Time Machine no longer displays "Latest Backup" time

I have been using Time Machine since 10.5 came out and it worked perfectly.
I recently purchased a Time Capsule and (in common with a lot of others it seems), I have faced various issues (very slow initial backup, very long "preparing..." messages etc.) but they all seem to have been resolved (albeit somewhat mysteriously).
However, one problem occurred recently that I haven't seen mentioned before: in the drop-down menu under the time-capsule icon in the menu bar, the "Latest Backup" time is always shown as "--" Time Machine preferences shows the same, both for the initial backup and the latest backup.
Time Machine runs hourly as it should, and a cursory examination of the files in the Time Machine interface seems to show that all is in order. The "sparsebundle" disk image also passes verification.
For what it's worth, my MacBook Pro (also 10.5.2) appears to be just fine and shows the Latest Backup time correctly.
I looked in the system log but couldn't see a message that I thought was relevant.
Does anyone have any ideas about what might be up and how to correct this? I have considered deleting the Time Machine sparsebundle for the Mac Pro and starting again (since I haven't had the Time Capsule long enough to be terribly concerned about the history on the drive - yet). But I'm hoping someone has an idea what might be up and how I can correct it first.
I must say Time Capsule isn't exactly filling me with confidence. My offsite SuperDuper backups are going to be updated very regularly until my faith in Time Machine has been restored.
This only

This may not pertain to your issue, but might be worth considering if you use virus software. Time machine has been hanging, not showing time-stamps, and not giving me access to backups since I installed Intego Virus software and Leopard 10.5.2. I finally tracked down the Intego problem yesterday browsing this forum for answers. When I added my Time Machine disk to Intego Virus software's trusted items, Time Machine began behaving normally again (and other problems cleared up-such as hang on shut-down). Good luck with your issue. David

Similar Messages

I have an iMac with OS X 10.5.8 and Time Machine no longer finds the backup device. It had initially worked. I have checked the connections and restarted the backup device but cannot make it work. What actions should I take to correct this?

Time Machine no longer finds the backup device

Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Time Machine could not complete the backup "Time Capsule". Unable to access disk image backup "/ Volumes / Time Capsule / iMac.sparsebundle" (error 112). How can I repair it?

Time Machine could not complete the backup "Time Capsule". Unable to access disk image backup "/ Volumes / Time Capsule / iMac.sparsebundle" (error 112).
How can I fix it?

You might want to take a look at Pondini's excellent support document......Time Machine Troubleshooting
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
See # C17

Time Machine no longer does hourly backups

Time machine has quit doing its hourly backups. I have two disks defined to Time Machine. One is Firewire and the other eSATA. So neither drive is on the network. This has been working for a very long time this way. The other day one of the drives encountered an error that made it unreadable. I verified that I still had a good set of backups on the other drive, and then removed the bad drive from Time Machine and reformatted it. I then added the now reformatted drive back to Time Machine.
My macbookpro is plugged into AC. There are no error messages in the console log for backupd. I have seen this happen off and on but it always seems to start up again after awhile. This time seems diffferent. I have done two restarts. I tried deleting com.apple.TimeMachine.plist from /Library/Preferences. I have removed both drives from Time Machine and added them back. I can manually do backups and the console log shows them to be successful. Time Machine properly flips between the two drives everytime I do a manual backup.

