Time Machine identity change problem

I have a Iomega 1TB HD connected to a 500GB Time Capsule.
My new MacBook Pro i7 (3 months old and running 10.6.7) has been backing up across the home wifi via the Time Capsule network.
Recently the backup message has appeared that the identity has changed. It had been working OK previously and 2 other Macs in the house have been backing up to the Time Capsule as normal (not to the external HD)
When the identity is lost Time machine creates another sparse bundle and backs up the whole MBP HD again using up more space on the HD.
It takes hours to make anotherl back up.
I visited the Genius bar with little help, apart from run repair in disk utility on the external HD.
The HD did need repairing and I performed the Disk utility repair.
After the repair and new sparse bundle back up the lost identity has happened 2 weekends in a row, again today.
This is getting frustrating and I hope Apple can fix it.

You have to start over if moving to an AirDisk. The file structure of you local backup is different that of a sparsebundle that Time Machine uses to for NAS. This is the same for Time Capsule as well.
Converting your old folder structure backups to a sparsebundle is not for the faint of heart. Now you could still retrieve old TM backups by ctrl-clicking the TM icon on the Dock and select Browse Other Time Machines Disks whenever you need to, but you are best to start a new backup if you plan on backing up via AirDisk.
If you really want to try to convert your old backups to a sparsebundle, have a look at this link:
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7860904&#7860904]
http://rolf.haynberg.de/?p=83
Frankly, I don't think it's worth the trouble. Start a new Time Machine backup on the Extreme USB HDD. Just keep the old Time Machine backup until you feel it's of no use. Once that comfort zone has expired, delete the old backup.
Check this link before you start a new backup:
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8433556&#8433556]

Similar Messages

Time Machine Permissions Changed Problem

Greetings-
I'm experiencing problems restoring to built-from-scratch Lion OS installation on a new disk. Before starting the process I ensured everything was backed-up everything using Time Machine, which was backing-up regularly, then did a fresh install on a new disk drive in my machine. I began restoring files (not users) from Time Machine, which began okay, but when I went to restore some folders that were under Pictures on the orginal disk, I got the failure error message that I've seen posted about not having permission to write those files back to my new disk. I've used the same username and also checked that my UID was as before (501).
I read a few posting, and tried to change the permissions on the Time Machine external backup disk to my current user, and after modifying that backup disk, I discovered that my Time Machine backups only go back in time to when I changed the disk permissions! So now even if I look down through the Time Machine volume directory structure, the orginal folders are missing. Time machine made at least one backup, but now I need advice and trying to recover those old directories and backups.
Any advice is appreciated. I've tried some recovery software, but loosing the old structure makes life fairly difficult and heartbreaking. Thanks!

Two weeks after upgrading my system to Lion and transferring to a new hard drive -- I could find the files I wanted to restore from the day before on my external-drive Time Machine but couldn't restore because I didn't have "access to the GlobalNav.lbi."
I did not solve the problem, but while trying various things with Apple tech I stumbled onto the fact that I could access the Time Machine from my partition, on which I have 10.6.8.
Tech was at a loss because my 10.7 Recovery Drive is missing. I'm making a Lion install USB stick (from MacWorld article instructions) and will try to reinstall the system and Recovery Drive. I believe my Recovery Drive was damaged before moving my system to the new hard drive, perhaps by the hard drive that is being replaced by the manufacturer.

Could not restore CS5 using Time Machine after changing to Mac OS8.3

Could not restore Photoshop CS5 using Time Machine after changing to Mac OS8.3 - the change was dictated by a power supply problem (now fixed) in my Macbook Pro - that has been fixed.

Restoring the Adobe application via Time machine is not a good practise and may cause other issues as well.
Please install the application properly rather restoring.

Time Machine, identity back up disc has changed

Using Time Machine I got the message 'identity back up disc has changed'. Time Machine doesn't make any back up. Cleaning back up disc (7 times!) doesn't make any difference! I have to choose another disc in Time Machine! But why??? How do I repair the identity (I didn't change it) my disc and will it be ready for back up again?

