Time Machine most recent backup never changes

Hi - new to the forums here.
I have been having issues for some time with my 13" MacBook Pro. I'm still running Mavericks. One of the things I am dealing with is that the date of my most recent backup has remained the same for several months now, even though I continue to back things up frequently. The backups are in the folder, which is all that really matters, I suppose, but I've no idea why it's doing this. I'd be grateful for any suggestions. Thanks!

This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy the file to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Restart the computer and recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't worry; your backups haven't been touched. Run a backup to test. The backup may take much longer than usual. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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My hard drive crashed. Replaced my hard drive. Installed Yosemite. Restored from Time Machine most recent backup before hard drive crash. Now laptop won't start up. Grey screen with circle and slash through it.

How to start up laptop from grey screen with circle and slash through it?

After you installed Yosemite and prior to restoring from the backup, were you able to start the Mac?

Time Machine deleting recent backups

I looked at Console today, just for something to do, and noticed entries for Time Machine deletions. My TM partition on an external has 459 of 750 GB still available, so I don’t know why TM is deleting anything at all. It’s leaving the earliest backup from recent days, deleting subsequent backups from those days, but leaving backups from 2009. According to Console, these deletions began Nov.12. I now have one backup per day back to Oct. 21, then one per week back to 2009, with an entire block between Apr. 2010 to Jan. 2011 gone. I have no idea what I may have done on Nov. 12 to cause this. I had updated to Mavericks the day after it was released, so I don’t think it’s a Mavericks problem. I’m not too concerned with what’s gone - my main reason for using TM is to backup hourly while working so I won’t loose more than an hour’s work (TM is still retaining all backups for today) - but I would prefer to have the most recent backups rather than ones from four years ago.

Bill, you might want to glean some insights into the nature of time machine from the last few pages of this recent thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/23824079#23824079
For vital data you "dont dare lose" consider bare formatted HD for data archives,
Time machine is in premise and idealized as an entry-level or 'newbie' backup method, it has some flaws, and is best considered as a SYSTEM BACKUP (OS files, settings, APPS and recent active data ON your computer)
Time machine is not best thought of as an important storage nexus for vital data, and in ANY regard, "2 copies of important data is 1, and one is none"
Consider a HD clone if you dont have much data, or importantly bare formatted HD(s) to store your important data.
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

Time machine all recent backups missing after reboot

I accidentally deleted an important file on my mac, and when i opened time machine, i discovered that my it couldn't be found wirelessly. The green light was still on the front of the device but my mac couldn't locate it.
I'm not sure exactly how long it has been since timecapsule made a backup, but i have a clear memory of it working about 3 months ago.
I rebooted it and now its running, and has backed up.
My problem is when i go into the "star wars screen" to view past backups, the only backups are from today and then next most recent are from July 2012 when i first bought the time capsule, everything else in between has disappeared. It definitely had 2013 backups.
Are the backups from 2013 still there and can't be seen, or have they been deleted permanently?

I presume then you upgraded to Mavericks?
It has a nasty habit of doing this.
If not on Mavericks please tell me what OS you are on.
Did you search by Finder.. after mounting the sparsebundle.. ie do not use Time Machine directly.
I know this is silly question .. but if you deleted the file is it in Trash??
If you deleted from Trash an immediate recovery is possible at times.. you will need to purchase a recovery software unless your are good with the CLI.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4070374
If it is deleted weeks ago then recovery is unlikely as the area of the drive will have been written over.

Time Machine: Unable to backup after changing my base station configuration

Greetings folks.... I just did a little switching around of APs, and now my Time Capsule is the only AP I have that my mac laptops connect to. Things seemed to work find before I left for the weekend, but upon my return, attempts to run back up do not work. I get the following in the system.log.
Mar 9 20:38:33 sole /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[404]: Backup requested by user
Mar 9 20:38:33 sole /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[404]: Starting standard backup
Mar 9 20:38:34 sole /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app/Contents/Resources/NetAuthSysAgen t[405]: Warning: accessing obsolete X509Anchors.
Mar 9 20:38:34 sole /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[404]: Error: FSMatchAliasBulk returned -6602 while resolving alias to backup target
Mar 9 20:38:34 sole /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[404]: Backup failed with error: 19
ideas?

