Time Machine not backing up all data
Hello All,
I just bought a Time Capsule 2TB and have Macbook pro early 2011 (running Lion OSX). I wanted to do to a time machine backup. Everything went well. I got it connected good and the backup started very weel. My HDD is about 400 GB and when the time machine started back up it started with data and the progress bar showed the total data to be back up (400GB), but then it backed up only 30 GB out of 400 GB.
I have most of my files in iphoto and ivideo. Is this normal? Why didnt TIme machine did not back up all 400GB?
Any idea?
Then there are two possibilities:
The backup failed, but you didn't see the message. See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages.
Or, some things didn't get backed-up. A partial explanation could be iPhoto -- if the iPhoto app is open when a backup runs, Time Machine may not be able to back up your iPhoto library. It will attempt to "catch up" the next time, but in the meantime you may not have any backups of it.
That's unlikely to be the whole difference, though. Does the figure of 400 GB seem reasonable to you -- can you account for most of it?
Similar Messages
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Time Machine not backing up all documents
I have a 13-inch Macbook Pro Retina display, on which I run OSX 10.9.5. I use Time Machine to back up on an external Thunderbolt drive. I have not excluded anything from my back up through the Time Machine options. Nonetheless, Time Machine arbitrary fails to back up some 30% of my files, as I discovered when I tried recently to restore my system and files. Entire folders were missing from my desktop, one of them with 40 gigabytes of files. Other folders were incomplete. A few applications were missing as well, and, oddly, almost all my utilities, including Terminal and Console. (Luckily I had backed up elsewhere using the apparently more reliable program Super Duper.) Can anyone tell me what might be going on?
Start D10 with in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems -
Time Machine NOT backing up all new files
I have 3 internal disks in my Mac Pro: SYSTEM (System and Apps), DATA (all my user data), and TM (Time Machine)
i use TM in manual mode to backup my DATA disk, typically every time i copy new images from my camera to my DATA disk.
i notice that sometime the latest files i copied to my machine are NOT backed bup by TM.
Every time i run TM, it finishes really quick, i.e. seeing nothing new to back up.
I then created a simple text file, and invoked TM again - and this very latest file was backed up - but my images from the past few days are STILL not backed up (and likely never to be, it seems).
Other things i;ve tried (w/ no success):
- ran Disk Utility verify on all disks
- rebuilt Directories w/ Disk Warrior
- tried (in vain) to force a TM Deep Traversal by:
a- restarting,
b- starting up using my install CD
c- restarting in Safe Mode
ps: here is an archived thread i found about this, but no solution mentioned
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11359191#11359191
help!
thanks!G'day
Xcode is an IDE, too. It automatically excludes its "build" folders.
It's still worthwhile to take a few moments to check, via the yellow box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11, just to rule that out.
Sorry, lack of clarity on my part. I did make the check first time around. The files are not excluded.
Yes, that's a possibility. Try making/copying a different folder.
Because this morming TM decided to copy the folders it was ignoring yesterday it is now up to date. I need to re-establish the errant behaviour i.e. wait until TM ignores a new version or two. Then I'll make a new folder and copy the contents of the IDE development folder into it. If folder damage is the issue then from then on new versions made will be copied by TM. I predict in fact this won't make a difference because I don't reckon folder damage is the issue. (But of course now that it is being watched TM will behave faultlessly and won't re-estabish the errant behaviour.)
True, but the folders should appear on subsequent backups (unless the originals were moved or deleted in the meantime). In other words, anything backed-up on Monday will still appear on the first Tuesday backup, even after all the Monday backups are deleted. You just can't tell which backup first backed them up.
Indeed. I can do a bit more analysis there. I will schedule that for tonight too.
How are you determining what's backed-up? Are you using TimeTracker or BackupLoupe,per #A2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting?
No. I simply open the Product Versions folder (that contains the copies of the developmet folder) on the desktop and then go into TM. There I step backwards through the backups. TM shows me what folders it has in in the Product Versions folder of each backup.
