Time machine switch is disabled

The switch to turn on automatic backups in my Time Machine setting is disabled (e.g. grayed out). If I click on it nothing happens, but I can start backups manually by clicking on "Select Disk..." or by using the menu bar icon. Any idea why I can't turn on automatic backups?

Hi dapark
Another user reported this problem, and said it was fixed by repairing file permissions in Disk Utility.
Bob

Similar Messages

Time Machine switches backup disk or does it?

Ever since I switched to Mavericks, I've been having the same problem on a MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini. I select an external hard drive as my backup disk. It then appears with the Time Machine icon on the desktop. Then, maybe the next time I start up or several times later, the hard disk appears on the desktop with its regular icon. When I then go to Time Machine preferences and select the backup disk, that disk appears twice, once with a Time Machine icon as the selected drive (although it has its regular icon on the desktop) and the second time in the list of disks with its regular icon. If I select that disk for the backup, the icon on the desktop becomes the Time Machine one. This is happening repeatedly. Any suggestions?

gthawk: You stated "When I then go to Time Machine preferences and select the backup disk, that disk appears twice, once with a Time Machine icon as the selected drive (although it has its regular icon on the desktop) and the second time in the list of disks with its regular icon. If I select that disk for the backup, the icon on the desktop becomes the Time Machine one. "
This is normal (with Mavericks). I have the same thing. What I found is that if you turn off TM or eject TM or reboot the Mini it may turn orange (USB icon) again or when you power it up again. However, if left alone when it shows the TM icon and the Mini powers down completely and then you power back up with TM still connected it will reamain as the TM icon and not orange. Everything appears to still wotk correctly no matter what color it is. It appears Mavericks TM is more touchy than ML was.

Time Machine switch grayed out...

I have a Time Capsule and 2 macs. the MacBook Air works fine for backups, the mac mini won't let me turn on time machine. The switch is grayed out. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

SBRocket, I had this same problem. If you eliminate the apostrophe from your Time Machine's name, that might help. It didn't solve it for me, though. I needed to go into the Airport Utility and erase my Time Capsule's internal drive. After that, I restarted my computer and was able to successfully perform a Time Machine backup.

Time Machine - Switch does not move!

Hello,
my Time Machine used to backup flawlessly onto my Time Capsule for several weeks. But a few days ago the switch in the preference pane went back to "Off". It tried to turn it on again but it did not work. I could do a backup manually, though.
Then I reset Time Machine (using the instructions from the troubleshooting post), erased my Time Capsule's HD; but the switch still won't move.
I would be glad if someone of you could help me!

Hi Barry and thank you for your help,
Yes of course, the lock is open. I deleted the plist, restarted and reselected the backup drive.
It backed up once, although the switch was at "Off".
However, it still does not backup continuously and the symbol in the menu bar is grey (also during a manual backup).
By the way: Before trying your suggestion, I used the Disk Utility to repair the backup sparse bundle, with no success. So I erased the Time Capsule's HD. Also no success.

Time Machine select disk disabled

I have a couple of laptops that for a time were using Time Machine to backup to a network disk. At some point it stopped working. As a interm we thought we'd just do direct backups to USB drives. However, now the ON/OFF button and the Select Disk buttons are disabled.
One machine is a Lion, the other is Snow Leopard both are Macbook Pro's.
I've already tried to delete the .plist files and reboot the systems. This doesn't make a difference.
Other suggestions would be greatly appreciated, or reference to other resources.

It is a bug in Mountain Lion.
Try resetting the TC and give it a different name.. smb type including the hard disk and reset the TM.
See A4. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Ichat window in time machine switches to finder window

Try to open iChat window, version 4.0.8. in Time Machine. The TM window changes to a finder window. Is this normal for an application like TM? Trying to get back an open chat. not recorded. Thanks.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
Time Machine is a backup file storage and retrieval system, hence the reason you end up in Finder (file system) when you select a prior date.
I think you'd have a better chance of retrieving a recent chat link directly from iChat, File, Recent Items as shown below.
I'm on iChat 5.0.3 (OS X Snow Leopard 10.6), so your screen might look different, but as I recall the same option exists in the Leopard version. (Full chat names are intentionally obscured for confidentiality, so only E's appear in this screen capture.)