If a message says the identity of the backup disk has changed

Time Machine Disk Permissions Problem

I had a malware infection which resulted in hundreds of "users" sharing my iMac. I immediately changed my password just in case. I could not get rid of the issue so I decided to restore my hard drive from a Time Machine backup disk. Now when I try to use the Time Machine it indicates that I don't have the proper permissions to access the disk. I have tried to repair the disk with Disk Utility but it doesn't find any problems with permissions.
I have tried to change the permission settings using the "Get Info" but it indicates that all read/write permissions are "custom". I try to change them but nothing is accepted. So, I can't access my old Time Machine backups at all.
I don't know how to resolve this problem. Any ideas?

Update - The backup to the new Time Machine - that I named 'Time Machine 2' - share was around 91GB worked fine.
Some additional info was that when I was having problems with Time Machine backup my macbook was connected to the network over a Toshiba Dynadock U3.0 docking station that periodically freezes. I've stopped using it and connect wirelessly until I can afford a more expensive solution like getting a Thunderbolt display to use for 'docking'.

Time Machine - Calculating Changes

Many have suffered from Time Machine getting stuck at 99% after a Time Capsule added to system. I was tortured by the same problem and finally fixed it by reasoning things out. Remember, Time Machine looks to back up everything. When you add a Time Capsule your old Time Machine files remain somewhere. In my case it was on another smaller internal SATA. When I added the TC, I forgot to exclude my old Time Machine drive. I went into TM preferences and excluded it and Voila! No more problems. Calculating 99% went away and the backup through ethernet Time Capsule proceeded quite quickly and without problem. I guess Time Machine does not like to back up it's own files on a non-selected drive.
I hope this helps others who are suffering. Worked like a charm.
Ted Stam

hc2008 wrote:
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/WD External
Disk image /Volumes/WD External/HCC.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
It +has found+ the sparse bundle. It's not looking for the previous backups on your other internal HD.
Backup content size: 157.8 GB excluded items size: 3.5 GB for volume Macintosh HD
That message is sent when +Calculating Changes+ finishes -- TM has estimated how large the backup will be. The +Copying xx of yy GB+ message should be shown on the TM Preferences panel and the menu when you press the TM icon in your Dock.
Try all the things in #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Be sure the disk is formatted properly -- either GUID or APM *Partition Map Scheme* and +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ Format.
Try all the things in #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting User Tip, also at the top of this forum.
Also try connecting via Ethernet if possible, for the first full backup. That will be much faster, of course, and will rule out a bad WIFI connection.
As a last resort, per your earlier post, try erasing the TM disk.

How does Time Machine track changes?

My Leopard upgrade got stuck with a minute to go - I had to hold down the power button to restart my Mac, but to my surprise Leopard launched and everything seemed to work fine. I set up Time Machine and it's been running without problems, backing up to my 2nd internal drive. The only problem I noticed was that a few hidden files weren't hidden - presumably it hadn't finished cleaning up after itself. So, I carried on using Leopard until today when I finally decided it might be a good idea to run the installer again. The installation completed fine, and everything is running nicely.
My question is: will time machine track any changes that have been made from re-running the installer, or does it only track changes that are made while Leopard is running? Should I switch off Time Machine, delete the backups, and start again, or will it handle these changes?

When I log back into 10.8 Mountain Lion and Time Machine does it's normal back up thing, does it recognize changes that were made to internal disks, folders, and files that were made when I was previously booted into 10.7 Lion?
Yes.

Time Machine ignores changes, successfully backs up nothing

Situation: Freshly installed Snow Leopard (on freshly formatted harddisk) with fresh Time Machine backup (on freshly formatted external harddisk).
Problem: Time Machine does the initial backup ok, but doesn't back up any changes; I just opened, and changed, a large file (600 MB disk image) in my Documents folder, but when I click on "Backup Now", Time Machine behaves exactly as if nothing had changed.
???