Without knowing the dates & timing, I agree it doesn't seem consistent. If you're getting different results at nearly the same time on the two drives, that may not be the problem. But it may be worth making some new ones to determine what's actually happening.
Not that I know I have to keep an eye on this I will be watching much more closely as I make versions during the day. To push the process along I will make versions, and associated TM backups, more frequently than normal and check each TM backup.
You might want to repair both TM drives, just to be sure, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. While you're at it, you might as well verify your internal HD, just to be sure there's not some sort of odd directory problem there.
Understood. I'll start by re-establishing the errant behaviour which I'll do via the accelerated process of development and versioning described above. You must be coming up to quitting time for the week. By the time you come in Monday morning I should have more to report. (I'm in Australia and I presume you are in the US.) -
Time machine not backing up all files
Running 10.7.5 on a mid 2010 27" iMac. I have Time Machine set up, and have a separate dedicated 1 TB hard drive just for back ups. I can see all the back ups in TM, but some files are just not there. I did several Photoshop files (large, multiple layers, etc) and the files and new folders they are in are simply not in my back up. And I checked my prefs, I have nothing excluded from the back ups. Is there a way for me to "reset" TM and start over, or is there something I'm overlooking here?
Pretty straight forward: 27iMac>Artwork>Collage>
Yesterday I created another folder there in which I have work files (Photoshop)
I have various other folders there with my work.
Wow, I just looked at the files for a church website I maintain, and one folder, which has recorded sermons, only has one file in it, from January, when I've put one file each week so there are 10 additional files. So my Mac has 11 files in this folder, the back up has one.
Here I am thinking this is all set up and I don't have to think about it anymore. But now I'm back to backing up MANUALLLY on another drive. I'm ready to give up on this and buy reliable backup software. -
Time Machine Not backing up all the folders
Hi There...
Time Machine doesn't seem to back up every single folder in my computer.
It is random how it won't include a folder or 2.
I noticed this first when I actually had to do a clean reinstall and although the back up was up to date there were a couple of folders that didn't make it.
Just now I went to check onother folders and they didn't back up and nothing is excluded in my preferences.
Anybody has had this problem? Is it common? any way to resolve this issue?
Thanks!lopezphoto wrote:
Thanks Pondini...
I will run the test the site recommends and see what happens!
Cool. Let us know.
Great link, BTW.
Thanks! -
Time Machine not backing up. Very slow, essentially hanging. I have 10.7.5 Mac OS X Lion (11G63). I have put in all updates. I tried to put my folders into "private" in the Spotlight (b/c I read that might be the problem). Still not working.
Thanks in advance for any help!For all things Time Machine see Pondini's excellent information here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start at Troubleshooting. -
How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
Skip System Files: NO
Mobile backups: OFF
Auto backup: YES
Volumes being backed up:
Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
Destinations:
Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
Total size: 999.86 GB
Total number of backups: 64
Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
Size of backup disk: Too small
Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
Time Machine details may not be accurate.
All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
/sbin excluded from backup!
/usr excluded from backup!
/System excluded from backup!
/bin excluded from backup!
/private excluded from backup!
/Library excluded from backup!
/Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy -
Why is my Time Machine not backing up my documents, folders and files.
I have a Mac oss 10.5.4. 2 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1.5 GB. I have been trying to remove files as I'm running all my programs slow. I recently installed the recent ILife upgrade.
Often I would go in and turn off the hourly time machine backup because as I was working on memory intensive programs such as Photoshop I found it may have been linked to crashes. This is particularly concerning as the backups aren't accessible anyway.
Okay, this is the stupid part - on my part - I included my (House) folder in the files not to back up. I was mistaken as to this being a way not to have redundant back ups.
However; the only file now that is in the do not back up is the (time machine backups) and still nothing is saving - particularly concerning? iphoto file. see below.
