Time Machine Utterly Failed?

I have been regularly backing up my MBP since I bought it and lately I've been having major troubles with it. I wanted to restore to a few weeks ago but when I got to that spot in Time Machine all I see are the files that were on my desktop. I can't select any files to restore because the "Restore" button stays shaded grey.
Is it possible that Time Machine has only been ever backing up whatever was on my desktop and not my applications, documents and files?
Why is this happening to me? My laptop is completely breaking down. The Apple Store did nothing to help, in fact only made things worse, I DJ with this computer once a week and I use it for design. I rely on this machine and every step I take to make it better just makes it worse!!
All I want to do is restore my whole system back to January 17th, my last backup. Please help me, I am in dire straits and I am nowhere near an Apple store.

You might want to post this question on the Time Machine forum--that would be a better place to find a Time Machine expert:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
Good luck!

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Time Machine utterly failed me?

I have been regularly backing up my MBP since I bought it and lately I've been having major troubles with it. I wanted to restore to a few weeks ago but when I got to that spot in Time Machine all I see are the files that were on my desktop. I can't select any files to restore because the "Restore" button stays shaded grey.
Is it possible that Time Machine has only been ever backing up whatever was on my desktop and not my applications, documents and files?
Why is this happening to me? My laptop is completely breaking down. The Apple Store did nothing to help, in fact only made things worse, I DJ with this computer once a week and I use it for design. I rely on this machine and every step I take to make it better just makes it worse!!
All I want to do is restore my whole system back to January 17th, my last backup. Please help me, I am in dire straits and I am nowhere near an Apple store.

You might want to post this question on the Time Machine forum--that would be a better place to find a Time Machine expert:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
Good luck!

After upgrading to 10.7.2 Time Machine has failed

Hi everybody,
After upgrading to Lion 10.7.2 Time Machine has failed and won't mount the Time Machine drive.
I use a WD My Book Studio LX for my Time machine and also have a smaller WD My Book daisy chained through it in to the iMac with 2 partitions.
Both of the partitions on the My Book are loading fine and the Studio LX Drive is on and functioning ... the light is blinking away like a good'un ... but the drive won't mount on to the Desktop.
Has anyone else experienced this or have any possible solutions for it?
Thanks
Simon

I znever realized that you need to add firmware updates, since Apple sells this but doesn't provide any instruction or information on use. I had my WD external since about May and just looked into adding necessary firmware. This was my second drive and was not aware of this necessary upgrade. If failed to recognize my drive so I contacted Westen Digital and after a series of emails they said sorry but Lion is not supported! I was dumbfounded and in disbelief. They tried to
Get me to upgrade to another model but didn't tell me about any cost. I called the Apple store where I purchased it and talked to. Manager who brought on the phone a genius. He told me he has one and it does work with Lion! He walked me through adding the firmware and there you go Apple knew more than the Tech support at WD! I am hoping someone at Apple will read this and contact WD management and tech support to get their act together.
Regards,
Barry

Time machine backup fails; error creating folder. Western Digital drive requires password which is perhaps/likely the issue. I can't eliminate the password/encryption.

Time Machine backup fails on new WD external drive (My Passport Studio); error creating folder (after several hours of Time Machine apparently working).
Background: I purchased a Western Digital drive from an Apple Store to use for Time Machine backup. I followed the Western Digital instructions that came with the drive for Mac. I didn't get the Time Machine prompt which the instructions indicated I would receive--namely to select whether I want to encrypt my Time Macine backups. (I already have a Time Machine backup I use at another location, which is perhaps why I didn't receive a prompt.)
I decided to install the Western Digital utilities and security software that comes on the disk--with a view to potentially encrypting the disk (since I still wanted to have an encrypted backup since I was mobile). I forgot that (from experience 2-years previous) that I shouldn't install Western Digital software because it just makes life really complicated.
I tried several times to do a Time Machine backup with failures each time (error creating the backup folder). I tried to get help from WD but I don't think the technicians were following what my issue was. Potentially I was not helpful in explaining it. I deleted the WD applications from my system after the first contact with WD. However the problem persisted--I still had an encrypted hard drive. After three phone sessions with three different WD techs I still could not get a solution. (By the second call I was not at all interested in having an encrypted drive--I just wanted to format and restore the drive to an unencrypted state so that I could have SOME kind of Time Machine backup.)
I still don't have a solution--either to get Time Machine working with the WD encryption/password on the drive, or to remove the encryption so I can backup. Right now my options are to return the drive to the Apple Store -- or get a return authorization from WD. Seems crazy since the drive is fine and I have the working password.