-) Yes, a new folder with date and time is created in Backups.backupdb.
-) I determine that the files are, in fact, changed, and should therefore be backed up, by looking at their md5 and their meta-data, see shell session below.
-) The question of whether to exclude system files from the backup is out of scope; it worked fine in Leopard (and there was no problem when my MacBook Pro died the "Nvidia death").
Thanks, Colin
ll /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 01:03 2009-09-01-010300/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:35 2009-09-01-163551/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:36 2009-09-01-163647/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:37 2009-09-01-163748/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:39 2009-09-01-163905/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:40 2009-09-01-164010/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:43 2009-09-01-164310/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:44 2009-09-01-164455/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 17:09 2009-09-01-170917/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 17:13 2009-09-01-171326/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 17:41 2009-09-01-174156/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 23:04 2009-09-01-230403/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 2 16:31 2009-09-02-163123/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 2 16:35 2009-09-02-163548/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 17 Sep 2 16:35 Latest -> 2009-09-02-163548/
ll /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
-rw-r--r--+ 1 colin staff 504106 Jun 28 13:23 /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
md5sum /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
9f345ef0e67a2f15de3482aad182fd85 /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
ll ~/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
-rw-r--r-- 1 colin staff 564551 Sep 1 16:43 /Users/colin/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
md5sum ~/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
c3dbd7354d9aaee0c65d8b1fb1180514 /Users/colin/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
touch ~/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
touch ~/Documents/
touch ~/
ll ~/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
-rw-r--r-- 1 colin staff 564551 Sep 2 17:25 /Users/colin/Documents/Sinus1.gcx
# MD5 already different from previous test.
# Now selecting "Back Up Now" from "Time Machine", same as always, does nothing.
md5sum /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
9f345ef0e67a2f15de3482aad182fd85 /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/Latest/WeaselX/Users/colin/Documents/S inus1.gcx
ll /Volumes/IomegaX/Backups.backupdb/weasel/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 01:03 2009-09-01-010300/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:35 2009-09-01-163551/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:36 2009-09-01-163647/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:37 2009-09-01-163748/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 16:39 2009-09-01-163905/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 17:41 2009-09-01-174156/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 1 23:04 2009-09-01-230403/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 2 16:31 2009-09-02-163123/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 2 16:35 2009-09-02-163548/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root staff 204 Sep 2 17:26 2009-09-02-172617/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 17 Sep 2 17:26 Latest -> 2009-09-02-172617/

Time Machine file owner problem

I have a Firewire drive connected to my iMac. I back up the iMac and a Macbook Pro to it. Due to problems with the MBP's wireless I fell back from 10.6.1 to 10.5.8. That didn't fix my problem so I went back to 10.6 after an erase and install of 10.5 and the upgrade to 10.6.
I just noticed a file owner problem with my Time Machine backups from the MBP. The laptop has one admin and two regular user accounts. The two regular accounts have the owners swapped so that when I enter TM and look through the backups of the home folders, the icons have a red do not enter sign.
I just went to the iMac and looked through the MBP's backup data with the root account. Some of the MBP files list an owner not even on the MBP, but on the iMac.
Long term I'd like to move the two computer's backups to separate partitions, but can I fix the ownership on the TM drive safely?

Steve_6 wrote:
I have a Firewire drive connected to my iMac. I back up the iMac and a Macbook Pro to it. Due to problems with the MBP's wireless I fell back from 10.6.1 to 10.5.8. That didn't fix my problem so I went back to 10.6 after an erase and install of 10.5 and the upgrade to 10.6.
I just noticed a file owner problem with my Time Machine backups from the MBP. The laptop has one admin and two regular user accounts. The two regular accounts have the owners swapped so that when I enter TM and look through the backups of the home folders, the icons have a red do not enter sign.
I just went to the iMac and looked through the MBP's backup data with the root account. Some of the MBP files list an owner not even on the MBP, but on the iMac.
Long term I'd like to move the two computer's backups to separate partitions, but can I fix the ownership on the TM drive safely?
do not change ownership of anything on the TM drive. if I understand you correctly the two standard accounts seem to own each others home directories on the backup, is this right? that can be easily fixed by swapping UIDs of those accounts. but i first want to make sure that I understand the issue correctly.