Now this is concerning! I restored all photos from "March 13, 2008" - it's september. to IPHOTO from Time Machine. I don't know what changed since then(?) I thought it would add these folders into my i photo cache. This of course has involved a software upgrade since to iphoto. I was prompted for upgrade to the restore. So I said yes, to assure the photos added? where in a compatible format. However; instead it has erased all my photos SINCE. Are my photos irretrievably lost?
Why won't my files back-up for retrieval? Can I restore my settings from March 13, 2008 when my Time Machine back-up worked?
I find it horribly confusing that I no longer can access the photo cache, instead having the 'iphoto cache' icon.
This feels like PC headache. I am about to give up!One thing you can check (using disk utility info button) is that the disk used for backing up must be in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, and must have Access Control Lists enabled. Permissions must be set so that you are allowed to use the disk, and the disk can’t be read-only. There must also be sufficient room on external disk for the entire TM backup. Since apple recommends just using TM on the disk, one thing to contemplate if having problems you can't resolve is to reformat as the above and start from scratch.
-
Time machine not backing up with mavericks
purchased the new 3TB airport time capsule and cannot get the time machine to back up my data. for 3 weeks,have stopped and restarted TM, now it is still working on "first backup" that started Oct 30th. this is my 2nd device, first one died after one week, apple store exchanged it. never had any problems on my older TM, but for space issues.
running on 27" imac has a 1TB disc, 16GB ram, i7 processorMavericks changed animation for Time Machine. There is nothing to worry about there.
Allan -
Time Machine not backing up music added to iTunes since the original backup
My girlfriend has a Macbook and I decided it was time for her to back up. I used Time Machine with my Lacie external HD. The original back up got all the music, documents, etc.
This morning was the first time I had hooked up the external HD since the original back up. I manually ran it and wanted to check if it added the new music and documents. My resume, which I updated last night, was there. But when I looked in the iTunes folder the new music I had added was missing.
Will the daily or weekly back up get the new music files? Is there something I did wrong with set up? Of course I could start over but I'd rather fix the issue and make sure everything is being backed up.
Your suggestions or comments are appreciated.Erik Griffin wrote:
My girlfriend has a Macbook and I decided it was time for her to back up. I used Time Machine with my Lacie external HD. The original back up got all the music, documents, etc.
How long ago was this?
This morning was the first time I had hooked up the external HD since the original back up. I manually ran it and wanted to check if it added the new music and documents. My resume, which I updated last night, was there. But when I looked in the iTunes folder the new music I had added was missing.
How are you verifying whether they were backed-up? Use +Enter Time Machine,+ not the Finder.
Will the daily or weekly back up get the new music files?
The labels of hourly, daily, and weekly backups are just labels. The process is the same with each. The only thing that's different is how long TM will keep them. A TM backup is a TM Backup.
Is there something I did wrong with set up? Of course I could start over but I'd rather fix the issue and make sure everything is being backed up.
First, check TM Preferences > Options. Be sure nothing is listed there that would prevent any iTunes data from being backed-up.
If you still don't see them, download the TimeTracker app, from www.charlessoft.com.
It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.). That should show what was actually backed-up. -
Time Machine Not Backing Up New Files
Time Machine is NOT backing up my recent files.
I recently noticed that Time Machine was backing up really quickly instead of taking several minutes as usual. I checked previous backups and discovered that NONE of my recent files were backed up.
I have a very basic setup. An external usb 1 tb drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) being used as the time machine backup drive. A new i5 mac mini with OS X 10.8.4. About 200 gigs of data with one user on the internal drive.
I have followed all of the Pondini troubleshooting steps. I have restarted into safe mode to force a deep traversal. I have repaired permissions and verified all disks with Disk Utility. I have deleted time machine preferences and followed instructions as per Pondini #A4. The backup seems to run but then finishes quickly but DOES NOT BACK UP any recent files.
I have run TMUTIL COMPARE, it showed that many files needed to be backed up.
I have run TMUTIL ISEXCLUDED on some of the files that were not being backed up. It showed that they were not flagged for exclusion.
