Time Machine wants password

TM was backing up wirelessly to my TC until I had signal interference issues. I moved the iMac to where the signal was good and got almost everything working. Now when I launch TM, it asks for a backup drive (Storage location is not setup yet). I choose "Set Up Time Machine", then "Choose Backup Disk" from the Time Machine Preferences screen. The TC is listed, so I select it and and also "Use for Backup". Then a window comes up and asks "Enter your user name and password so TM can access the file server 'John Doe's Time Capsule' ". The admin name is already there and the password field is empty. I enter a password and press "Connect". I have tried my admin, network, and TC's disk passwords with the same response every time: "Sorry, you entered an invalid username or password. Please try again." I press OK and go through the same loop.
Does anyone have an answer?

shellquest wrote:
I have been looking in that area also. I haven't seen anything about my topic.
Try entering password in the search box at the right while in that forum, then press Return. That will give you a list of many threads in that forum in the last 90 days mentioning password. There's probably one similar to your problem. If not, try re-posting there.
Explain how if TM can work on a TC or any other disk that the password problem is a TC-specific topic.
Because a directly-attached TM disk doesn't require a password. Many of us who read the TM forum don't use TCs, and know little about them. If you're going to find someone who can help with your problem, it's more likely you'll find them in the TC forum.

Similar Messages

Time Machine wants admin password when restoring in a standard account

I've just migrated from a PowerMac G5 (running Tiger) to a new iMac. The PowerMac had a single admin account only. On the new iMac this has been migrated over and changed to a standard account and an extra admin account has been added.
I've set up Time Machine with an external drive and it did the 1st full backup OK from within the standard account. However, every time I try to restore a file using Time Machine it asks for the name and password of an administrator! If I give the admin name and password the restore completes OK, but I can't stop it asking for admin credentials each time.
I have checked that all files in the standard account are owned by that account (I used chown -R in Terminal to be sure!). So why does Time Machine want an admin password when restoring a file owned by the standard account back into the same standard account?!

Peruse Best Practices and Setup new Mac; then, consider starting over, reinstalling the OS and using the setup assistant to do the migration, resulting in one admin user account and no conflicts. Then, reinstall any optional software so you're back to the factory condition and a properly migrated state.

HT1175 Time Machine wants to start with a new, full backup instead of using the existing one

Hi, my Time Machine wants to start a new, full backup, instead of continuing with the existing one on the time Capsule.
Looking a the Troubleshooting guide, I've found the following piece of info, which is, as 99% of the times with the troubleshooting guides, totally useless to resolve my problem...
Message: Time Machine starts a new, full backup instead of a smaller incremental backup
There are three reasons why this may occur:
You performed a full restore.
Your Computer Name (in Sharing preferences) was changed--when this happens, Time Machine will perform a full backup on its next scheduled backup time.
If you have had a hardware repair recently, contact the Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store that performed your repair. In the meantime, you can still browse and recover previous backups by right-clicking or Control-clicking the Time Machine Dock icon, and choosing "Browse Other Time Machine disks" from the contextual menu.
It should be noted (hence the uselessness of the guide) that:
-I haven't performed ANY full restore
- I havent changed my computer name
- My computer has not had ANY repair, much less a hardware repair. Neither recently, nor in the 9 months I've owned it.
Which puts me back to square one, with the marginal improvement that now I have a way of browsing my old backups.
In the event I decide to start all over again, will there be a way for me to "sew" the two backup files?
Or will I always have to go the silly way around?
Anybody has any idea?
Thank you for your time (machine/capsule, your choice;-)

Hi John,
no, that doesn't have anything to do with my problem.
Just look at the image below.
Time Machine thinks that the disk I've always used to do my backups has none of them.
If I open the disk with Finder, obviously they are where they should be.
It is even possible to navigate them as per the instruction reported above, but even following Pondini's advice #s B5 and B6 (which are more applicable to my problem) didn't solve the problem.
Actually, not being a coder, I'm always scared of doing more damage than good when I have a Terminal window open.
My question is: how is it possible that Apple hasn't thought of some kind of user command to tell the idiotic Time Machine software that a hard disk backup is a hard disk backup, no matter what?
Estremely frustrating and annoying: I'm wasting HOURS in trying to find a solution to a problem that should not have arisen in the first place...
Have a nice weekend
Antonio

Time Machine wants to do complete backup after restore

I had to restore my system from a Time Machine backup because of a recurring problem. Now Time machine wants to backup my entire drive as if I'm actually starting over. I've got 300GB left on my backup drive and this complete backup will use 133GB of it. I have had to do this in the past but I don't remember that Time Machine wanted to do a complete backup before. Is there something I can do to prevent it?
Thanks,
Frank

See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Might find something helpful in the above.