You may find a solution at this website: Time Machine - Troubleshooting
OT

Time Machine HD not showing latest backup, can't restore system

Please forgive the short story, but I'll give as many details as I can:
Last night I successfully installed XP on my MacBook Pro using Boot Camp. I decided to do the same to my iMac (21.5" 2010 Version). I used Boot Camp to initiate the partition process to create my Windows partition. It told me that I had files that couldn't be moved and I would have to:
1. Backup my startup disk (the main and only internal hard drive)
2. Reformat the hard drive I want to create the Windows partition on
3. Restore from the backup
4. Use Boot Camp to create the new partition
I completely understand why I have to do this. There's files spread physically all over the drive, and backing up and restoring is the free alternative to defragging. So I use Time Machine to back up my internal drive to an external drive. The total transfer was about 330 GB. I had to leave for about three hours and left it to do its thing. When I came back, the iMac had restarted and was waiting for my password to log on. I did so and looked in Time Machine and saw that the next back was scheduled for 10:37 pm. It was set to backup every hour. Simple math tells me the last backup - the one I had left for three hours - had finished at 9:37 pm. And that made perfect sense.
I then boot the iMac from the OSX disk and use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the main drive. I did this without any qualms since I was sure the backup worked. It wiped and reformatted my drive and I go to Time Machine to restore and.......
NO BACKUP FILES ARE FOUND
The external was spinning. I could hear it doing something. So I decided to try it manually in Disk Utility. In selecting the source of the restore Image, I navigate through the external and find, not a backup file, but a ".inProgress" file. I'm guessing that the initial backup +did not+ complete correctly and I've now just lost all of my data.
Can anyone please tell me that I'm wrong?

weerez87 wrote:
When I came back, the iMac had restarted and was waiting for my password to log on.
Unless you have your Mac set to automatically log you off after a period of inactivity, your Mac should have been as you left it. It does not shut down, restart, or log you off after completing a backup.
Could there have been a power failure?
I'm guessing that the initial backup +did not+ complete
That seems likely.
and I've now just lost all of my data.
Maybe, maybe not.
Just to be sure, check the backup drive via the Finder. Be +*very careful+* using the Finder on your backups; if you accidentally move, change, or delete anything, they can be corrupted.
There should be a single Backups.backupdb folder at the top level, containing a single folder named for your Mac.
Inside that should be a folder for each backup, named with the date and time; plus a "latest" alias, plus the in.Progress file (it's actually a "package").
If there are any named, dated folders, those are completed backups; you can restore your entire system from them. See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If not, select the "in.Progress" file and see how large it is, via +Get Info.+ That may take a while; the larger it is, the more of your data is there. If it's over about 6 GB (your system folders), right-click it and select +Show Package Contents.+ It should contain the same folder structure as your internal HD; go all the way to the bottom and see how much is actually there (some of the items toward the end may be empty).
If it looks like most everything is there, you may be able to recover most of it, by drag and drop.
If not, +*stop using your internal HD.+* Unless you did a +Secure Erase,+ your stuff is still on the internal disk, and most should be recoverable, but it won't be quick or easy. See [Data Recovery|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Recover.html].
Keep us posted.

Time Machine does not display older backups.

Running 10.6.4 with Time Machine saving to a Time Capsule, for the past year.
Opening Time Machine displays the bars for older backups but does not display dates/times against them and I cannot move backwards or forward to select an option to restore. However, it does mount the Time Machine backup disk image on the desktop and I can browse this and restore a file using Finder. So, I know that I have my years-worth of backups on the Time Capsule, but how can I get Time Machine to display them -- I'm guessing it needs a re-instal of Time Machine?
cheers
Birdflier

Hi Pondini,
I got it fixed today, thank you everyone for your help. The thing that ended up fixing it was deleting the hidden files ".com.apple.timemachine.supported" and ".002332b4a7fc" on the root directory of the time machine disk. Now my months worth of backups are viewable again!
I didn't find this on your website (maybe I didn't look hard enough). If it's not there, perhaps it would be a good thing to add to your site? Hopefully it will save a few people some frustration! Thanks for making the site - it looks like a great resource.
--Hayden

Time Machine no longer finds the backup disk

Time Machine running smoothly for the past 6 months. Then had an error that the "......sparsebundle" was in use by another user. So, went into Time Machine preferences, removed the Backup Disk I had been using. Also renamed the hard drive on my laptop (which shouldn't have anything to do with this issue). Now, wehn I go into Time Machine preferences, no disks are available. The disk that I had been using is online with no issues, I can connect to it from my laptop no problem (it is connected physically to my Mini). Can't figure out a way to get TIme Machine to recognize that its there (it's a Seagate drive). Ideas?