I have run a manual backup after starting up in Safe Mode, which forced a deep event scan, but then exhibited the same behaviour..
I have acquired a new external hard drive, backed up the complete main drive (using Time Machine which appeared to be successful on the first time full backup), then run a manual backup on that new drive after adding new files and had THE SAME PROBLEM.
Here's the latest console output, which is typical since I have noticed this issue. There appear to be many megabytes of new files to be backed up, but then the operation completes within seconds and no files are backed up at all.
6/23/13 7:15:16.422 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Starting manual backup
6/23/13 7:15:16.966 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Omnius/Backups.backupdb
6/23/13 7:15:17.916 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Using file event preflight for Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:20.277 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Will copy (375.1 MB) from Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:20.298 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Found 845 files (375.1 MB) needing backup
6/23/13 7:15:20.311 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: 1.91 GB required (including padding), 747.18 GB available
6/23/13 7:15:29.264 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Copied 400 files (1.4 MB) from volume Olympus.
6/23/13 7:15:29.298 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Using file event preflight for Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:29.299 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Will copy (Zero KB) from Olympus
6/23/13 7:15:29.300 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Found 5 files (Zero KB) needing backup
6/23/13 7:15:29.301 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: 1.46 GB required (including padding), 747.17 GB available
6/23/13 7:15:30.439 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Copied 140 files (33 bytes) from volume Olympus.
6/23/13 7:15:30.511 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Created new backup: 2013-06-23-071530
6/23/13 7:15:30.608 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Starting post-backup thinning
6/23/13 7:15:30.608 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
6/23/13 7:15:30.689 AM com.apple.backupd[643]: Backup completed successfully.
Please help. Time Machine is currently useless as a backup solution.Results (username obfuscated in exclusionpaths):
-=-=-=-=-=--
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>sourcePaths</key>
<array>
<string>/</string>
</array>
<key>standardExclusionPaths</key>
<array>
<string>/.MobileBackups</string>
<string>/MobileBackups.trash</string>
<string>/.MobileBackups.trash</string>
<string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
<string>/.TemporaryItems</string>
<string>/.Trashes</string>
<string>/.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist</string>
<string>/.fseventsd</string>
<string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
<string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
<string>/Desktop DB</string>
<string>/Desktop DF</string>
<string>/Network/Servers</string>
<string>/Library/Updates</string>
<string>/Previous Systems</string>
<string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
<string>/Users/Guest</string>
<string>/dev</string>
<string>/home</string>
<string>/net</string>
<string>/private/var/db/com.apple.backupd.backupVerification</string>
<string>/private/var/db/efw_cache</string>
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string>
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string>
<string>/private/var/lib/postfix/greylist.db</string>
<string>/Volumes</string>
<string>/Network</string>
<string>/automount</string>
<string>/.vol</string>
<string>/tmp</string>
<string>/cores</string>
<string>/private/tmp</string>
<string>/private/Network</string>
<string>/private/tftpboot</string>
<string>/private/var/automount</string>
<string>/private/var/folders</string>
<string>/private/var/run</string>
<string>/private/var/tmp</string>
<string>/private/var/vm</string>
<string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
<string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
<string>/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/Library/Logs</string>
<string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
<string>/private/var/log</string>
<string>/private/var/spool/cups</string>
<string>/private/var/spool/fax</string>
<string>/private/var/spool/uucp</string>
</array>
<key>systemFilesExcluded</key>
<false/>
<key>userExclusionPaths</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/USERNAME/Pictures/cam_in</string>
<string>/Users/USERNAME/Epsilon</string>
<string>/Users/USERNAME/Desktop</string>
<string>/Users/USERNAME/Pictures/cam_out</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist> -
Time Machine not backing up iPhoto changes (Events, pictures, etc..)
So I finally decided to buy a external hard drive (WD) and backup some of my data to it using Time Machine. The initial backup went well with no problems but what I noticed is as I added events and pictures they were not appearing in Time Machine.
I could open time machine and view that my iPhoto had the current events when the date selected was "Today (now)", but as I went back in time the events that SHOULD of been there were not.
