. However, a friend emailed me with a solution that seems to have done the trick. It involved going through Finder and doing a search for "Music" files, selecting all, and then doing "get info". That showed a "dash" in the "locked" checkbox. First check it, wait until it has processed, then uncheck it, and that did it.
Also, I see posts talking about "turning off autolocking" in Time Machine, but I have never ever seen that as an option in the Time Machine prefs pane of the System Prefs in Mtn. Lion. Is that within "Time Machine" itself, and only available when it is active?

Time Machine Backup - All JEPGS & PSD files are lost

I have backed up all my photos (JPEGS & PSD Files) on my external hard drive before re-installing the operating system.
My machine is up and running again.
When I inserted my external hard drive in the USB port, a back-up was made on the time machine.
I can’t seem to find any JPEG files on my external hard drive,
the specific folders are all still there with a thumbs.db file in each folder.
Would you be able to tell me where all my JPEGS (photos) have gone?
Is there anyway I can retrieve these photos?

OK the scenario you have described does not sound good. Selecting that same external drive to be your Time Machine drive may have resulted in that drive being re-initialised meaning that you have lost whatever data was previously on it.
If you view your Time Machine drive through Finder and you only see a folder structure similar to the following image where is shows a folder named Backups.backupdb (as mine appears, though ignore the "OWC Icons & Shareware" folder as that is specific to my drive) then I am afraid that the files and folders that were previously on it would have gone.
!http://www.wrxownersclub.com.au/forum/timemachine.jpg!
Chris

I was trying to back up my mac by using my external hard drive. Without realizing it, time machine erased all my backups from my other computers. Is there any way to recover these files? I can't even get the external hard drive to work on my pc.

I was trying to use my external hard drive to back up my mac computer. It had files on it from my pc computer. Time machine erased all my existing files. (I thought it was only going to erase the duplicate files and rewrite them). Is there anyway to recover these files from my external hard drive. My mac has renamed the hard drive time maching and it will no longer show up on my pc. What can I do?

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013. I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013. I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

rtilghman wrote:
telling me to buy a new router is NOT a solution.
And why not? Apple is selling these things like BigMacs. They can't make enough of them. You've been suffering since May because you refuse to get a decent router.
Can you imagine if a company that makes a refrigerator told me that I needed to upgrade my electrical system to rectify a problem with their device? What kind of response IS that?!?!
What if the problem with their device is that it requires a new-fangled "grounded" outlet and your circa 1890 house doesn't have grounded outlets. Would you refuse to purchase a $ 25 adapter on principle?

HT201250 How do I restore photos from Time Machine? All of my photos have been imported within iPhoto and therefore are exported to Time Machine via an iPhoto file. I can't figure out how to break individual photo files out of the iPhoto file. Any idea

How do I restore photos from Time Machine? All of my photos have been imported within iPhoto and therefore are exported to Time Machine via an iPhoto file. I can't figure out how to break individual photo files out of the iPhoto file. Any ideas?

You might post this query on the iPhoto forum and perhaps someone there can provide an answer.
I tried this on my MBP and it seems that you have to restore the entire iPhoto Library. What I did was put the current library in a separate folder on the desktop and then I restored the library from a prior date. If you were to do that, you then could extract the desired photos and then delete the restored library. Then place the current library back to the original location and import the desired photos.
Not tidy but it seems it will work.
Ciao.

Time Machine deleted all the files on my external HD

I have started a new Time Machine backup on a larger external HD.
Time Machine deleted the folders and files stored in that HD before starting the backup procedure.
How can i recover the files i had on my HD?
Thank you!

This means that the drive was formatted incorrectly for use with TM and it had to reformat it. it warns you before doing so. your chances of recovering your data are not great as it may have been overwritten by TM backups. stop using the drive ASAP (turn TM off) and try data recovery software like Data Rescue II or Filesalvage.

Time Machine Excluding Files for Backup

The issue I'm having seems to be that any file created while the Time Machine external drive is offline will not be backed up or updated if later changes to the file are made. Any assistance would be appreciated, as I currently have a slew of files that aren't being backed-up regularly and would be lost if my laptop died.
Steps to Reproduce Problem:
1. Disconnect Time Machine external drive.
2. Create a new file in any folder that is regularly backed up. (Say, in "~/Documents")
3. Reconnect Time Machine external drive.
4. Open a new Finder window, Command-Click on the Time Machine drive, click "Back Up Now."
5. Open the Time Machine application. Navigate to the backup just created.
6. Observe that the file does not exist. (!!)
7. Exit out of the Time Machine application. Modify the file with the drive still connected.
8. Repeat Steps 4-6.
Also, I'm pretty sure this shouldn't have an effect, but my external drive is partitioned into a "Time Machine Only" section under HFS and an "Other" section under FAT32. Just thought you should know.