Backing up to a third-party NAS with Time Machine is risky, and unacceptably risky if it's your only backup. This is an example of what can happen.
If you want network backup with Time Machine, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to another Mac or a mini-tower (802.11ac) AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base station supports Time Machine, not any previous model.

Time machine does not show latest backups

My Time Machine backup to an external NAS (WD Mybook World Edition) runs without any error on the GUI, but when I look into the Time Machine finder history I can only see backups which are 13 days old (June 1st).
here is the log of the successful (?) run:
13.06.12 07:49:17,673 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
13.06.12 07:49:37,736 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 07:50:09,976 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 07:50:31,443 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
13.06.12 07:50:35,076 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
13.06.12 07:50:35,091 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb
13.06.12 07:50:42,703 com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Users/florian/Pictures/Aperture Trial Library.aplibrary/Database/apdb reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|
13.06.12 07:50:43,331 com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
13.06.12 07:51:11,996 com.apple.backupd: 1.33 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
13.06.12 07:51:11,998 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
13.06.12 07:56:03,871 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1766 files (739.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
13.06.12 07:56:15,835 com.apple.backupd: 1.34 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
13.06.12 07:58:16,546 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1323 files (313.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
13.06.12 07:58:45,592 com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
13.06.12 07:58:49,102 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
13.06.12 07:58:49,661 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
13.06.12 07:59:41,572 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 08:00:09,835 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 08:00:30,871 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
13.06.12 08:00:33,932 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
Configuration:
Mac OS X 10.7.4
WD MyBook World Edition 2TB 01.02.12 with MioNet
Any idea what's wrong?

My Time Machine backup to an external NAS (WD Mybook World Edition) runs without any error on the GUI, but when I look into the Time Machine finder history I can only see backups which are 13 days old (June 1st).
here is the log of the successful (?) run:
13.06.12 07:49:17,673 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
13.06.12 07:49:37,736 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 07:50:09,976 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 07:50:31,443 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
13.06.12 07:50:35,076 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
13.06.12 07:50:35,091 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb
13.06.12 07:50:42,703 com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Users/florian/Pictures/Aperture Trial Library.aplibrary/Database/apdb reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|
13.06.12 07:50:43,331 com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
13.06.12 07:51:11,996 com.apple.backupd: 1.33 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
13.06.12 07:51:11,998 com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
13.06.12 07:56:03,871 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1766 files (739.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
13.06.12 07:56:15,835 com.apple.backupd: 1.34 GB required (including padding), 763.52 GB available
13.06.12 07:58:16,546 com.apple.backupd: Copied 1323 files (313.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
13.06.12 07:58:45,338 com.apple.backupd: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
13.06.12 07:58:45,592 com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
13.06.12 07:58:49,102 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
13.06.12 07:58:49,661 com.apple.backupd: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
13.06.12 07:59:41,572 com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 08:00:09,835 com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
13.06.12 08:00:30,871 com.apple.backupd: QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
13.06.12 08:00:33,932 com.apple.backupd: Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/silverstar.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups
Configuration:
Mac OS X 10.7.4
WD MyBook World Edition 2TB 01.02.12 with MioNet
Any idea what's wrong?

Time Machine only enters the latest backup

I am using TM with two disks. Say the latest backup is to disk 2. When I enter TM it goes disk 2 without asking. If disk 2 is not available, but disk 1 is clearly mounted on the desktop, it says "backup disk not available". That's not because it cannot find disk 1, but because it keeps looking for disk 2.
The only way to tell it to look in disk 1 is to do a backup. After that, it can enter disk 1 fine as it becomes the latest. If I connect disk 2 again, it still enter disk 1.
My question is if this is the expected behavior. (I wouldn't be surprising since there is no option what disk to access.)
Now, one of my disks is a network drive (Western Digital MyBook Live). WD say it is fully compliant with the TM specs and so far it worked fine, aside from the behavior I mentioned.
Thanks in advance.

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

Time machine restores a really old backup!