I've run into the same problem - however, I don't see the messages you've indicated in the system logs. The only way I've found to fix is to do as you and re-specify where TM is to backup.

Time Machine making full backups--not incremental

Hi,
I just installed Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro a couple of days ago, and have been using Time Machine to make backups (never used it before now). I have TimeMachineEditor installed, and have it set to make a backup daily at 3:30am. It backs up data from my 500GB main hard drive to another internal 500GB hard drive.
The first backup went without a hitch, and did a full backup as expected (everything). But the second, third, and fourth backups all were full backups as well....not incremental as they should've been. The fourth one was actually a manual backup I did to test it...I chose "Back Up Now" to see if it did full or incremental. It did a full backup.
So, after four backups, each a little over 100GB, I'm already running out of space Has anyone else run into this behaviour? Is this a consequence of TimeMachineEditor having screwed it up somehow? Even if it has, shouldn't a manual backup still do an incremental backup?
Very strange....

canadavenyc wrote:
V.K. wrote:
yes, well, if Toronto ever gets a team in any sport worth rooting for, I might stop posting on apple forums and start watching them.
lol...well, seeing as how you'll clearly be here a while then... ...perhaps I can prevail upon you to answer one last question that just occurred to me.
Let's say I have tons of TM snapshots on my backup drive, and at some point I want to delete a few to clear some space. I know TM automatically goes after the earliest ones when the drive fills up,
You should know that TM also constantly thins recent backups. It keeps hourly backups for 24 hours and then deletes all but one for every day; it keeps daily backups for 30 days and then deletes all but one for every week. it keeps all weekly backups till the TM drive gets full at which point it starts deleting the oldest ones.
but let's say I manually want to delete a few snapshots that contain, say, a massive cache file or something totally useless to keep around, which I could afford to delete and would gain me a lot more drive space.
When I go into the TM interface to do the removal, how can I figure out which snapshots to get rid of? How would you do it?
TM offers two options. you can delete an entire backup corresponding to a time point or it can delete all backups of a given file/folder. to do that enter TM and scroll back in time to some time point. select something and click on the "gears" action button in Finder toolbar. you'll see options "delete backup" (deletes the entire backup for that time point), and 'delete all backups of this item". deletes all backups of the selected item from all time points. I use the latter sometimes to get rid of backups of very large files.

Long story short....I restored my computer to an earlier point using time machine and now all of the previous back-ups are gone. My question has to do with itunes...is it possible to restore my itunes library to the most recent backup because the restore

Long story short....I restored my computer to an earlier point using time machine and now all of the previous back-ups are gone. My question has to do with itunes...is it possible to restore my itunes library to the most recent backup because the restore that I did was in march and the latest backup was in may....the reason being is that there were app that i had downloaded that are in my most recent back-up, that were not in the backup I restored to. Is it possible to just restore one application ie)itunes?

See this post.
tt2

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?
Has Apple recently up-dated my OS (Lion) such that every time the screen saver starts it disables Time Machine. I have to switch-off the computer and re-start in order to undertake a back-up. I have now switched of all screen savers.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

Doesn't Time Machine delete old backups when it needs more space?

I've had time machine running for a long time now. It worked flawlessly for quite some time.
Today it gave me the error that there was not enough free space on the disk to complete the backup (the error message says something like there is 360 GB of data on the Time Machine drive already, 140 GB of free space and it would require more than that to complete my backup). I have a 500 GB Time Machine disk and my Mac has a 500 GB hard drive, so I should technically never run out of space.
The Time Machine almost acts like this is the first time I've ever backed up, which is not true. Shouldn't Time Machine delete old backups to make space for the new? What's even weirder is that if I open the "Star Wars" window of Time Machine I only see one backup from March 31, 2011, but I have been running Time Machine for well over a year now. I'm totally confused as to what happened. Any advice on how to get my Time Machine back up and running (without buying a new drive) would help!