Time Machine switches off Soundcard

Whenever I plug my external HD into my iMac, my sound card switches off. Although it still appears in System Profiler, it cannot detect any sound card in my System Preferences.
If I use Onyx, a third party app to perform system maintenance, it solves the problem. This requires a reboot however.
The problem is repeatable, and a flaw in Leopard. I sure have encountered a lot of bugs compared to Tiger...

".....its degrees celsius..."
"Is the CPU running too hot?"
Yes.... Re-seat the CPU, apply new thermal paste{tiny portion}.
Make sure that CPU FAN is spining!
Make sure that CPU heatsink is mounted properly and makes good contact with CPU surface.
Else go get a new CPU Cooler.

Time Machine always switches to my home directory. What to do?

D'oh, need to restore a file, which happens to be in a root folder of my iMac's HD.   No prob, Time Machine is on duty!
The usual procedure: In Finder, bring the containing folder to the front, select the file, go to the clock icon at he upper right, pull down, and choose "Enter Time Machine". TM takes over the display with the distinctive Star-Field background and offers to restore in that folder.
Up until today that that's worked in every version of MacOS that includes Time Machine.
Today: No matter what I do --including after a system restart-- Time Machine switches the front-most window to display my home directory, first, THEN goes into Star-Field mode.
Note 1: Yeah, I can work-around by navigating to my HD and then to the specific file I need to restore.
Note 2: This problem occurs even when the file I need to restore is in the hierarchy of my home directory.
So: Why does TM now insist on switching to my home directory and what to do about it?   Without endangering my existing files or TM backups?
TIA

Link Dupont wrote:
I'd plug in and run a Time Machine backup about once a day, on average. I've been scouring the logs, and the only thing I notice is the "deep traversal" message, which I'd expect occasionally as it needs to reindex files (especially after a restore).
This also happens if the TM disk isn't dismounted, etc., exactly the way TM expects; or if there's an abnormal power-down. It means TM isn't sure about just exactly what is where, so it looks at every file and folder to be sure.
I've run long S.M.A.R.T. scans on the drive (via smartctl on a Linux LiveCD and SeaTools via a Windows installation), I've run Repair Disk (via Disk Utility) and I've defragmented the filesystem (iDefrag). All the diagnostics come back healthy, and iDefrag had little to do. My gut tells me the drive is failing, but I can't actually prove it. My next step is to reformat the drive and create a new filesystem; I'll see if Time Machine is happy with a clean start.
I'm a MobileMe subscriber, so I downloaded and set up the old .Mac Backup.app, and will be running that daily to shove my important files up to my iDisk (and probably to various other locations), in case backupd decides to choke again, at least I have a backup to my backup.
Good plan. I run CCC daily, in addition to TM's hourly backups, and use Backup to iDisk daily for fairly small stuff, plus others to DVD/RWs kept in my safe deposit box. May seem like overkill, but I've learned, usually the hard way, that when it comes to backups, paranoia is prudent!

How to PREVENT Time Machine from switching disks

I have two USB drives. I use one for iTunes and the second for Time Machine backups. Problem is, when I plug in the iTunes disk, if the Time Machine disk is not connected then Time Machine switches to this disk and initiates a backup. I have specified in Preferences that the other disk is for TM; also tried 'locking' the preferences screen. But, still TM continues to start backups onto this iTunes disk when I plug it in (assuming, as above, that its regular disk is unavailable).
How can I prevent TM from doing this; and force it to wait until its own drive is available? Have checked forums and found no answer. Any help appreciated. Thank you.