Browsing the folders on the backups showed the iPhoto database to be 13.5gb when actually the new size on my iMac was 19.5gb.
So why does Time Machine not detect these changes? For my backups I have excluded all folders except for the Users folder which contains the iPhoto library. Time Machine is not detecting the changes and backing it up. How can I fix this?Yeah. At first I thought it was:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/D5.html
Because I was doing that earlier. But then realized I did repair permissions, not disk. But anyways decided to reboot (because I haven't up to this point).
Once it came back up I tried doing another backup. Didn't see it. Opened iPhoto again and exited it (checked Force Quit to make sure it wasn't open). Told it to do a BACKUP NOW. This time it saw a difference of like 7mb.
After it was done, went to iPhoto -> File -> Browse Backups. Went back a couple minutes when I did the backup and my event now has a place holder within the Events but it is pure black. I double clicked the event and it opened up and saw there were 3 files in there. They had default icons and were not showing as pictures like they were. (even though they display fine in iPhoto).
Time Machine seems very flakey to me. My machine is fully updated also. -
Time machine not backing up user home directories
Hi All,
I set up my users to have their home directories on a seperate partition: /Volumes/Data/homes/<name>.
I confogured time machine to back up to an external USB hard drive. The exclude list is empty, exept for the backup disk, of course.
When i do an initial backup with TM, i notice that /Volumes/Data/homes is skipped, whereas /Volumes/Data/kits is backed up.
I also see a console message:
8/15/13 3:21:29 PM
com.apple.backupd[621]
Backup content size: 119.8 GB excluded items size: 113.6 GB for volume Data
Why is this? How can i force TM to backup all files?
Thanks for your help,
HeinrichHeinrichFromBremen wrote:
Of course not. But there is a difference between lack of perfection and deliberately building bugs into the software.
It's not really deliberate. The number of folks who do what you are is very, very limited.
How can i know that homeis the only omitted directory?
It isn't. As noted in the other thread, dev and net are also omitted. Many other things, are, too - see the tan box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11 for details.
With this behaviour, i simply cannot trust TM backups.
A bit of an overreaction, I think, but your choice.
What would be the alternatives? tar? ditto? dump does not seem to exist.
See #27 in the FAQ link above. As far as I know, they all omit some things. -
Time Machine not backing up 2nd external drive, remove option grayed out
I have two external hard drives, 300gb (firewire) and 500gb (usb). Time Machine is backing up to the 300gb. In Time Machine's options, the 500gb is excluded from being backed up, and the remove option is grayed out.
The 300gb Time Machine Backup drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended. The 500gb drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32).
I know the backup drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended, but will it not even back up other drives that are FAT32?I am having a similar problem. I initially set it up 3 days ago and had it back up just the iMac to Time Capsule (about 120 GB) which it did no problem (I initially had my LaCie drive excluded). I then un-excluded my other drive, where all my photos and music reside (about 130 GB). Since then, it keeps trying to back up about 102 GB each time. Looking at the list of backups it does not appear that it has ever successfully backed up the LaCie. I am not aware of any error messages, but I have not been home much. I normally shut down the computer at night but I have been leaving it on trying to let Time Machine do its thing. All I can say is that every time I am at the computer TM is running and it always looks like it is in the middle of backing up 102 GB (usually seems to be near the beginning, never seem to see it more than halfway done). Looking at the TM panel it says the latest backup was 2 days ago. I'd appreciate any advice!
-
Time Machine not backing up both internal hard drives on 2011 iMac?
I have a 2011 iMac with two internal hard drives---a 2TB HDD and 256GB solid state.
I plugged in a 3TB FW800 external to use with Time Machine.
Based on adding up the used space from both drives as seen in disk utility (totalling 1537.36 GB), it doesn't appear that Time Machine is backing everything up (total backup of 1.49 TB).
Any ideas?
Thank you,
TaylorLaunch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo tmutil compare
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.
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