Time machine puts icons back on desktop

whenever Time Machine backs up my computer, icons for Adobe Flash player, Firefox, hp, etc. appear on my desktop. Is there any way I can stop this from happening?

Are you really on the 10.6.6 as evidenced by your profile. Perhaps you should update with the Combo updater Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1
After which you should software update to pick up the latest security and iTunes updates.
Another thought. Have you tried dragging it to the dock, for example.

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Time Machine did not back up desktop folders?

Hello, I've been backing up my mid-2010 iMac 21.5" for over a year and a half every 24 hours to my external hard drive via Time Machine.
Recently, I just got back from a very lengthy and important trip where I was commissioned to take photos and videos. I made sure to do another time machine backup every day for a week until I needed to send the photos and videos in. I keep all of my photos and videos in separate folders on my desktop.
In that week time period, I sold my iMac in order to buy a Macbook Pro (needed the portability). No problem, just boot the Macbook while holding CMND+R to enter rocovery, and restore from my time machine backup on my external drive.
After booting up my Macbook, I noticed there were no folders or files on my desktop that I had originally on my iMac. Actually, there was virtually nothing the same that I had from my previous machine. There are now missing documents, applications, and many other VERY important files that I need to have.
My question is, where are these files? These backups took ages to perform, but what exactly was it even backing up? I desperately need these photos and videos for my job's sake. And they are nowhere to be found. I've tried entering Time Capsule and dating back weeks and months prior, none of which have any traces of files or folders being on my desktop. If anybody could help me out, or fill me in on a missing step perhaps, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I'm going to come accross sounding like a bitter old man . . .
Mac user since 1990. At the time, the whole cornerstone of the OS was "People don't want to learn how to use a computer. They just want to do their work." I bought it. Every piece of software (and operating system) I used was intuitive. You'd say "how do I . . ." and within moments, you could figure it out. No manual. No help.
To my dismay I've discovered (just bought 2 new Mac Minis for my business) that this is a thing of the past.
Case in point is Time Machine. I've just discovered, as did RoganLigby, that folders on the desktop are NOT backed up. Fortunately I discovered this (quite by accident) before a drive failure occurred.
My question: Why?
Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why?
What possible purpose is there to not backup items on the desktop? Perhaps more importantly, wouldn't it be a good idea to tell users that this is the case? Near as I can tell, there is no option to specifically add desktop folders to the backup.
Does anyone at Apple actually use their own creations?

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

Time Machine isn't backing up. I have a WD 1.74TB of memory. My Book hooked up to automatically back up. It stopped working in March. The backup disk doesn't initialize, it doesn't show up on my desktop. What to do?

Back up problem.
Time Machine isn't backup. I have a WD 1.74TB external backup machine. My Book (the name of the backup disk) stopped working in March and thme My Book iocon disappeared from my desk top.The backup disk won't initialize. How can I get it working again?
Actually it stopped working around the time that their were a lot of system upgrades.

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 has stopped backing up to my Western Digital Network Drive

I have a WD 1TB World Edition drive which pretty much worked plug 'n' play when I bought it in early Jan backing up with with Time Machine instead of the bundled software. I've had a few troubles backing up, but largely due to router problems. Time machine has worked great with the drive, as promised.
Until a few days ago, when it stopped backing up altogether. The usual backup icon stopped appearing on the desktop and it came up with error message saying the backup file cannot mount or something like that. Strangely, the shared folders on the drive still show up and I can access all the mp3 files, etc I have loaded up. So, I checked the router, cabling to the drive, rebooted the drive, resetted the drive and checked the settings using MyBookWorld. This stopped the error message showing when I tried to backup and the backup icon now shows on the desktop again. But it won't backup !!! It just stalls and in Time Machine says its configuring without doing anything. I have tried hooking up to the drive directly, still no joy.
I'm now at the end of my tether. Does anyone have any ideas? I have asked WD support and they were next to useless. Thanks !

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Time Machine does not back up reliably, if at all, to most network drives, except Time Capsules or a shared drive on another Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard on the same local network.
Here's the criteria they must meet: Disks that can be used with Time Machine. And be careful here: just because some 3rd-party hardware claims to support Time Machine doesn't necessarily mean that Apple supports it, or that it will work in all circumstances.
We've seen a number of problems reported with that drive. Have you downloaded the firmware update that's supposed to make it work?
with error message saying the backup file cannot mount or something like that.
The exact message might help.
Time Machine says its configuring
Is the word "configuring" or is it "Calculating changes"? "Configuring" sounds more like a message from WD, or perhaps your router, than one coming from Time Machine.
Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.
You might also try to Repair the backups. I don't know exactly how you'd get to them on a NAS, but try the procedure for a Time Capsule in #A5 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

HT201250 i would like to use time machine but also back up other file to my external drive?

I just got a WD T3 external hard drive and I would like to use time machine but also back up other files that to the drive. Can anyone help me out.
Thanks Mark

You would need to go to your Applications folder>Utilities>Disk Utility> and there create Two Partitions on your external hard drive, naming them differently. Then you could go back to your desktop, open the dock, right click on the Time Machine icon and select "Open Time Machine Preferences". In there select the external hard drive Partition that you want to use for TM. The other external drive partition will be available for other uses.
Hope this helps

Time machine won't back up

I just got a new MacBook Air with Lion. On my old Mac, I thought I remembered that Time Machine would only backup files that have changed since the last time I backed up my drive. I used Time Machine to transfer my old desktop to my new Air. Today when I tried to use TIme Machine to back it up, it said I did not have enough space.
I'm not clear if it's trying to back up the whole drive or just things that have changed since the install (which is all I need).
What should I do to make more room for my current back up or to instruct Time Machine only to back up items that have changed since the last backup?
Thanks.