Time machine makes regular backups of my system. Last night, I had to restore my system and used the installation discs to do this (and selected restore from Time machine, and selected the latest backup).
When the installation was complete, a number of files and applications were missing, though I can still see them on the Time machine drive under the latest backup. When I looked through the backups, the latest backup (23 June 09) says that the date modified was 2007! This 2007 date matches up with the applications I got upon installation.
Any ideas on what happened? The plan is to start from a fresh installation and grab the applications I need from the lastest backup, but I would really like to know what happened so I can avoid it in the future! How can I restore my system from the latest backup?

Hello again:
That would be the only way to see if a corrupt preference file causes your problem.
FWIW, I have not seen any other post with a problem like the one you describe. Something in your system is causing the issue - what, I do not know.
There are other things that could be attempted, but they would take quite a bit of your time.
Barry

Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Time Capsule. The backup disk image /Volumes/Data/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle could not be created (error 60)"

We are Mountain Lion using Time Machine to backup to Time Capsule. When the backup tries to run, an error appears after a couple of minutes saying "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." Then an error shows up saying "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Time Capsule.The backup disk image /Volumes/Data/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle could not be created (error 60)"
I low level reformatted the Time Capsule and that didn't fix it. I then tried using Time Machine on another computer to back up to that same Time Capsule and it worked- so I'm doubting it's the Time Capsule.
I've noticed that when Time Machine runs, that a folder called Data at /Volumes/ appears while Time Machine is trying to back up. I think it's making the sparsebundle to transfer to the Time Capsule.
However, after a couple of minutes- it comes back saying that the disk is unreadable.
I think it's something wrong with either creating the sparsebundle or opening the disk image that seems to be a part of the Time Machine backup process on the local drive.
I am able to create a disk image with Disk Utilitiy without any problem on that system. I've repaired the disk and disk permissions with Disk Utility and replaced the directory with Disk Warrior. I've trashed what preference files I could find and restarted. I've completely removed the backup destination from the computer and added it back again.
Help!
Thanks,
Neil

neillhowell wrote:
I've noticed that when Time Machine runs, that a folder called Data at /Volumes/ appears while Time Machine is trying to back up. I think it's making the sparsebundle to transfer to the Time Capsule.
Yes, exactly. It makes one sparse bundle per Mac.
It's possible the TC's disk is too full for a new sparse bundle, or there may be some other problem.
Via the Finder, locate the existing sparse bundle (see the pink box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17 if you're not sure how to do that). See how large it is (plus how large anything else that may be there). If the total is very near the size of the TC, that may be the problem.
If not, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the backup in question (probably the first one displayed), then copy and post all the messages here.

Time Machine no longer working after reinstalling OSX 10.5 w/TM backup

About a week ago Disc Utility told me I had serious problems with my HD structure and a reinstall was necessary. Fortunately, restoring everything using Time Machine was flawless, however Time Machine has not done a single backup since. The Backup.backupdb file is still there on the external drive, along with 6 other folders created at the time I did the reinstall (same names as the 6 inside the subfolder, system, library, users...). If I try to manually do a TM backup it tells me I don't have enough HD space as though it wants to start from scratch, when the folders are all still there from before the reinstall.
Any ideas why Time Machine no longer recognizes the files it created 2 weeks ago?

I had to reinstall Leopard and restore using TM. It also worked flawless for me. When I checked to see if it was backing up again, there was nothing. I also tried to manually back and that didn't work either. I went into System Preferences, Time Machine and had to choose my TM backup drive again. Once I did that it worked perfect.

Time Machine deletes all but latest two backups

Hello,
Today I was backing up my macbook, with about 38 GB of space left on my harddrive, and Time Machine deletes everything but the latest two backups (from Feb 2012 to May 2012).... I had things on there from 2009. TM preferences now says I have 27 GB of free space, after the latest backup. I didn't have anything big enough on my computer to be backed up that justified deleting years of data, over 200 GB, in order to compensate for the new data that had to be backed up. Is there any way to recover the files that were erased off of my external hard-drive that were deleted during Time Machine's semi-routine back up?
Thank you