Suddenly there is not enough space on my 1TB Time Machine Backup HDD allthough my MAC HDD ist with 0,5TB only half full! Time Machine wants 2 TB space.

My Backup HDD for Time Machine has 1TB, same as my MAC-HDD. The Mac HDD is only .5TB full. But suddenly Time Machine wants 2 TB of space for the backup, allthough I have erased all earlier backups and the HDD is empty. I've activated file vault, but some time ago, so I don't think that's the reason.
I also excluded Windows 7 on Parallels.
What happened???
I'd appreciate some help.

What version of OSX are you on?
It sounds like you may have a directory problem on your internal HD. Verify it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.
Just to be sure the TM drive is really empty, erase it, per #1 there.

Time Machine wants to do a full backup. How do I point it to my previous backups so it will do an incremental backup?

I lost my wireless connection to my backup drive for a short time. Now time machine wants to do a full backup. It doesn't know that I have previous backups. How do I point it to the previous backups so that time machine continues to do incremental backups rather than doing another full backup.

I did some more reading and I found that Time Machine would find the older backups once a new backup is completed. The backup ended up being a little larger than previous backups (2.65 GB vs typical incremental backups of several MB's) but when it completed, time machine updated the last backup time/date and the oldest backup time/date properly. So I guess, I don't have a problem.

Restore encrypted Time Machine backup: password failure

hi,
I upgraded my mid 09 MBP with an SDD and created a Fusion Drive maintaining my HDD in the optical bay. After rebooting and wanting to restore from a Time Machine Backup, I'm prompted with a password request of the disk image, being the password I used to encrypt the TM when creating it.
No matter how I enter the password, it says it's not correct and I can't proceed.
Finally I created in a fresh setup of Mavericks. Once I'm in my Mac, When going to Time Machine, I see my Time Capsule drive on the network, and entering the encryption password, I can indeed access my Sparse Bundle.
I have to say that my password contains a space at the end of the password (it slipped in by copying the password by accident) and I think it might be the reason it's not accepting it as the valid password when in recovery/setup mode.. Either way, I've tried the password with and without the space so...
In Disk Utility, I've had the disk listed but the change password feature is disabled..
I've looked thru different forums, but no luck so far.
Anyone who has had the same issue or has a clue on how to either change the encryption password or how to install the full backup I have in my sparse bundle, it would be highly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

Hello:
This thread seems to answer your question:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/12949561#12949561
Barry

Time Machine/Capsule Password stress-PLEASE HELP

I just bought a Time Capsule and am trying to set up my first back-up on Time Machine. The problem is that when I am prompted to enter my username and password to "access the file server", I plug the info in and it says that it's invalid! I went back and reset everything and checked all my username and password stuff and nothing works. I even re-started in "safe" mode and then started again and nothing. I would call into Mac Support but the iPhone 3G came out today and they are swamped with phone calls. Can anyone help me? I don't want to sit on the phone for hours on hold... :o(

Nope, it didn't change anything. I am getting really frustrated! Any other suggestions? I have also made sure that I am teh administrator on the computer and checked all my passwords and user names to be sure they are what they are supposed to be. sigh

Where's my Time Machine encryption password hint?

I encrypted my time machine backup and saved the password in my keychain. Brilliant, it just backs up all the time.
I now want to use the same password to encrypt other hard drives, but I can't remember the password that I used.
I know Disk Utility has a change password function (File>Change password), but where is the password hint I used so I can change the password to something a bit better.
thanks

Open your Keychain Access in the utilties folder in the Applications. Find Time Machine and double click. Click on Show Password use your system password and your encryption key will show

