Time machine: worst program ever?

So before I tear all my hair out and liquidate all my family's apple stock, I figure I should make sure that time machine has, in fact, deleted all my data.
To reduce hard drive clutter I backed up all my data onto an external with time machine, then wiped and reinstalled OSX. After moving some of my essentials onto my internal HD and using my computer for a while I figured that I should start backing up the material on internal drive. Last night I turned time machine on, expecting it to create a second folder in the Backups.backupdb folder with my new internal hard drive name. I woke up to find that it had DELETED the other folder and ALL my business documents, pictures, music, text archive, email, music production files, and other backed up data!
Am I missing something here, i.e. my data is still somewhere? Or am I switching to another OS and company to invest in?

To see the backups of a different disk (different name), select your computer name in the sidebar of one of the "cascade" of Finder windows -- one that should have had those backups. Then you should see a folder in the center for each drive that was backed-up.
If that doesn't work, you may need to hold down the Option key while clicking the TM icon in your menubar, and use the +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. The name is a bit misleading in this case, but if the backups are there, you can get to them this way.
But what you're doing, deleting things from your internal and depending on TM's copies, is a *very bad idea* for two reasons:
First, those backups aren't backups any more: they're your only copies. When (not if) your TM drive fails, they're probably lost.
Second, TM will, as it's drive gets near full, begin deleting it's oldest backups to make room for the new ones. So sooner or later, depending on how "deep" your backups are and how long those files were there, TM will delete them.
You need other copies of those files. Archive them to DVD, or get a second external disk and let TM back up both your internal and that external. The whole point of a backup is to have two copies of everything, in two different places, so when (not if) one drive/DVD/etc. fails, you still have the other.

Similar Messages

How does time machine affect programs? ala Logic?

Say I do a software update and it stinks, buggy, et-cetera, how would I grab Logic from TIME MACHINE and use that version (pre update) or does it update the whole computer? I'm thinking its not sophisticated enough (TM) to know that if I grab LOGIC that it needs to grab the preferences, package receipts, application support as well as the LOGIC application itself. If you do have to restore the desktop (ALL) again, is there a better way than time machine or can you somehow use time machine.
• Or is it that sophisticated?
Thanks!

Time Machine is almost like a clone with archival capabilities. It will store a minimumal restorable version of your system on the backup drive with all the preferences, kernel extensions, and files and applications. Time machine is sophisticated enough to understand for a few Apple applications how to restore addresses, e-mail, and other files back into their applications from an archive. However, the only restore that I've read it is able to restore an application is an entire hard disk restore much like restoring a clone. This is especially true if the application is divided into drivers, extensions, preferences, and plugins across the hard drive.

Time Machine-"preparing for EVER/backup"

i read an earlier post, saying that after mac crashes, its likely TM wants to do an initial backup again, and something in Console..
I hadnt crashed, only change was hadnt backed up in 2 weeks while traveling...so after coming home, my Time Capsule and Time Machine went to back up, and 4 hours of "preparing back up", it never backed up..And i guess my question is, why is the response from TM to want to do its initial backup as opposed to just backing up to whatever is new or had changed. Does this mean, after a day or two of not connecting with TimeCapsule or whatever External Drive I choose, that this will happen? As for now, how long would you say is a normal time, for the "preparing" to...prepare, and start to backup? And if its doing its initial, isnt it wanting to do everything, so there will be duplicates?
thank you for any help!!!

JGcalifornia wrote:
i read an earlier post, saying that after mac crashes, its likely TM wants to do an initial backup again, and something in Console..
If that's what it said, it was wrong. After a crash, TM can't be sure where everything was when "the lights went out", so it will likely do a "deep traversal", examining every file and folder on your system to see what needs to be backed-up. It will send explanatory messages to your logs. This process takes quite a while, of course, and much more with a Time Capsule, but TM won't do a full backup just because of a crash.
I hadnt crashed, only change was hadnt backed up in 2 weeks while traveling...so after coming home, my Time Capsule and Time Machine went to back up, and 4 hours of "preparing back up", it never backed up..And i guess my question is, why is the response from TM to want to do its initial backup as opposed to just backing up to whatever is new or had changed. Does this mean, after a day or two of not connecting with TimeCapsule or whatever External Drive I choose, that this will happen? As for now, how long would you say is a normal time, for the "preparing" to...prepare, and start to backup? And if its doing its initial, isnt it wanting to do everything, so there will be duplicates?
You have about three questions there.
First, TM will do a full, complete backup after certain hardware repairs, a full restore, or going several days without a backup. Just how many days is unclear, but it seems to be a combination of days and the volume of changes: 10 days seems safe, 2 weeks may not be.
And yes, this is another full backup of everything on your system. So it will take a very long time and a lot of disk space. Depending on how much space is available, you may want to erase the disk and let TM start over.
You say TM "never backed up" after the lengthy "preparing" phase. Did the backup fail, or did you cancel it?
If it failed, we need to look at the messages in your logs. Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the failed backup, then copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).

