Time Machine isn't backing up VMWare Fusion

Hello,
I understand Time Machine is supposed to backup Fusion Virtual Machines. It doesn't seem to happen for me. I was running Fusion 1.1.3 and my father inadvertently selected "Revert to Previous Snapshot" and lost all my latest files. I assumed I could just restore from yesterday's Time Machine backup--but it's not there. When I launch Time Machine, the 'virtual machines' folder is empty. I upgraded to Fusion 2.0 and it still doesn't seem to backup ('virtual machines' folder is still empty in TM). Anyone have an answer? How does Time Machine store these files?

This from VMWares' web site:
+"VMware Fusion 1.1.2 and Mac OS X Leopard Time Machine Issue Resolved
A bug in the Mac OS X 10.5-10.5.1 operating systems caused the system to fail if Time Machine attempted to back up live virtual machines. *To avoid this, VMware Fusion 1.1 excluded all virtual machines from Time Machine backups.* Apple resolved the Time Machine bug in Mac OS X 10.5.2, so VMware Fusion 1.1.2 now allows Time Machine backups of virtual machines if the Mac is running Mac OS X 10.5.2 or higher. This may result in larger Time Machine backups. If the backups are now too large, you can manually exclude your virtual machines from Time Machine backup and copy them separately to your backup disk.+
I realize you are running 10.5.5 and you have upgraded to Fusion 3. However, any chance you still have some Fusion 1.1 components still installed on the Mac that might be preventing TM from backing up Fusion?
Alternatively, others have not excluded anything in the TM Prefs Pane, yet certain files/folders were not being backed up. They cleared this up by deleting the following .plist.
*Delete Time Machine Preference .plist*
Go to --> Macintosh HD / Library / Preferences (Note: NOT Home / Library / Preferences).
Drag the .plist file labeled,
com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
to the root level of your Macs’ hard drive.
Reboot your computer.
This .plist file is automatically recreated at startup if it is missing.
Now try choosing the external HD in the TM Prefs for backup again.
Perform a backup and see if the missing file now appears in the last backup.
Glenn

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Time Machine isn't backing up to Time Capsule

My Time Machine isn't backing up to my Time capsule.
I am using OS X 10.8.2 which I believe is the latest version.
The problem I have is the following error message pops up on my Macbook pro screen :
Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Alec McDermott's Time Capsule".
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Any assistance anyone can offer would be very much apprecated.
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See here...
The Backup disk image ... sparsebundle ... is already in use.
From Pondini’s excellent Information Here...
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.htm

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Hi VincentMboyko,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
The troubleshooting steps in this article can help if your Time Machine isn't backing up:
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275
All the best,
Jeremy

Time Machine isn't backing up external drive

I've been using Time Machine successfully for some time now. Recently I decided to move my iTunes music to an external drive (my internal drive was nearly full.) So I moved 150+ GB of iTunes library to the external drive successfully, but Time Machine seems to completely ignore the external (FireWire) drive. It's formatted as Mac OS Extended (that's HFS+, right?) so I don't understand what the problem might be.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
Thanks in advance for the help.

Dave Troup wrote:
If V.K.s suggestion doesn't work, try excluding the drive, quitting System Preferences, then removing the exclusion.
Also, if I can get Time Machine to start backing up both drives correctly, should I erase the backup drive and start over? Otherwise, I assume that I'm going to be wasting a lot of (backup) drive space, since the 150GB iTunes library will be backed up from its original location on my internal drive, as well as from its new location on the external drive… what's the best way to deal with that?
You may not need to. TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything not still on your internal HD. When is just a question of how soon the TM drive/partition gets near full, and TM must start deleting your oldest "weekly" backups. You are supposed to get a message about that, if you have the appropriate box checked in TM's Preferences, but several folks here report they never did, so assume nothing.
Still, if you want, you can delete all the backups of a file or folder. Enter Time Machine, find and select the folder in question (presumably iTunes on your internal HD) in one of the "cascade" of Finder windows, then click the "gear" icon. That will give you an option to +Delete all backups of <folder>.+
You'll then get a confirmation prompt (may take quite a while, considering the size), then the usual place to enter your Administrator's password. The actual deletion will probably take quite a while, also. There was a report the other day that the item was still visible for quite some time after TM seemed to have finished the deletion, but eventually it did disappear.
Then make some change to the folder, or something within it, so TM will consider it changed and back-up the new (smaller) version.