BordeauxQuill wrote:
If it is useful to anyone else, these are Western Digital My Passport Studio 640GB drives.
Yup, you're the 3rd or 4th to report it with various models of WDs (one fellow had 3 of them!), and a few weeks ago someone had some Iomegas, I think, too.
This confusion may well also explain some weird stats in Get Info I noticed last week (such as the drive apparently having used more bytes than its capacity, as I recall).
Quite likely.
Thank you for your support. I shall come back and mark the thread resolved when I have reformatted the drive.
Cool. Also double-check the contents of the one you don't erase; you may find some extra stuff there.

"Mac OS X cannot be installed on 'Macintosh HD'. This disk is used for Time Machine backups."

I am trying to upgrade our MacBook to Snow Leopard, but when prompted to select which hard drive to install on and "Macintosh HD" is selected, the following message generates: "Mac OS X cannot be instaled on 'Macintosh HD'. This disk is used for Time Machine backups."
I disabled Time Machine switched it "off," put it in the trash can, then "Secure Emptied" the trash can. I also rebooted. Then I connected an external hard drive thinking that might help, but for some reason I still cannot proceed with the Snow Leopard upgrade because "the disk is used for Time Machine backups."
WHAT is the DEAL!?

It doesn't sound like an upgrade would work very well anyway. Make sure you have a good backup and repartition the startup volume. Then install Snow Leopard onto the hard drive and migrate your old users and applications.

Can I use more than 1 backup drive with Time machine?

I wanted to run this proposed setup by this board, before I ordered HDs:
For my Mac which is located at the office:
I want to use 2 internal 500GB HDs.
Drive 1: System Disk & main File storage
Drive 2: Primary Time Machine Backup Volume. Backing up Daily.
I would also like to have an external HD, that I can keep at home, but bring into the office, say once a month to have an additional backup that I can take home with me in case of a catastrophic event such as if the office would burn down. Sort of a backup of the backup, just in case.
Can Time machine switch back and forth between 2 backup drives, or will I have to do manual backup to the external drive. It would be nice to have Time machine do it, since it will only be copying modified files.

I believe TM can do it. you'll have to go to system preferences and click on "change TM drive" every time you switch. However, I would recommend a different type of backup for your less frequent backups. use CCCloner or Superduper! to make a bootable clone of your system once a month. I'm not sure about CCCloner but superduper can do it by updating only the files that have been changed so it shouldn't take too long.

Can't set up Time Machine to backup to WD external drive

Hi, I have a WD external drive that I want to use to back up my Mac book Pro 10.8 files.
I connected the WD to the computer's USB and it appears in the "Devices" list in the Finder Window.
I opened "System Preferences / Time Machine" switched it to "On", clicked the option "Other Time Capsule" and the "Set up..." button
A new screen opened and I couldn't find the option to choose the WD drive as the Time Machine backup location.
This screen only says:
"no new Airport base stations discovered"
"no remote Airport base stations discovered"
"no configured Airport base stations have been found. AirPort utility will continue searching"
Am I doing something wrong? Why can't I find the option to save the backup to the WD drive?
Thanks

Not only should it be OSX Extended (journaled), it should also
be repartitioned to a GUID partition format. Click Partition tab
is Disk Utility (make sure you have the WD drive selected),
reset to create one or however many partitions you want,
click the Options button. Select GUID partition map, then
repartition.