Time Machine network connection problems. Scary.

I have several problems with the Time Machine backup system. I do not know if they are based on the same basic problem or if these are different problems. Therefor I will describe the whole complex here:
I have a setup with 2 computers, a Mac Pro and a Laptop Pro, and 2 different backup discs (2TB Lacie backup disc), all of this connected to the router with ethernet except the laptop which goes with wifi. The plan was to have one disc to back up each computer.
Initially I got the setup to work. But after a while, both computers says that there is a problem finding its backup disc. This happens without any changes in setup, passwords or physical connections. Sometimes I am able to connect to the backup disc by typing in the ip address or otherwise, and sometimes that doesn't work either. When I finally (sometimes) get contact between machine and its backup disc, the Time Machine panel shows "no previous backup". Pretty scaring. All my work is on those discs (should be).
Another problem is, for the Mac Pro machine, that it sometimes says "not enough free space on disc for backup". At the same time, Time Machine is set up to delete older backup versions as soon as it is needed. How does that fit together?
Today I bought a new and expensive router (Netgear 600), just in case it was something wrong with the old one. But I still have the same problems.
Any enlightening on this situation is very much appreciated!
Thanks

Hi all,
To fix the Time Capsule network backup error, I removed the 5GHZ band from my AEB network.
After that it backed everything up all fine.

Post-restore Time Machine/bundle backup problem

Earlier this week the HD in my iMac died. I had the drive replaced and performed a full restore from my Time Machine backup. The four hour restore went fine.
The next day I turned Time Machine back on. I expected it would want to perform a complete backup of the restored machine. It appeared to start okay, calculating changes and deleting old backups. But then it started doing that in a loop: checking changes, deleting backups, cleaning up, checking changes, deleting backups, etc. After about five cycles I just left work and let it do its thing. Twelve hours later when I got home it still hadn't done a backup, and appeared to be stuck in 'deleting old backups.' So I went ahead and stopped Time Machine.
Now, if I turn TM on or initiate a manual backup, it checks for changes, spends a long time at 99% during that process, then eventually unmounts the bundle, goes to cleaning up, and then hangs there until I manually stop it.
I've tried disk utility, but anytime the backup bundle is mounted, Disk Utility locks up with the spinning beach ball before I ever get to drag the bundle into the window and try to verify/repair.
Any suggestions? At this point I'd be fine erasing the entire bundle and starting new backups from scratch, but I'm not sure how to properly "reset" Time Machine, and of course I can't the bundle to appear in Disk Utility.