Sebastian Kuhn wrote:
Is there no way to set up Time Machine such that it will ASK before destroying a (potentially valuable) "old" backup
That's how it worked at first, on Leopard. But many users either didn't understand it, or never got around to doing anything, so had no backups at all when disaster struck. It was fairly common, so Apple changed it with Snow Leopard.
Why does Apple assume that it is always the OLDEST backup (which will be hardest to retrieve) that people would be willing to loose?
That's usually correct. Time Machine is not a traditional archive-type app; if you need archives, make archives.
If you frequently need things from your backups, you may have a deeper problem. But most likely, you just need a larger backup drive.
That all applies to the vast majority of users -- they have a single internal HD with less than 1 TB of data, so a 2 TB backup drive is ok, 3 TB large enough for most everybody.
If that's not enough for your setup, you probably need a different strategy anyway. You may have some data that changes frequently and should be backed-up hourly by Time Machine, plus something like a large media drive that's best backed-up only once a day or so by a different app, such as one of the "cloning" products.
there should be the option to exclude different items when backing up to different disks. Is there?
No. Apparently Apple wants to keep it as simple as possible, with few options that may confuse some folks, so instead of making a decision, they do nothing (that's not just Time Machine, either). Remember, most of the folks using Time Machine have never used any backup app at all.
Apple's resisted all suggestions (and there have been many) for things like the ability to limit the size or age of backups, reduce the 10-day warning when no backup has been done, etc. Like it or not, that's Apple's approach to pretty much everything -- streamlined, simple, easy to use. Very successful for the majority.
Is there any workaround other than the cumbersome procedure of turning Time Machine off, and under "options" re-select the correct set of folders to exclude every time I move from one disk to another? Not exactly what I would call a user-friendly interface...
Best of course, is get a larger disk. Is your data worth the price of a 2 TB disk?
There are some elaborate workarounds involving automatically swapping destinations and exclusions, but they're very "iffy" as they do things that TM (and OSX) don't anticipate so don't react well to.
Effective with Lion, however, there's a new tmutil command that in theory would allow you to write an AppleScript to set a destination, add or remove exclusions and run a backup. Many things could go wrong, of course, but I know of no way to detect which destination is available.
Much safer, easier, and more reliable to get a larger drive (or better strategy).

I bought a new mac and i migrate with time machine...but the backup was a little bit old and weren't save the latest modify i made in my website.. is it possible take the uploded site in iweb? sorry but i don't speak english very well.

I bought a new mac and i migrate with time machine...but the backup was a little bit old and weren't save the latest modify i made in my website.. is it possible take the uploded site in iweb? sorry but i don't speak english very well

But what can I cut and paste? the html code or image and text directly?
depend on which template you used.
if you use iweb photos page template then you need to search for my photos page solutions in this forum.
@ot: cut and paste from the online version
@rw: You can drag an image from the website to the Desktop
have your try your methods in iweb photos page?

"Latest Backup" time/date is incorrect for OS X Server Time Machine backups

I administer a OS X Server that provides Time Machine backups for clients across our small business network. I'm running Server on a Mac Mini (2.3 GHz i7 with 8GB RAM), and after going from Mavericks to Yosemite (and from Server 3 to Server 4) the other day, the TM backups are still running hourly, but the "Latest Backup" times are incorrect. Has anyone noticed this behavior? In case it matters, none of the clients currently being backed up are Yosemite clients. I mentioned this because for our older clients (10.6), the "Latest Backup" times/dates were always listed as "Unknown" in Server 3, and continue to be in Server 4. Thanks!

I also had to restart the server and client after applying the "fix" I described above. Basically, no user should have multiple, simultaneous file sharing sessions on the server. But even clearing the user sessions does not resolve the problem beyond the next Time Machine backup, so I also tried disabling and enabling file sharing, but the problem also returns after doing this. Only restarting both the client and server after clearing the sessions has worked for me when I have this problem. The problem may return much later, but this work aroudn definitely works as a temporary solution.
Next time I encounter this problem I will try restarting just the server or just the client, because it is unlikely that the problem exists due to something on both systems. Server 3.x is definitely not as stable as it should be, but for my use, it is getting the job done.

Time Machine no longer displays "Latest Backup" time

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