Time Machine multiple password prompts after 10.5.6 upgrade

Wanted to see if anybody else has noticed this behavior change since upgrading to 10.5.6. I back my MacBook Pro to a network drive shared from my Mac Mini. With 10.5.5 and earlier, I'd mount the network drive, and then set Time Machine to use it. I'd get one password prompt, for the initial mount of the network drive.
Post-10.5.6, I mount the network drive (password prompt #1), and then tell Time Machine to use that drive, and I get another password prompt from Time Machine. I'm not sure why this is, and it seems like a behavior change. Has anybody else noticed these double password prompts after going to 10.5.6?
--Bernie

I have the exact same problem since upgrading to 10.5.6. The time machine arrows start spinning, and then stop with the exclamation point. I look at the dropdown and it says "Latest Backup: Delayed"
When I open Time Machine Preferences, it tells me I have 32.2 GB of 232.7 GB available. And in latest backup, it says "Failed" with the little "i" in the circle. When I click the "i" it tells me "The backup volume could not be mounted."
When I actually look at the contents of the drive (which definitely is mounted) I see a 200GB file (the correct size) named [name of my computer]_[some serial number].sparsebundle. The stuff in brackets is replaced since I don't know if that's the sort of thing that I should post.
What seems odd (although I haven't looked at the volume enough in the past to know if it is odd), is that both the modified date and the creation date are March 27, 2008 which, I believe, is when I first started using time machine.
The only other thing on that drive is a folder, "untitled folder"
That's it. I'm not sure about whether it's trying to backup when not connected, but I think I remember that.
Do these specifics fit with what you can see about the current state of your backup?
Tom

Time Machine restore password problem

I had my HDD replaced by Apple. Was running latest Lion OS version before the fault, and had fully backed up with Time Machine. Booting up the iMac with the restored Lion was going well. Had selected restore from time machine. Then i was asked for my password. I know 100% that the password i entered (several times) is correct. There isn't any possibility at all that it is wrong but my iMac will not proceed further saying the password is wrong.
As I can't get past this stage I cannot access anything including the operating system - I can't get to the desktop even without any data. So I cannot get to any Lion recovery partition either. Have tried Lion interent recovery but that simply hasn't worked. Apparently I didn't purchase Lion through my Apple ID - utter rubbish. I've tried every Apple ID that I have used and no records of Lion purchase in any of them - how the **** did I download it and use it for ages then?!!
I bought the iMac originally with Snow Leopard so have that install disk but it seems I can't go back to that.
Going back to the apple store is a real pain the proverbial.
I am happy to wipe the HDD completely and start over, with Snow Leopard then pay (again) for Lion and then copy across the data I need from Time Machine manually and/or thru migration assistant. So here's the main question: How should I do that - wipe the HDD when I have no access to the desktop? I guess I'm going to have to boot up using Cmd C or similar and then type in some code. I have no experience/knowledge of that code so any help will need to be idiot proof please!.

As I had a brand new HDD installed by the Apple store this was the sequence of events (slightly different from the original post due some new info):
1     The external HDD which was the original Time Machine back up was plugged into the firewire port.
2     Booted up (as normal) for the very first time to be met with a fresh installation process just the same as when you buy an entirely new iMac - setting up language etc.
3     During that set up sequence I was asked if I wanted to restore from Time Machine, I selected that option.
4     About 3 hours later, c450GB of data is seemingly successfully loaded from the Time Machine external HDD to the internal, new HDD
5     The only option I now have available on screen is to log in using the same password as had on my original set up (before the internal HDD replacement). The forgot password hint is available, and clearly indicates that I should be able to enter my password to move, but no matter how many times I input the correct password (and, just in case, all other possible password options each with all conceivable varieties of CAPS on and off etc.). Nothing is accepted. No option to go backwards (eg uninstall the restore or anything else), and no ability to get to the desktop.
6     Several expletives later....I decide the only option is cmd+R reboot, internet recovery....and this is the udpate from the original post....
7     I'm in the UK and I try doing internet Lion recovery at about 11pm UK time. Indications are this will take 4+ hours. The trick is, I have now discovered, instead, if based in the UK at least, is to try this at 6am (when most people in the US will be asleep) and it takes about 10 minutes!
8     That brings up a chance to recover the "OS X". Great I think, just enter my Apple ID....error: "This Apple ID did not buy Mountain Lion"...cannot proceed. Mountain Lion? Where was the Lion only option? Doesn't exist seemingly. (Q: has Lion internet recovery been withdrawn? If not how on earth does one get to it?) BTW, I cannot see any partition on the internal HDD with the Lion recovery.
9     However, with the failed internet recovery (inviting me to install Mountain Lion, if only I'd actuall bought that before, but no option to select Lion or buy Mountain Lion there an then!), what I do get is a menu option to "Choose Startup Disk". "Choose the the system disk you want to use to start up your computer". One icon is there...my internal HDD...BUT I see that says "Mac HD OS X 10.6.8" - what? That's Snow Leopard, not Lion. I bought my iMac (from new) with Snow Leopard then upgrade to Lion when that came out. On the original set up (step 2 above) there's nothing to indicate what OS is running. I just assumed that as I had Lion the Apple store would have reinstalled Lion when the swapped by HDD. Likely then this is not the case. V annoying Apple Store (Brent Cross, London!). Idiots.
I guess there's a possibility that my Time Machine restore won't work because it is a Lion based backup.
Not had time to do this next step yet but likely to be my only option before admitting defeat and driving to the store again...internet recovery, get to disk utility from there, wipe the internal HDD and load Snow Leopard from the installation CD I still have (phew). BTW have tried to cmd+C and boot from the Snow Leopard CD. No joy..just ejects. Doesn't want to know!
If you've got this far..thanks for your patience. Thanks even more if you've got any ideas.