blevenstein wrote:
Earlier this week the HD in my iMac died. I had the drive replaced and performed a full restore from my Time Machine backup. The four hour restore went fine.
The next day I turned Time Machine back on. I expected it would want to perform a complete backup of the restored machine. It appeared to start okay, calculating changes and deleting old backups. But then it started doing that in a loop: checking changes, deleting backups, cleaning up, checking changes, deleting backups, etc.
Yes, that cycle could go on for a very long time. Assuming the TC's disk was near full, TM would have to delete a whole lot of backups to make room for a new full backup. Unfortunately, it has to mount the sparse bundle, delete a single backup, dismount the sparse bundle, compact it, then mount it again to see if it's made enough room. The word "excruciating" isn't enough!
Now, if I turn TM on or initiate a manual backup, it checks for changes, spends a long time at 99% during that process, then eventually unmounts the bundle, goes to cleaning up, and then hangs there until I manually stop it.
It's probably still deleting old backups, although it's possible there's one that it can't delete, and is stuck on it.
I've tried disk utility, but anytime the backup bundle is mounted, Disk Utility locks up with the spinning beach ball before I ever get to drag the bundle into the window and try to verify/repair.
That does sound like the sparse bundle is now hopelessly corrupted.
Any suggestions? At this point I'd be fine erasing the entire bundle and starting new backups from scratch, but I'm not sure how to properly "reset" Time Machine, and of course I can't the bundle to appear in Disk Utility.
First, of course, turn TM "off" via TM Preferences.
If there's nothing else on the TC's disk, erase it. Use the +*Airport Utility+* app, in your Applications/Utilities folder. Select +*Base Station > Manual Set-Up+* from the Menubar, then Disks in the tool Bar, then Erase.
If there's other stuff there that you want to keep, and can't copy elsewhere temporarily, just delete the sparse bundle via the Finder.
Then you should be able to turn TM back on and have it start fresh (I'd strongly recommend connecting your Mac to the TC via an Ethernet cable to speed up the initial backup, if at all possible). If there's a problem, you can try the "reset" procedure in #A4 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.

Time Machine calculating changes and never stops

I have a 27" iMac and I have an intermittent problem with Time Machine.
It will work great and then it will get hung on calculating changes and the only thing I can do is turn off the external drive to make it stop
I have fixed the permissions on the c:\ drive and run repair disk on the external drive
I am a Mac newbie so I don't know what else to do. Any ideas on how to proceed to solve this problem?
TIA
Mark

Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:***
-[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Check with airport utility.. is there any space left on the TC. if not it cannot work.
You will need to delete something or erase the drive after an archive..
The former TM should do itself.. but it is better IMHO to take action yourself.. not to delete files but to archive and start again. Still that is my opinion only.
Are you plugged in by ethernet? If not it will either take forever or not work.

Time machine backup restoring problem

i recently restored my mac. i saved everything through time machine on a hd. i want to restore some notes from the inbuilt notes app from mac. i know the folder is hidden and sandboxed and all and i followed the procedure, but MY PROBLEM IS that i dont have a containers folder in the backup folder. i typed in search box and everything but dint come. now the peculiar part is that when i typed com.apple.notes there was a folder. but when i opened it it dint have the data-library-core data folders. the other thing is that when i looked for the folder on my mac, it was there but the end instruction said that there should be a p18.notesexternalrecord thing in the 0 folder, which wasnt there either. somebody plz help because my very important documents are there and my job may be at stake. please help.

Quit Notes and temporarily disable iCloud synchronization, if applicable.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with an item selected. Enter Time Machine and restore the selected item.

Time Machine Disk Space Problem

I have approximately 1TB of data (as confirmed by Time Machine) and I purchased a 1.5TB external backup disk to dedicate exclusively to Time Machine backups. However, Time Machine will not backup because according to Time Machine there is not enough space (not even for an initial backup). I have read discussions that suggest Time Machine uses 20% more space than the backup data (https://discussions.apple.com/message/17944550#17944550). If that is true, I should have more than enough space. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is? Why is 50% of extra space not enough? Thanks for your help.

Did you partition and format the drive before using it?
Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

Time Machine/disk full problem

Time Machine, which has worked perfectly since i bought my Mac back in 07, has stopped backing up. The disk that I have been using for backups has become full. For a short period it was removing old backups in order to do a new backup but has now stopped doing that and my last one was January 11. What is the best course of action? Manually deleting old backups?
Edit: It looks like it is trying to delete old backups, but deletes one which isn't enough.

Thanks, I followed the advice to uninstall the incomplete backup file and that seemed to be working nicely. However, while I was watching the backup progress - Backing up X of Y - as X got close to Y, Y started getting bigger. So as a result it is running out of disc space. I verified by hard disk and it passed without a problem. I suppose I could just go ahead and delete some to make more space so that when the backup starts getting bigger than expected it still has enough space.

Time Machine identity change problem

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