Time Machine: Repeated errors when backing up for the first time using a new external firewire drive

My Iomega 500GB firewire external drive failed on me last week and I have just replaced it with an identical model. I used to use the old drive with Time Machine on my MacBook Pro running 10.5.8 with no issues, until the drive had a hardware failure and stopped spinning up, hence the replacement.
Two days ago I tried using Time Machine for the first time with the replacement external drive. The backup failed and each subsequent backup attempt has failed since then with a different error each time. The drive cannot be ejected using Finder (Finder says disk is in use and cannot be ejected even when no processes are running except for Finder and Time Machine has been disabled), by dragging it to the dock (hangs computer which can only be fixed by a hard reboot), in Disk Utilities (drive cannot be unmounted) or in Terminal ("no such file or directory").
The first backup attempt failed after 3 hours of "preparing" with the message "The backup was not performed because an error occured while creating backup directory".
I tried repairing the disk in Disk Utilities and Disk Utilities said the drive was OK ("the volume Time Machine Backups appears to be OK"). I tried ejecting the drive (hard reboot of computer and disconnecting the drive), plugging it back in again and trying again.
This time it started backing up, then failed after a few minutes with the message "an error occured while copying files to the backup volume". I had a look at the troubleshooting suggested on http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/C3.html and followed instructions. It failed again, so I did a full reset as per http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/A4.html.
It failed again, so I tried reparing the drive again in Disk Utilities and again it said it was OK. I tried using different cables and ports (Firewire 400 instead of Firewire 800), and backups still fail.
I have turned off anti-virus scanning (Sophos). I have tried excluding it from Spotlight but this causes an error message from Spotlight. I have tried trashing the com.apple.TimeMachine.plist file and rebooting. I have tried selecting deselecting the drive as the back up in Time Machine preferences, selecting "None", then "Stop Backing Up" then quitting preferences, rebooting, disconnecting the drive, reconnecting the drive and selecting the drive again as the backup disk in Time Machine preferences. I have tried erasing the drive completely, rebooting, and trying to back up again.
None of these have worked. This is a brand new drive and I do not want to have to replace it again if I do not have to.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you.

Hello, some possible clues...
Should you click “Start New Backup”? Not yet! If you see the dialog above, your existing Time Machine backup is corrupt, and you might not be able to recover data from it. But you can save a copy of the corrupt bundle and, perhaps, extract some data from it if needed.
Ask yourself if Time Machine has saved data you might need before deciding what to do next:
If you are sure you won’t need anything backed up before today, click “Start New Backup” and let Time Machine do its thing.
Otherwise, click “Back Up Later” and save a copy before letting Time Machine start a new backup. Just look for a file called “computername.sparsebundle” (for network backups) or “Backups.backupdb” (for local ones) and create a copy with a different name. You can open sparsebundle files with DiskImageMounter and browse them like any other disk. More information is available here.
There you go. If you click “Start New Backup” when you see this dialog box, Time Machine will erase all of your old backup data and start a new bundle. It won’t be corrupt, but it will be empty.
Note that you can manually initiate a Time Machine backup integrity check by option-clicking the “Time Machine” icon in the menu bar and selecting “Verify Backups.”
http://blog.fosketts.net/2010/08/11/time-machine-completed-verification-backups- improve-reliability-time-machine-create-backup/
According to This Time Machine resource “This appears only on Snow Leopard, and started with the Time Capsule Backup Update 1.0 in mid-May of 2010. It also seems to have been included in the 10.6.3 v1.1 update and 10.6.4.”
So, what can you do about it? Grin and bear it, it seems, until Apple fixes it.
One thing you can do to make the backup take less time is to connect your machine to your Time Capsule or other backup drive via Ethernet for the duration of the initial backup.
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/the-dreaded-time-machine-has-completed-a-verifi cation-of-your-backups-to-improve-reliability-time-machine-must-create-a-new-ba c kup-for-you-message-and-why-you-are-seeing-it/
Time Machine: About "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4076
Or a different/better solution in my experiences...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/tribackup.html