I lost my time machine's password ! how can i get it back ?

Hello
So i bought a hard disk and i thought it might be better add a password. Now guess what i lost it. so how can i get my password back ? thank you
PS: I can understand french or english

If you mean that you encrypted your Time Machine backup, there's no way to recover the password. You must not have saved it to your keychain, or you wouldn't need to ask the question. Erase the drive and start over.

New Logic Board - Time Machine wants to create a new backup

This has me stumped. I just got a new hard drive and logic board from Apple. Plugged my external hard drive into my computer, turned time machine off and 'Entered Time Machine' to copy files over back to my computer. All worked as advertised.
Once I had some of my files copied over, I went to turn time machine on. Time Machine informed me that I didn't have enough space on my hard drive (it wants ~94 gigs free and it has 30 free, but it should have been able to delete the oldest backup, free up some space, and we should have moved on). At no point did it ask me if I wanted to reuse the backup or not.
I then wondered if it needed to get further along the backup process before prompting me to reuse the volume or not. So, I excluded like 98% of my hard drive and made the backup ~3 gigs. The backup happened, but now in my Backups.backupdb I have a MyComputer which contains all of my old time machine backups, and a MyComputer_2 which contains this last backup.
I trashed the MyComputer_2 folder and 'Entered Time Machine'. It pulled from the correct place and I saw my backups trailing back into history, but apparently I no longer have permission to view the desktop folder as well as the other 'protected' folders in my backed up home folder. I repaired permissions on the off chance that it would fix it, but it didn't.
Something is clearly broken, do the masses have any suggestions? I found multiple suggestions for how to deal with this under 10.5, but nothing about 10.6.
Thank You,
Zac

zac850 wrote:
But what if I want to reuse my backup? How would I go about doing that? I trashed the time machine plist file (the only one i found was "Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist") in the hopes that after a restart I would be prompted to reuse the backup. No luck.
I don't know why you didn't get the "reuse" prompt, but that wouldn't prevent a new, full backup. You have a new internal HD. Even if it has the same name as the old one, Time Machine knows it's a different disk, so will back up everything on it. You cannot prevent that.
Your first problem is, you didn't transfer things onto the new drive properly (Apple Stores often give bad or misleading advice on that.)
And, you may have corrupted your backups by "trashing" the MyComputer_2 folder. Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*never move, change, or delete anything in your backups+* via the Finder.
Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If that works, your best bet is probably to do a full system restore, per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
You obviously had a problem with your Mac; depending on what happened and when, it's possible that damaged your installation of OSX and/or some of your data. If your last backup(s) were done after that started, the corruption may have been backed-up.
If that's a possibility, and you do the restore properly, but it fails, try it again, but select an earlier backup.

New Hard Drive installed - Time Machine wants to start over!?