Never install "helpful software" provided by WD and Seagate (or any HD mfg.)
All such stuff is fluff and nonsense that interferes with normal HD operation.
Always when you buy a new HD, format it for Mac and then use it to TM backup or clone a HD, or archive data.
Less is more on HD new out of box. A "blank brick", no fluff and cotton candy software

I recently upgraded to Mavericks and the time machine is failing to backup. Time Machine began only backing up twice a day and now has stopped.

I recently upgraded to Mavericks and the time machine is failing to backup. Time Machine began only backing up twice a day and now has stopped.

This is the error message I got:
2014-03-18 17:02:30 -0400 com.apple.backupd[4971]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/TOSHIBA EXT/Backups.backupdb/Quincy‚Äö√Ñ√¥s iMac size:37
2014-03-18 17:02:30 -0400 com.apple.backupd[4971]: Backup failed with error 2: 2

Copying Mac App Store Apps may cause Time Machine to fail

Hey folks,
My Time Machine backups started failing the other day with the "error occurred while copying files" error (asking me to run Disk Utility). I ran DU and the drive checked out fine. I eventually checked the backupd logs (Console> filter "backupd") and found that TM was stopping with Error: (-41) SrcErr:No Copying /Path/to/a/file/inside/aMacAppStoreApp. Then saying the backup stopped with error:11.
So I deleted the App and ran the backup again. This time it gave me the same error on another MacAppStore App that I had installed. So I deleted that one too and then TM backup run successfully.
Background:
- There were only two MAS Apps installed (the two referenced above: Quick Note, ARD).
- Both were installed after being downloaded to a different computer, copied to this one, and then a copy made into the Applications folder. They were working fine.
- When I "installed" the Apps, I did not do a drag/drop copy, I did a copy/paste.
- There were two copies of the each App on the filesystem. 1 copy in my "software installers" folder and 1 copy in the Applications folder. Only the copy in the Applications folder failed to backup. The unused copy in the installers folder backed up fine.
Once the backups were working. I then moved the Apps from the "software installers" folder to the Applications folder. I opened the applications and they worked fine. I then ran the backup and it worked fine as well.
So I'm not sure if Time Machine was failing because of my unusual way of copying them into the Applications folder or what? Thoughts? Either way, it seems like a strange thing to cause TM to completely fail.

It's not copy protection issue since after I recopied the App (using drag/drop) the backup worked fine.
You are allowed to copy MAS Apps from one computer to another and run them as long as the target computer is either authorized for the same MAS account or you login to the account that purchased the App.

365 gig used, 1TB external HD-Time Machine bu fail -claims to need 1.3TB...

I have an iMac with a 500 gig internal hard drive. We have used close to 365gig of that.
I originally tried to set Time Machine up with a couple of older/smaller external HD's. Time Machine told me that it needed 800gig to back up.
I purchased a 1TB LaCie external hard drive.
Tonight when I tried to set up Time Machine it failed and said it now needed 1.3TB.
I have now read through various discussions on sizing the drive for backup and generally it is suggested that 2 to 3 times is fine.
It is also noted that there is no way to restrict this size other than by excluding items. I would prefer to not do this as the point is to back up our entire music, photo and video libraries.
Also, it appears that once set up Time Machine works with the size of back up drive you have and deletes older backups.
I am reluctant to now purchase an additional hard drive, to find that it now needs even more space as the space required seems to be growing exponentially.
I seem to be locked into a catch-22 situation of Time Machine requiring space at a faster rate than I can buy a hard drive.
Any advice?
My ideal solution is telling Time Machine to restrict the size of the back up somehow. I realize, based on previous discussions that this does not seem possible.
1.3TB of back up for a 365gig seems excessive.