I am having a similar problem. During a vacation, I uploaded a variety of photos, which were saved into my iPhoto library. During that time, my computer was never plugged into the external hard drive and never ran Time Machine.
However, I've since come home and have kept my computer plugged into the hard drive for several days. Even when I hit the "Back Up Now" button, I navigate to the new picture files within my iPhoto library in the present mode, only to find that the files do not exist in any of the backups. The computer has continued backing up an older version of my iPhoto library.
I've also noticed that several new CDs I've recently added to my iTunes library are also not being backed up in each new Time Machine backup.

Time machine backups cache and temp files?

Just bought a new external usb disk and used it as the time machine backup volume. All time machine configurations are remained as default, so it would backup all my current HD. While watching it estimating the time that the first backup would take, a question jump out in my mind:
Will time machine backup all files "honestly"? Will it make a copy of every file including the Internet cache and temp files when I'm browsing websites? I'm used to watch youtube a lot, and the temp flv file would be large (though I don't know where it is stored on Leopard). If these files would be backup-ed as well, I think it would be a great waste of disk space.
Can anyone confirm that those caches and temp files would be copied or not? If it would, how to prevent this? Thank you.

If you wish to exclude anything from the backup simply drag the item into the Exclude list. For example, you can save considerable space by excluding the /System/ folder. Cache files would be found in the /Library/ and /Home/Library/ folders. Each folder contains a folder named Caches. There is no specific folder in which temporary items as stored that is visible to the user because the operating system will usually delete temporary files on its own. This may not be the case for a specific program, however. Browsers may maintain their own reserved cache and temporary files, and manage them on their own.
I do not think, however, that TM backs up caches or temporary files. I find no such items in my TM backup - only the folders. I do not back up my /System/ folder.

Time Machine stopped backing up certain files

Hi, I am running OS X Server 10.5.4. (Yes, upgrade is planned)
Time Machine has been running fine, backing up everything, etc.
However, at some point, Time Machine stopped backing up certain files regularly. The affected files are all Frontier databases (frontierkernel.org). They are 'open' files, and I wonder if this is the cause. However, I know that they used to be backed up regularly, without problems. So, maybe Time Machine was updated in 10.5.4 to change this behavior?
If I quit Frontier and then reopen it, Time Machine will back up the files. So, this tells me that TM can back up open files... sometimes. But, if I let the machine run for days, TM often skips these files, even though they have been updated on disk.
I've checked and these files are not set to be excluded from TM.
Any ideas? Thanks.

Bill Dennen wrote:
Waiting for index to be ready (-911 < 0)
Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.</div>
These aren't the cause, but might indicate a problem with, or communicating with, your TM drive. Try the things in #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Everything else looks normal (assuming the files in question are on the 06-0834 drive).
Since the same files are backed-up sometimes but not others, it's probably also not something corrupted (usually, corruption will cause the backup to fail, but rarely a whole folder won't get backed-up).
So we're back to your original suspicion that they weren't backed-up because they were open. Normally, an open file will be backed-up. In the case of large databases, that's often a problem, as the entire database is backed-up if only a single small change is made, often taking up a lot of time and disk space. There are a many threads here about that.
There does appear to be an extended attribute that will prevent TM from backing up a file. XCODE seems to set that on it's "build" folders, for example. Perhaps the Frontier package sets it while the files are open, and removes it when they're closed? If so, maybe there's an option somewhere to disable that?
Can you check with the Sourceforge folks about that?
Otherwise, sorry, but I'm out of ideas.

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.

IMac 20-inch on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, my photos from my iphoto library have been deleted. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine, help please.

I have an imac 20-inch Late 2006 model on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, somehow the application ccleaner has deleted my photos from my iphoto library. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine.
To restore photos I have followed the steps below
Quit iPhoto.
Connect your Time Machine drive.
In the Finder, open the folder containing your iPhoto Library. Unless you've moved your iPhoto Library, it can be found in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library.
Enter Time Machine. (Time Machine can be found in the Dock or in the /Applications folder.)
Choose your desired backup. The timeline on the right side of the screen displays a purple tick mark for each of the backups stored on your Time Machine drive.
Select the iPhoto library you would like to restore, and click the Restore button.
I dont get the option in step 6 as I dont have an iphoto library file to choose? Does anyone know why?

Hi Barry
Thanks but as mentioned all is intact, even at step 3 I can see the current library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library which has no photos, but when I access time machine any point before the NOW option the iphoto library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library is missing from the finder window.
As you can see here it is
and now its gone. I have no explanantion.
How do I go about moving this question as you suggested.

Time machine excludes other items in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist??

Hey. I heard that time machine excludes some items even if they are not selected by you in time machine preferences. The items time machine excludes "secretly" are located in /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist Is there any way to remove these items. Things like calendars and iphoto show up on this exclusion list. I want to make sure I dont lose those.

The only items excluded by default are cache and index files that will be regenerated automatically if deleted.

Time Machine excludes all of my files

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