After Mavericks upgrade Time Machine isn't Backing up anything

Hi Folks,
after being a happy newly upgraded Imac (late2010) to OS X Mawericks, in the last days I'm angry because I'm not able to obtain a valid backup with Time Machine on a 1TB Time Capsule.
Since the middle of last week something happened and backups do NOT finish, time machine hangs for hours.
I get weird results and reponses from what I see on time machine preferences screen.
It starts backing up let's say 180MB, the first 100MB are saved in a reasonable time,then the amount of data that needs to be saved increases to maybe 212MB
but the amount of what is already being saved reaches for ex. 130MB then everything is slowing down... Time to finish backup is to be calculated again and there it stays... Hangin for hours, days... Sometimes finally time machine gives an error saying backup couldn't be completed.
I've tried also to connect timecapsule via ethernet cable, (thinking of a wifi problem) same things happen!!!
Tried to delete whole time capsule backup (anyway no valid backups are shown also older ones from a later date than Mavericks update).
Tried yesterday a disk check with disk utility over wifi and the TC disk is perfect!!
Today I want to try with a USB direct attached Disk, but I have a feeling the problem isn't the HD.
I was looking also for clearing Time Machine Cache, DB or something like that.
I'm worried that something would happen to my internal disk during this time with no backup!!!
Any clue, advice or things to test??
Will be apreciated.
Marcel

Update!
Bought an USB Disk to backup and it Worked! ...at least I have a Backup.
I left Timecapsule inside TimeMachiine configuration to be used alternating with USB disk and doing Backup, unfortunately there no Backup has finished. Most of the times I've needed to stop since it was hanging, some other times I've got an error Message.

Time Machine isn't backing up my Downloads folder

I went to restore a file from my "Downloads" folder, while connected to my Time Machine external drive and when I browse for the file every file or folder in my "Downloads" folder is greyed out and don't even look like files.
Downloads is not listed in the section of excluded files.
Anybody got any insight? Here's a picture:

I'm not having any problems with any other folders that I'm aware of. Just poked around some other folders in backups, both internal backups and on the external and they are fine.
Downloads shows "0 files" at the bottom of the window in any of the backups, both externals and internals.
Moved a copy of Mountain Lion from the desktop to the Downloads folder, then did a manual backup. Here is the output I got from the backup buddy in my dashboard:
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Hey, my new Time Machine worked a treat for the first couple of days, but now I get a "sparsebundle is already in use" message. Also, the original 153gb backup seems to have disappeared! Any clues with how I can deal with this?

Just reboot the whole network.. restart modem .. router/TC.. clients with 2min gap.
This is the most common problem reported here with Mountain Lion.. although you didn't fill in the profile. ML??
Check also the ML discussion are for Time Machine problems.
Apple made a dog's breakfast of it.

Will Time Machine identify a back up hard drive after main has been erased?

I went to the Genius Bar a couple of days ago and was told that in order to fix some of the problems I was having I should do a achieve and install (or maybe erase and install I can't remember.) Then use Time Machine to restore all the files on my computer except for the system and library folders (since there is a lot of stuff inside them that has been causing errors.)
My question is will Time Machine be able to identify my disk after the achieve and install? I looked at the Time Machine Backup from another start up disk and Time Machine just showed up blank. Is that what would happen if I wiped my drive? Or would that only happen if I completely erased the hard drive and not be an issue if I went with the achieve and install?

The Time Machine disk certainly shouldn't look blank - that could indicate a pro blem with your backups not running when you expect.
When you look at your Time Machine disk you should see a 'Backups.backupdb' dire ctory which contains subdirectories for each Time Machine snapshot.
If you don't see these then your Time Machine isn't backing up and you shouldn't re-install your machine :)
If you do see that, then you should be OK (as long as the subdirectories cover r ecent dates), in which case you can run the re-install - I'd go for a 'clean ins tall' and use the 'Copy my settings from a Time Machine backup' which is one of the options after the first boot.

If I use Time Machine to back up my internal hard drive will it back up VMWare Fusion and Windows Xp?

Apple tells me I need to back up my Seagate 1Tb HD so they can replace it I have just spent several days getting stuff onto it and don't want to re-install XP if I don't have to. VMWare Fusion is running XP (NOT on boot camp). Does Time Machine back up the whole thing?