Info: My MacBook Pro is the old version. Plus I have not upgraded to Snow Leopard.
I was running out of hard drive space so I took my MacBook to MacTown where I bought it on Monday night and they put in a 500GB hard drive for me. I asked if it would affect anything such as Time Machine, etc. They said it would not.
When I plugged it in Tue. night (after I picked it up) I got a message saying that it needed about 300GB for the backup and it only had 200GB available (I use a 500GB external drive for my Time Machine backups). I called yesterday and asked if it had to do with the new hard drive. The guy said no, I just had too much stuff on my backup and needed to delete some of it.
Well, last night I messed around with it and a)saw that Time Machine is supposed to delete old backups if it gets too full so this should not be the problem. b)I went into Time Machine and it does not show any old backups. It only has Feb. 1, 2010 as the last one. So, my conclusion: It does not recognize the old backup and wants to start over with my new hard drive.
I called back today and spoke with the guy who did the work. I told him this and he said I should just delete the old backups from my external drive and start over (if I am sure there is nothing I will ever want on it). He said to go to Disk Utility and re-format it.
My question: I am sure I don't need anything from the old backups, but am I not thinking of anything? Is there a chance they didn't copy something over, etc.?
Any advice would be appreciated. I am not impressed with the MacTown people right now.
Thanks,
Peace

Guitar Dude 7 wrote:
Info: My MacBook Pro is the old version. Plus I have not upgraded to Snow Leopard.
I was running out of hard drive space so I took my MacBook to MacTown where I bought it on Monday night and they put in a 500GB hard drive for me. I asked if it would affect anything such as Time Machine, etc. They said it would not.
Tell them about this Apple article: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338
It does say may, not will, but it always does for me, and there are lots of similar posts in these forums. (This was supposed to be fixed in Snow Leopard, but it still does it.)
Well, last night I messed around with it and a)saw that Time Machine is supposed to delete old backups if it gets too full so this should not be the problem.
That depends. It won't delete the last remaining backup. To do a new full backup requires as much space as the data it's backing-up, plus 20% for workspace, etc., on the TM drive.
I went into Time Machine and it does not show any old backups. It only has Feb. 1, 2010 as the last one. So, my conclusion: It does not recognize the old backup and wants to start over with my new hard drive.
I called back today and spoke with the guy who did the work. I told him this and he said I should just delete the old backups from my external drive and start over (if I am sure there is nothing I will ever want on it). He said to go to Disk Utility and re-format it.
Correct. It is a new drive after all, and Time Machine's main role in life is to back-up anythng that's new or changed.
That's your only choice (although you can just erase it).
My question: I am sure I don't need anything from the old backups, but am I not thinking of anything? Is there a chance they didn't copy something over, etc.?
No, most likely, that's your only option.
Any advice would be appreciated. I am not impressed with the MacTown people right now.
Unfortunately, even the Geniuses at Apple Stores don't know a lot about Time Machine; in some cases, the AppleCare folks aren't a lot better.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Time Machine wants to back up everything again

Hi. I use Time Machine and my Time Machine drive currently has almost 300GB free (the drive is 500GB total). Time Machine has been working fine and its last backup session was last night.
However, today I noticed Time Machine was taking longer than usual (I could hear the external drive). I clicked on the Time Machine icon in my menubar and saw that it was "Cleaning Up Old Backups," which seemed strange to me because, as I said, I have almost 300GB free on my Time Machine drive. Time Machine continued to clean up old backups for over two hours.
I started writing this message as it was continuing to clean up old backups. But finally, it stopped. However, it then proceeded to start backing up the entire contents of my hard drive to the Time Machine drive — 220GB. I then clicked "Skip this Backup" to make it stop.
I don't know what happened — Time Machine worked fine last night and backed up incremental changes as usual — but now it wants to back up my entire drive.
In the Finder, I looked at the contents of the Time Machine drive and the drive appears fine; I see all the previous backups.
I just clicked on "Back Up Now" in the menubar to see if Time Machine still wants to back up my entire drive and it does.
I think the only thing I can do is erase my Time Machine drive and then let Time Machine back up my entire drive. If I let it back up my entire drive without erasing the Time Machine drive first then the drive will have very little empty space afterwards.
But does anyone know why Time Machine got confused and want to back up my entire drive instead of backing up incrementally?
Thanks!

The Pondini site is a wealth of information on how Time Machine works. If you check out the faq page I linked, and also his troubleshooting page, you will see that there are several reasons why Time Machine cleared the space. He also has instructions on how to do a "full reset" and how to safely delete files from Time Machine.
Have a nice day.

Time Machine wants password

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