You see only one backup in the Time Machine window because Time Machine has deleted the older backups to make space to do the current backup.
Time machine needs some working space to do its backups, and so backing up a 500GB drive onto a 500GB time machine volume is not ideal.
However, I do essentially the same thing, and what I do, when I have this problem, is exclude things from the backup.
First off, figure out what you changed. If you moved things from one partition to another, then that will cause a backup of the size of the thing that was moved. This may be why you have a large backup.
When I have this problem, I exclude large things that have changed recently from the backup. This makes the backup smaller, and means that there is less working space needed. I do this until I get a successful backup. Then I remove things, one by one, from the exclusion list, and back up after each one.
So, for instance if you just put 4 new folders on your drive, each of which s 20GB of data and they are named A, B, C and D, add all four to the exclusion list, do a backup, then remove A from the exclusion list (leaving B, C & D on it) and do a backup, and continue like this, adding 20GB of backup data each time until none of the new data is on the exclusion list and you get a completed backup.
Another possible issue, if you use multiple partitions, is that Time Machine may be keeping an obsolete backup of a partition that you previously reformatted. To see if this is the case, go into time machine (The universe interface) and go back to the most recent backup it shows. Click on your computer and see what partitions show up-- are any of them old ones that have been reformatted and renamed? You may be storing a duplicate backup because Time Machine does not realize that the disk that went away isn't coming back (because it has been reformatted as a different partition)
You can right-click on these items and remove them from your backup by sleecting "Delete all backups of...." This will free up space as well.

Time machine will not backup to empty external hard drive after replacing Mac's internal hard drive and restoring

First - I live in a tiny fishing village in Belize, so getting support here is virtually non-existent. There is no one else in my village who even uses a Mac. Recently, my hard drive in my 2012 Macbook Pro 13" went bad (said it suffered a "shock"?) and I was traveling to Cozumel, Mexico, so had it replaced there. We used an external hard drive backup to restore the data to it's last time machine backup (October of 2014). Everything was working fine, until I returned home, added some pictures, and wanted to do a fresh backup. Now, time machine will start the backup, but gets about 113,000 of 181,000 done, and it locks up. I can do nothing - everything freezes, and I have to eventually power down the computer. I even tried deleting the old backup from the external hard drive, erasing it completely, and reformatting the external hard drive using disk utility. Still locking up. It is a 5 GB external hard drive, so space shouldn't be an issue, and it was backed up to the same external hard drive previously with no issues. I'm still running Mavericks, and don't want to try to upgrade to Yosemite until I can be sure I have a backup of my old data and pictures. I am a writer, and use that to make my meager living LOL
I'm stumped. I've looked through the files endlessly but can't find anything similar to my issue. Any suggestions? I know just enough to be dangerous, and don't want to lose everything we worked so hard to retrieve when my hard drive crashed last month.
Thanks!

SMH5206 - I tried letting it sit and crank overnight twice. First time I thought it was my error causing it to lock up. Now I know better. I haven't changed any of my time machine settings - and actually never used time machine regularly. Only reason I had a fresh backup from last Oct was because I did one before I upgraded to mavericks. Everything worked fine then - and we used that to restore when the hard drive crashed and was replaced. I have actually deleted hundreds of pictures off my hard drive and one entire user, so it should actually be a much smaller backup - so if it did it before on the same external hard disk, I don't understand why it won't now. I'm really confused.
Kahjot - the external hard drive is the same one I backed up to previously - and I have completely erased it and reformatted, and the information I'm backing up now is less, so there should be no reason why it doesn't have enough room now, when there is actually less information on my current hard drive (see my reply to SMH5206). When I plug it in, it says it is a 500.07 GB WD "My Passport"
I've even tried to have time machine only backup certain files, and not the whole thing. Still locking up.
I'm sure it's my error somewhere, - I just don't know how or where

HT4848 Mavericks does not restore from most recent backup

I want to change the HD on my MacBook Pro. I have proceeded as advised and installed Mac OS (Mavericks) on the new drive using the recovery function. However, when I try to restore the data from Time Machine the only backup that is available is one from November, despite having created a backup just before creating the recovery disk. What hoops do I have to jump through in order to be able to install from a more recent backup?
I have also tried using the Migration Assistant but it seems that it cannot find my Time Machine, which is connected by FW 800.

and now it's saying my iphone has never been backed up to this computer. what is going on?