I am assuming when you refer to the Seagate 1tb drive, you are referring to an internal drive on your Mac?
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Presumably you just want to do a one-off backup of the Virtual machine so you can restore it after the drive is replaced. If so, go to the Time machine Preferences pane in System Preferences and click the Options button. If your virtual machine is not listed in the excluded files list it will be automatically backed up. If it is listed, remove it from the list and run a manual backup (it will probably take quite a long time and you will need to make sure you have enough disk space on your backup drive). Then check your backup disk to ensure it is there. Then if you don't want it to backup lots of copies of the VM, go back into preferences and exclude it again.

My Time machine has stopped backing up saying there are some read only files.

My Time machine has stopped backing up and says that ther are some read only files preventing this. What steps do I need to take to fix it?

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Post the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear.
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.

Time Machine Won't Back up Completely

When I insert an external drive, Time Machine does not back up my whole computer. It only backs up around 4 GBs. Any solutions/tips on why that is the case? It is a brand new hard drive

jcwong15 wrote:
Actually, the issue is my "Untitled" hard drive is on the excluded list.
I somehow thought it was normal to have the hard drive there, and anything else that isn't there should be deleted. I can't remove my hard drive from the excluded list though.
What happens when you try to remove it?
If it's listed in gray, and you can't remove it, that means it's not formatted for a Mac (any variant of Mac OS Extended) and Time Machine can't back it up.
If so, you must have an SSD with OSX on it (since OSX won't install or run on a drive like that).
Even so, the system folders (Applications, Library, and System) alone on your OSX drive should add-up to at least 14 GBs.
Let's see just what's what. Start the Disk Utility app (Applications/Utilities) and screenprint the display. For each partition (indented) with a gray icon, select it and screen print that, too. Then post them all here.

Time Machine did not back up one of the user accounts

Hi All,
I just notice that time machine stops backing up one of my user accounts. So I created a new admin account to test it and that new account was backed up. I did turn on File Vault. I am using Lion 10.7.3. Thanks for any advice!!!

FanApple wrote:
Hi Pondini,
Thank you for your reply. I am not transfering from SL to Lion.
So you have File Vault 2 turned on, not File Vault1, correct?
Time Machine no longer back up one of my accounts. Time machine used to back up that account but not any more.
That sounds like either it's been excluded, or the preferences file (where the exclusions and other things are kept) is corrupted. Try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I think I changed on/off local snapshot for time machine back up by running sudo tmutil disablelocal/enablelocal l don't think that would effect my time machine behavior.
No, that won't change what is or isn't backed-up.
So l launch Migration Assistant and Migration Assistant dosen't recognize my external TM backup. It shows my hard drive and a network drive (Time Capsule).
That display is misleading: if it shows a yellow or green icon and the name of your Mac and HD, instead of the name of the drive the backup are on, those are your backups.
If not, the backups may be damaged. Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Or, if you excluded System files and Applications from backups, they won't show up there at all.
Now I am thinking of deleting my account and creating it again and try to back up with time machine and see whether it would work or not and roll back my TM backup .
Don't do that. You risk losing everything that way!

I'm running Pages version 5.2 on a Desktop Mac version 10.9.2. with the Pages app open how do I use the Time Machine to go back five hours to see the work?

I'm running Pages version 5.2 on a Desktop Mac version 10.9.2. With the Pages app open how do I use the Time Machine to go back five hours to see my page? Can I access Time Machine within an app like Pages? How do I enter Time Machine within the application? It always takes me to the Finder. I apolgise for the mumbo jumbo. I simply do not know how to use Time Machine. It makes sense when I follow the Tutorial but then I lose it.

OK. You've kind of skipped over the reason why you want to go back five hours, but my assumption would be that you've made changes to a Pages file that you want to revert.
There are two ways to tackle this. From Pages itself, open the current version of your document, and from the File menu, click Revert To, and Browse All Versions. You'll then be in the Time Machine interface for that file, and can browse back to the version you want.
Or, outside of Pages, you can select the file (or the folder it was originally in, if you've since deleted it) and enter Time Machine from the TM menu (it sounds like you've already tried this?)
best
Matt

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB independent Hard drive

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac two weeks ago, I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB External Hard drive. I understand that a number of people have lost data since installing Mavericks on their Western Digital external drives. Has anyone any futher info. Or is there a better way of backing up my computer. Thanks. Lee

Check the More Like This section at the right particularly i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

Time MAchine won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time Machine isn't backing up VMWare Fusion

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