How many disks are connected to the system?
Is it possible that Time Machine is trying to backup more than
one disk (if there is more than one)?
Dave

Time machine sometimes fails with no space left

Hi,
I'm beginning to notice that sometimes Time Machine is failing to backup saying there is no space left on the Time Machine backup disk. I'm using OS X 10.9.4 .
My understanding is that when there is not enough space left, Time Machine will automatically delete older backups to make space? Sometimes this happens, sometimes not.
For example:
Aug 10 18:39:49 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Starting automatic backup
Aug 10 18:39:50 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Backing up to /dev/disk6s2: /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb
Aug 10 18:40:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Will copy (1 MB) from Macintosh HD
Aug 10 18:40:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Will copy (Zero KB) from HD5
Aug 10 18:40:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Will copy (Zero KB) from HD2
Aug 10 18:40:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Found 64 files (1 MB) needing backup
Aug 10 18:40:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: 1.74 GB required (including padding), 7.41 GB available
Aug 10 18:40:26 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Copied 70 items (1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD. Linked 709.
Aug 10 18:40:33 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Copied 1 items (Zero KB) from volume HD5. Linked 2.
Aug 10 18:57:34 Barney.local backupd[9571]: Metadata.framework [Error]: server port invalidated for uid 0
Aug 10 19:01:02 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Stopping backup.
Aug 10 19:01:02 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Error: (-34) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/HD2/Users/gj/Documents/2013.partial.mbox/mbox to /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Barney/2014-08-10-184001.inProgress/38868 CAA-6167-40B8-8F15-BF798FADF283/HD2/Users/gj/Documents/2013.partial.mbox
Aug 10 19:01:03 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Copied 9 items (16.82 GB) from volume HD2. Linked 21.
Aug 10 19:01:03 Barney.local backupd[9571]: Metadata.framework [Error]: MDBackupCancel failed:-1 (4) (os/kern) invalid argument
Aug 10 19:01:03 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Copy stage failed with error:28
Aug 10 19:01:04 Barney.local com.apple.backupd[9571]: Backup failed with error 28: 28
What I'm interpreting here is that initially TM says there isn't anything to copy from HD2, but then spends about 3.5 minutes copying a very large file from HD2 and then files due to being out of space.
Why did TM not realise this file existed in the first place?
Thanks for any help.
Steve

About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
Alert TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.

Time Machine backup fails because "volume could not be found".

I just had my logic board replaced in my Macbook Pro and went to do a backup (yeah, I didn't do this right before it crashed) and now Time Machine backup fails with the message "volume could not be found" Under Time Machine/Choose Disk, it appears that the drive is the one selected. The computer "sees" the drive and I can read files on it. The only other thing that has happened in the meantime is that a friend helped pull a file off the hard drive that I needed for a project. No apparent issues there. Any suggestions?

You might try going to /Library/Preferences, then drag the file com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to the Desktop. Reboot your Mac, then try declaring the backup disk for Time Machine. It might help if you mount the backup disk first.
Are you using Time Machine to write its backups to the disk of a Time Capsule? If not, since this discussion section is for Apple's Time Capsule AirPort base station, a discussion involving Time Machine should be held on the discussion section for whatever version of OSX that you're using.

Time Machine backup fails in extended network

Dear all,
I've recently setup an extended network using 2 additional AirPort Express units connected to the main Airport Extreme modem (all working well). I'm using the Extreme for Time Machine Backups, which used to work just fine as well.
However, when connected to the Expresses, the Time Machine Backups fail with the message that the backup file is already in use. I'm guessing the Express modem tries to connect to the backup file, while the Extreme is keeping the file stand-by or something.
Does anybody know a fix to this problem?
Kind regards,
Dennis

It took a Snow Leopard a while but after 2 days it started working again. I've checked whether the connection was directly to the Extreme, but the connection actually went through one of the bridged Expresses.
I guys one just has to hope for the best ;-)
I've upgraded to Lion last week and backup works fine with the new operating system as well.

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Without any specifics it's impossible to assist you, however the best tool for debugging TM failures is using Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting guide.
Good luck.

Time Machine Backup Failed even though I still have 1.9TB of a 2TB Time Capsule. I am using Yosemite.