Time Machine Very Large Backup Space Requirements

I'm having a bit of trouble with Time Machine. I recently recreated a User Account. The old User account's home library permissions had become corrupt. Rather than try to sort through the permissions, I opted to just move all the personal data to another account (the primary admin), delete the old user account, recreate it, and move all the personal data to the new account. This worked splendidly. However, now Time Machine claims it needs about 2.1 TB to do it's next backup. I find this odd because a full backup is estimated as only 384 GB, and the computer's hard drive is only 1 TB to begin with. So, it needs a factor of 2 more space than is available on the computer. So, there is something amiss. I imagine Time Machine tracked the data being moved to the admin account and to the new account, and it wants to back all of this up. I don't want it to do that. Is there someway to cause Time Machine to forget the most recent changes?
Clearly, I don't want Time Machine to not backup the new account's information. However, I'm would like not to loose the previous backups. Any solutions?

Hello again:
Erasing and then formatting the Time Machine volume and having Time Machine make a new backup would be the way I would do it.
As an aside, I use two external hard drives. I have Time Machine set to make alternating backups on the externals, and I also make a bootable clone (SuperDuper!) on one of the externals. Short of a meltdown, I am reasonably well protected.
Barry

Carbon Clone and Time Machine: developing a backup plan

Howdy all!
This is a second post that sort of flows on from another I have written today
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4649740
I initally put them all together, but they were too rambling and disconnected, so it seemed better to seperate them. The question I have here is how best to organise my backup plan? I have a few ideas, but, basically, want to make sure I get the whole setup right the first time and would appreciate any advice from others that have been down the path before. As I am still waiting for some parts to arrive in the mail, I have a little time to think about how to go about setting up my Mac.
Basically the setup is:
Mac Mini 2012, boot drive is a Samsung 256GB 830 series SSD, seconday drive for data is a 1TB mechanical disk. I plan on having all my data on the seconday mechanical disk (photos, movies, music etc) and only the OS and Applications on the SSD. To this end, I understand I only have to move /Users to the mechanical disk to achieve this. I then also have 2x 2TB Western Digital MyBook Essential USB 3 disks for Time Machine backups. I plan on rotating them on a weekly basis (storing the disk not in use in a safe or offsite), and then, depending on costs a cloud backup service for some data (music, photos etc) which I might want to access when im not at home.
So I have been thinking for a few days now on the benefit of having a Carbon Clone bootable recovery drive. The thinking goes along these lines. As my data is on a seperate drive, and is backed up to Time Machine, in the event of an OS disk failure, I can replace the disk and then point /Users to the new drive, and I can be up and running once I have reinstalled the apps i need. Now, I understand the idea of the Carbon Clone backup is such that it speeds up the time to rebuild the OS disk, but I have to question, how useful is this in reality?
Consider, I can sit down now and write down all the apps I have needed in the past, install Mac OS, set it up (possibly with a generic admin password), install the apps I need from the App store and DVDs etc and then take a Carbon Clone at this point before any setup of Apps are done. If the apps configuration is backed up in the Time Machine backup (i.e.: the config files exist under /Users) then this is almost workable - in a recovery situation, the CC clone is used to rebuild the OS drive, the config files are pulled from the TM backups, and we're back up and running. Where this fails, is if I have installed (or removed) apps since the CC clone was made. At this point then, is it best to (a) make a new clone when a new app is added/removed or (b) make a note of apps added/removed, which will then have to be reinstalled if a recovery is required. I tend to think the (b) method is best here, as it preserves the integrity of the clone. If the machine has been compromised (malware etc) then remaking the clone, causes the clone to be compromised and hence the reinstalled machine as well. Though this method could be a pain if the machine state has changed somewhat over time. Also, it means that the reinstalled system will be missing updates etc which could be time consuming to apply anyway, so the usefulness of a clone is slightly reduced anyway.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Some days I think having a clone will be useful esp. as most of my software was delivered on CD (Adobe Creative Suite, Office) or are large install bases (XCode), but other days I think, "its not a mission critical machine", i can survive a day without it while I rebuild the install, and so I dont achieve much by having a clone which is likely out-of-date by the time I go to use it.
Also, in this backup plan, is it best to rely on TM for things like email backup or a dedicated mail backup utility? can a Carbon Clone exist on the same disk as Time Machine uses, or do I need to invest in a new disk or two for the CC clones?
As I say, I want to make sure I have this machine setup right from the start, and would really appreciate any pointers, tips or advice.