FWIW I had this sort of problem which generally #$%^& me off. I had a brainstorm and tried somebody's MBP and it worked just as expected. So I reinstalled Leopard after erasing and formating the drive and using time machine off my external LaCie.
That didn't work worth a #$%^&
So I once again, reformatted the drive and reinstalled leopard FROM THE DVD and then used time machine as part of the migration assistant, and everything worked perfectly, and I can now use TC with my Mac Pro octo.
So something MIGHT be hosed on your system, and if you feel that you have a solid back up, reinstall off the DVD and then migrate with time machine.
Hope this helps. I spent about 2 days getting this straightened out.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time Machine Didn't Back Up

I have two hard drives that are both 2 Terrabytes. One is the main and the other is the Time Machine backup.
I just accidentally overwrote a Flash FLA file, so I selected it and ran Time Machine. There is no backup of this file even though it's on the main hard drive and Time Machine has been backing up every hour for months.
In fact, if I select the folder and check out Time Machine, it doesn't have a backup of the entire folder all the way back to the first week of April.
Yes, Time Machine is backing up, I didn't turn it off.
Does anyone have an idea why Time Machine would arbitrarily decide to not back up this folder? What happens if it runs out of space on the backup hard drive?
Thank you!

OK, I just checked the preferences and the Main Hard drive was put on the 'don't back up' list somehow. Weird. I must have accidentally did that. I'm backing up NOW!!

Time machine is not backing up - starts to, then stops. No error.

Time machine has stopped backing up. I have plenty of space on the external drive. When starting a backup, whether automatically or manually, the process will begin, and may even get to the backing up stage, then stop. No error message, but no backup either. This has been going on for 12 days, and I hadn't noticed as the icon at the top of the screen was not showing a backup issue.
I have checked and repaired permissions, and the external disk. There were a few issues, but they have been corrected. Still no luck.

Okay,
I ran the widget, and here are the results. The backup never got to actually backing up, it got stuck on "cleaning up". After 5 minutes, I hit stop backup up, and it was stuck on that till I restarted.
Starting standard backup
Error loading /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin: dlopen(/Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:\n /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin: mach-o, but wrong architecture
Cannot find function pointer VRPreviewCFPlugInFactory for factory 20D1C6B2-6A02-11D7-B5A6-000393D45566 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x105937f30 </Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle> (bundle, not loaded)
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

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 does not back up iPhoto in mountain lion ?

My Time Machine does not back up my iPhoto library. When I open Time Machine I get Desktop display going back to installation date.
All other applications respond correctly including Mail, Contacts, etc. My Seagate drive is not involved in the present programme of repair I have been told by Apple. Any ideas?

I'm now fixed and done (update to latest software and learn how to use it)
Thanks again Ivan for the article, it alerted me to otherwise incomprehensible changes in iPhoto/Time Machine operation such as in my case would transfer 3.8GB of data to restore a single photo, while apparently loosing all photos added after that backup time.
However the article says:
When using iPhoto ’11 (version 9.2 or later) and Time Machine with OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later), iPhoto no longer has the Browse Backups option. This means that instead of restoring specific photos within your iPhoto Library, you must restore your entire iPhoto Library.
This may be practically true but it is technically false.
To restore a single photo in iPhoto '11 with Time Machine it goes something like this:
Start with your Time Machine hard drive and navigate many steps (including showing package contents where necessary) all the way through to the photo/date you want. Drag it to your desktop. (Do not make any edits in Time Machine!) Import to iPhoto. Click on last import in iPhoto. Right click the photo and change the event name, then look for it at the right date in iphoto with the new event name.
Hopefully those with more time and patience can check this out and see what it can do. I had to do it twice with Apple suport senior tech to get it. What a pain compared to iPhoto' 09 but at least now I can restore iPhoto library or a photo if necessary.
David

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

Standard problem in ML.. apple do not seem to want to recognise.
Reboot the TC .. if that fails restart the whole network in correct order.. modem.. router/TC... clients.. with 2min gap.
There are other suggestions like changing the password.. all they do is the same as reboot.
Read C12.. most quoted Q in pondini website history. This is asked 10 times a day.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Here is another way to get a useful utility in ML.. rather than toyland version.
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. it is very simple.. drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. drill down.. applications utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall 6.1 so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. so just ignore the toyland version.. the plastic hammer.. and start using 5.6.. a real tool.

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 won't back up onto Time Capsule

I upgraded to Mountain Lion last week, and Time Machine won't back up to my Time Capsule. When it fails, I get the message:
Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Tom's Time Capsule".
The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 60)
I sometimes get the same message, but with "error 17"
I also get the following error message popup (even though the disk is the one in my Time Capsule):
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
The popup offers three choices: Initialize, Ignore, Eject.
My local Apple Store Genius concluded that the problem must be with the Time Capsule, so I bought a new one. That didn't fix the problem.
Time Machine Buddy messages:
Starting manual backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Creating disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle
Error 60 creating backup disk image
Failed to create disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle, status: 60
Backup failed with error: 20
Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Data (FSVolumeRefNum: -108; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
I did Repair Disk Permissions and Verify Disk and everything's OK.
I erased the Time Capsule using AirPort Utility and did a hard reset on the Time Capsule.
I did a re-install of Mountain Lion and that didn't fix anything.
My MacBook Pro is accessing the Time Capsule wirelessly, as it always has.
Help!

Just to be sure, we're talking about a Time Capsule -- not an AirPort Extreme connected to an external hard drive. Right?
If so, proceed as follows.
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).
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, you can’t boot in safe mode.
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) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Time machine puts icons back on desktop

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