Time Machine Backup Failed even though I still have 1.9TB of a 2TB Time Capsule. I am using Yosemite 10.10.3 on an iMac (mid 2010)

The recent update in Yosemite (10.10.3) is causing some issues for some users.
Try a complete network power cycle as follows:
Power off each and every device on your network......modem, Time Capsule, computers, printers, etc......in any order that you want
Wait a minute
Power up the modem and let it run 2-3 minutes
Then, power up the next device that is connected to the modem an let it run a full minute
Then, continue to power up devices one at a time about a minute apart until everything is back up
Check the network
Wait for a backup to occur and report on your results

Time Machine Backup Fails With Error 36 on Music Folder?

Hi. I've been having backup errors since a clean install of Leopard (and immediate upgrade to 10.5.2). I keep getting a pop up that says time machine has failed. I started isolating my user folders (Pictures, Downloads, Music), and turns out its my iTunes Music folder that has files that are causing Time Machine to fail. If I exclude Music, the backup works perfectly. If I include it, it recognizes that it has 19 GB more to backup, but then I get the following errors (this is just a subsection):
Feb 24 01:38:50 jordan-martons-imac /usr/sbin/ocspd[592]: starting
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]: disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]:
Feb 24 01:40:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[204]: Error: (-36) copying /Users/jordanmarton/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Maroon 5/Songs About Jane/12 Sweetest Goodbye.mp3 to (null)
Feb 24 01:40:42 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]: disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Feb 24 01:40:42 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]:
Feb 24 01:40:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 24 01:40:44 jordan-martons-imac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[204]: Error: (-36) copying /Users/jordanmarton/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Martin Page/In the House of Stone & Light/01 In the House of Stone and Light.mp3 to (null)
Any idea what is going on?

Hi. I've been having backup errors since a clean install of Leopard (and immediate upgrade to 10.5.2). I keep getting a pop up that says time machine has failed. I started isolating my user folders (Pictures, Downloads, Music), and turns out its my iTunes Music folder that has files that are causing Time Machine to fail. If I exclude Music, the backup works perfectly. If I include it, it recognizes that it has 19 GB more to backup, but then I get the following errors (this is just a subsection):
Feb 24 01:38:50 jordan-martons-imac /usr/sbin/ocspd[592]: starting
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]: disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]:
Feb 24 01:40:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 24 01:40:22 jordan-martons-imac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[204]: Error: (-36) copying /Users/jordanmarton/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Maroon 5/Songs About Jane/12 Sweetest Goodbye.mp3 to (null)
Feb 24 01:40:42 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]: disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).
Feb 24 01:40:42 jordan-martons-imac kernel[0]:
Feb 24 01:40:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 24 01:40:44 jordan-martons-imac /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[204]: Error: (-36) copying /Users/jordanmarton/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Martin Page/In the House of Stone & Light/01 In the House of Stone and Light.mp3 to (null)
Any idea what is going on?

Time Machine restore fail - best method to reinstall OS?

I've just had a Time Machine restore fail on me, startup gets to blue screen but no further. Also tried the next previous backup. Trying to decide whether to reinstall Snow Leopard on my not-quite-restored drive and then do the combo update to the last OS version, or whether to do a clean install (wipe drive) and then use the Migration Assistant to import everything.
I have a ton of software / plugins authorised which will take me an age to reinstall, hoping that whichever method will retain all the pref files in macintosh hd/library and user/library. That being said I was in the process of trying to fix my intermittent system freezes, it was happening at the last TM backup so maybe aiming to return to duplicate system / user folders is a bad idea?
Many thanks for any help.
Harry

hazza26 wrote:
Hi again
I have ended up having to erase my drive and do a fresh install of SL. When I get to the welcome page I opt to import all my setting from my TM backup. It started ok this morning but the progress bar has been stuck at "4 hours 46 mins left" for the whole day. How best to proceed now?
Cancel it. You'll probably have to turn your Mac off via the power button.
Can I do a disk repair on the backup data, and if so how?
Yup. See #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). Then you'll have to erase your OSX volume and install OSX again, since the transfer was incomplete.
Or, if the repair finds and fixes problems, you might want to try a full restore again (much less likely to have problems with transferred apps), but perhaps from an earlier backup, before the problems started. If that seems to complete normally, but won't boot, then just install a fresh version of OSX over the old one, then download and install the "combo" update and repair permissions.
Or should I try to mount the backup and manually pull off all my critical data?
Only as a last resort. You may have all sorts of permissions problems that way, and of course will have to reinstall all your 3rd-party apps.
Thanks again for your much appreciated support
You're quite welcome. Hang in there!