There is one big advantage of a clone. You can immediately reboot
to it and continue working and deal with the regular boot drive faiure,
what ever it may be, later. Especially since all your data and such
is on another drive. If you use your computer for work and time
critical projects, this is a major plus!
In the case of a hard drive failure/replacement, copying the clone
to the drive is the fastest way to get the system and all your settings
back.
Time Machine and incremental backups have a place as well. It is best
suited for "incremental" problems. Examples are installing an upgrade to
software that doesn't work or just don't plain like. With Time Machine it
is easy to just restore back to the point before the install.
Something else I do is backup current project files to USB memory sticks.
If you are using your computer for business, you can never have too many
backups. Coralllary 456 of Murphy's Law is the "number of backups that
you need will be one more than what you have!"

Can I retrieve contacts from a past (not most recent) backup?

The other day, my iPhone 4 decided to delete 95% of my contacts. Unfortunately when I realized this, my phone had already automatically backed up to iCloud, so the most recent backup didn't include any of my contacts. My Time Machine has been iffy and hasn't backed up recently AND I'm unsure if my contacts were saved to iTunes... I had never done that manually (didn't actually know it was an option until recently) but maybe it automitcally synced my contacts?
When I right click on my device in iTunes, restore from backup is not an option. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can restore from a backup from like 5 days ago? Is there a way to see a list of old backups or something? Ah I just want my contacts back! I don't care if I lose the pictures or texts I've sent in the last couple days, any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks

The other day, my iPhone 4 decided to delete 95% of my contacts. Unfortunately when I realized this, my phone had already automatically backed up to iCloud, so the most recent backup didn't include any of my contacts. My Time Machine has been iffy and hasn't backed up recently AND I'm unsure if my contacts were saved to iTunes... I had never done that manually (didn't actually know it was an option until recently) but maybe it automitcally synced my contacts?
When I right click on my device in iTunes, restore from backup is not an option. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can restore from a backup from like 5 days ago? Is there a way to see a list of old backups or something? Ah I just want my contacts back! I don't care if I lose the pictures or texts I've sent in the last couple days, any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks

Grrrr. Restoring from backup. Doesn't see most recent backups as "complete"

Terribly frustrating. Logic board went out on our newish mac mini. While it's in the shop I'm trying to restore the most recent backup to another external HD that I can startup from. The latest backup was completed moments before the mini crashed, but when I go to restore, it shows the most recent "complete" backup was done back in January. What!!! I have been able to get at the important files I need through the Finder, but that's not going to cut it. I want a complete restore of the system.
1) What Time Machine settings did I have wrong that could have caused this?
2) What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
3) Am I going to be able to get into my latest backup?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

Hi, and welcome to the forums. (Not the best way to start, is it?)
Very carefully, look at the most recent backup folder on the TM disk (don't change or delete anything).
As you probably know, it's inside the folder that has the same name as the computer it's from, and should be at the bottom.
It should be named with the date and time. If it has ".inProgress" at the end, it means it's not complete; TM hadn't quite finished with it. If so, you can't do anything with it.
It's also possible the disk was corrupted when the logic board blew. If OSX didn't get a chance to "close it out" properly (via the normal eject process), there's no telling what happened.
I'd start with a +Repair Disk+ (and maybe even +Repair Permissions+ ). That might help.
And you should be able to browse the backups from another Mac running Leopard, via the (badly named) +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. That's available either while holding down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your menubar, or control-clicking (right-clicking) the TM icon in the Dock. This won't show any ".inProgress" files either.

Time Machine most recent backup never changes

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