Time Machine and external drives

Since upgrading to OS X 10.7.4, I keep getting messages complaining that a server could not be found. The server in question being the machine on my home network that has my Time Machine volume on it.
I use a laptop as my primary machine and spend my working life split between my office at home and visiting customer's offices. Before I upgraded to Mountain Lion, Time Machine obviously couldn't back up while I was out and about so it used to notify me in the Time Machine menu on the top of my screen. This worked fine for me and I knew that data I added to my machine wouldn't be backed up until my laptop was connected to my network at home.
Since upgrading to Mountain Lion it seems that Time Machine has changed so that it repeatedly notifies me about the unavailable Time Machine Volume by way of putting a dialog message in the middle of my screen, in front of everything and interrupting my workflow by demanding I hit the OK button before I can do anything else. It seems to do it several times in a row each hour or thereabouts. It's so annoying! Why has the behaviour been changed so that it constantly gets in my way?
OK, I understand that some users might not have noticed that subtle little bit of feedback in the menu and this could be dangerous. I also understand that stopping the user in the middle of whatever they are doing and getting them to positively respond to a dialog message does ensure that they have some idea about something, but in all fairness the message doesn't exactly say "Time Machine cannot back up your data because the disk it backs up onto couldn't be found". If users are so unaware of the intracacies of Time Machine then this dialog doesn't cut the message clearly enough, and if they are savvy enough then it just annoys them.
I believe it would have been better if a setting had been introduced, and was set to "on" by default, allowing the user to choose to have 'verbose and insistant' reporting of any errors. That way, less familiar users would by default get messages like this one, but with much clearer wording, suggesting there's a problem, and people who are aware that their Time Machine can only back up data while they are connected to the Time Machine drive could disable the messages and just have the little bit of validating information in their menu bar.
Would this not seem like a good way forward?
While I admit that this issue could go away when I install 10.7.5 I am still somewhat certain that it wont have the helpful feature that I suggest here.
Now, how do we get Apple to take this on as a feature request?

vincas,
Your backup of the failed drive should still be there. You're not seeing it because the volume is not present, according to your Finder. This is one of those "ah, I see" things.
Do you have a replacement for the failed drive yet? If so, either format it and give the new volume the exact same name as that on the failed drive, or simply change the name of the mounted volume on the new drive accordingly (with the same name). Once you have done this, connect your Time Machine drive. Open a Finder window showing the empty, but properly named volume, and click the Time Machine icon in your Dock to open Time Machine. You should be able to navigate "back in time" to see the backed up contents and restore same.
If you do not yet have a replacement, the backed up files can be accessed in the Finder normally by navigating into the Time Machine backup folder. Open a date/time stamped backup, and you should find a folder for every volume that was backed up at that time. Any files you find can be copied manually.
Scott

10.6.8 update + Time Machine = Finder crashing ;-(

Hi All,
After installing the 10.6.8 update to my Mac Pro, Time Machine will hang on the "Cleaning up" process. Time Machine cannot be exited from the Menu Bar. The finder may hang during this process, if "Force Quit", the finder cannot be relauched. The following error is presented :
The application Finder.app can't be opened. -10810.
One user on the Forums suggested backing up and re-formatting the drive. I'm not keen for this course of action. I have tried to copy the Time Machine dated folders onto an internal drive, but due to either a. the number of files (?) or b. The size of the backups this also fails.
Please advise if there is a fix for time machine / finder that does not involve wiping the External Drive.
Mac : MacPro 8-core/8GB/1TB/sd
Sys : 10.6.8.
Drives being backed up:
System : ~150GB
Data : ~ 300GB
Archive (online) : ~100GB
TM External Drive : Western Digital MyBook 1TB
Interface : FW800
Thanks in Advance.
Matt.

Hi Linc,
Thanks for the thought.
Downloaded the 10.6.8 update ( @ > 1GB !!) and re-run. No restart required. No change to functionality of the drive. Going to go with the Re-Format option. When Disk Utils is run - no problems are reported, yet accessing the drive not even with Time Machine switched OFF, can result in the Finder crashing (SWOD), force quit, then unable to restart Finder with the -10810 error.
So it would appear that this is not related to Time Machine but more :
External FW 800 drive vs. MacOS 10.6.8.
Keep you posted.
Matt.

Time machine switch is disabled

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