Old FileVault crashed my MacBook Pro, had to delete, reinstall and Time Machine restore failed. Trying to manually rebuild. No iPhoto pics, no iTunes music and NO DOCUMENTS found! Any thoughts?

Here's the ordeal. I'm running a 2007 MacBook Pro 17 inch with Lion OS. When I converted to Lion, I didn't have enough room on my harddrive to convert to the new FileVault, so I remained on the old system. Less than a week ago I reboot my computer because iPhoto seems to be stuck on "cataloging" my photos, though after days of letting it run, it doesn't do anything. After the reboot, my computer appears as if it had been reset to factory settings with all my programs gone, etc. I'm like, hey, I've got Time Machine, I'll restore it. After the restore is run, when I go to login, I get the dreadful error message, "You are unable to log into the FileVault user "John" at this time. Logging into the account failed because an error occurred". I searched the internet via my iPhone for suggestions and followed everyone of them, all the way down to erasing my harddrive and reinstalling Lion. So I get back into my computer and think I'm golden. I go to restore my computer via Time Machine and wham....I'm right back to that error message. I think, ok, I'll do it again. This time it messes us even more, giving me two login screens, one for the new Lion like before I restored the computer and then a second, as if it were restored, but unable to login. On top of that, I couldn't get back to the Command-R page! I thought I was really screwed! Well, I finally figured a way back, or maybe it was just that it finally decided to cooperate, I don't know, but I erased my harddrive again, and reinstalled again and thought, well, I'll rebuild manually by selecting what I want to restore from the Time Machine drive. I was able to get all my applications back and running, but to my dismay, I seemingly have lost all my iTunes music (except that which Apple has graciously setup to redownload now "thank you!) plus all my iPhoto's and even worse, all my DOCUMENTS!!!! Here I thought Time Machine from backing all this stuff up, but with over a years worth of back-ups I cannot locate any photos, music, or my documents on my drive to extract! Needless to say, I will never be using Time Machine again to back up my computer, I'll find another program or at least do it all manually. But my question is: am I looking in the wrong places for this files? Are they hidden under some unknowning folder that doesn't list it as music, photos or files? I can manage with the music, I can live with the photos because my wife has many of them on her computer and I have many uploaded to Facebook, but my files! My documents, thousands of them, many with information I won't be able to compile again, seemingly gone unless someone out there has any ideas?!!!
I even had iPhoto search the drive for photos and after hours of the barber shop pole spinning I cancelled the command for I figured it wasn't going to find anything.
If anyone has any suggestions, or if Apple, you are reading this and can provide some direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also - my battery has been telling me "service battery" for a LONG time and then it switched to "replace soon" som time ago. Can't really see what this has to do with anything but whatever.
That could conceivably explain all the problems you're describing. Replacing a Mac's battery should not be postponed since a failed battery will cause other problems to occur. It is also possible that its hard disk has failed, which means the information on it may soon become unrecoverable.
... my latest TM back up was from April 2014, can I just run this when I have rescued everthing and then it might not be as slow?
If that Time Machine backup remains intact, it may be the only viable means of recovering that Mac's information. I suggest you do not attempt to restore its contents to your ailing Mac.
Given that you are having trouble creating a newer Time Machine backup you should stop using that Mac immediately and have it serviced as soon as you are able. Do not take it to anyone other than Apple or a service facility authorized by Apple, for the very reasons you explained. If there are no Apple Stores in your vicinity search for an Authorized Apple Service Provider using the Contact Us link below. Use one of the options that appear under Contact Apple Support. The language on that page will be different for your location.

Time Machine Utterly Failed?

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