Worst program EVER!

Frustrating! It takes 20 minutes or so to navigate the pop-ups and site re-directions to find what you need here (and I'm still not sure I have)...Premiere Elements 7.0 has to be the WORSE video editing program I've ever used. You would think that with the large development group Adobe had working on it that they could release a product that was ready to use and bug free. Why would they release a product with "known issues" all fixable with a little time and effort. Well we all know why...There are many companies who wait until there product has made it through BETA before releasing it...so yes...it can be done. I like many, have been using Photoshop for years and love it. It's the greatest! But for video editing...leave it to someone else. I recently bought PE 7.0 and CONSTANTLY get error/PE 7.0 has encountered a problem and must close etc. Not to mention that when I click on the text tool or try to get a file it will randomly crash to the desktop. Interface does not work properly either. And yes, my comp can handle it. I've been using Photoshop, Corel Paint, 3dsMAX etc for years with no problems...frustrating!

SMikeS,
Spending a lot of time with most Adobe products, the first problem that I see is Assets. The user is trying to use Assets that are not right for the program. This is probably 60% of the errors. Next, comes hardware, which comprises probably 30% of the errors encountered. Then, comes OE, which accounts for about 9%. Finally, come the real Bugs, for the remainder. These are just general averages and will be slightly different, depending on the exact program.
Now, since none of us works for Adobe, and hence cannot address the Bugs directly (Bug reports can, but they need to be filed with Adobe separately - Adobe does not have a presence in these fora, they only furnish us with server space), we can only help with specific problems.
I'd suggest that you take one of your problem Projects (pick the one giving you the most trouble) and completely outline it with as much detail, as you can. See this link for the type and detail, that I am referring to:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6da89/3
Then, perhaps we can help you address your problems and get you into that "happy place," where you are editing, and not troubleshooting. If there are Bugs, that you are encountering, we'll help you file the necessary reports with Adobe. That is what these fora do best, as they are user-to-user only, but are populated with a lot of knowledgable and helpful people. Give us a crack at your problems, and maybe we can make them go away.
BTW, Steve Grisetti has a wonderful book on PE7 (plus one for PE2 that still has some very useful info, regardless of version #), that will likely get you up to speed and answer most questions. Well worth the $.
Good luck,
Hunt

On my 2nd Time Capsule-- worst product EVER

After buying a time capsule when it first came out and having nothing but problems to the point I had to throw the device out after taking it to an Apple store and they also threw up their hands (3 hours and 2 different "geniuses"), I can't believe I actually went out and bought the newer ones, the ones with supposed "dual band". Ha. I am an idiot for buying the same cruddy product twice. (Apple will most likely remove this post in order to hide the fact that Time Capsules and Apple routers are generally the WORST ON THE MARKET. It violate their prescious user agreement to disagree with them. This is why I'm posting this also on my flame blog.
Problem: The set up alone comes with so many different problems you want to kill other humans before you're done. It took me 2 hours to finally get my 3 computers and 1 iPhone to actually access internet via this terrible product.
Once I finally got it to work, it didn't work right. It certainly creates two different networks, one for our family and one guest network. But if you choose to operate a guest network, you can't access you family network (the one with a password) with an iPhone. The iPhone will only use the Guest Network. Is that safe? Sure doesn't seem like it to me. The iPhone will alternate seeing either network, but if you have a guest network allowed, but try to log into the family network (password)it won't let you in, even tho you enter the password correctly. It's a glitch for sure, on a brand new product. If I eliminate the guest network, the devices will work (haven't even gotten to the back-up stuff which didn't work at all on my first waste-of-money Time Capsule), or if I ignore the passworded network it will work. But to operate two networks, family and guest, at the same time? IMPOSSIBLE.
This ratty piece of technology has just cost me my entire Saturday to set up. All my equipment is new within the last 18 months too.
I went Apple with 2 computers, an iPhone, and 2 cruddy router-back-up devices. Never again Apple, you've ripped your last dollar out of me. I don't care how pretty your devices are, I'm thru. Tell that to your "just works" engineers. Just works? nah, JUST SnCKS.

The port is under powered.. this is often the experience people have.. you need to use a powered hub to get things to work. Why they worked on Gen1 and not Gen4 no idea.. but your experience is not unusual.
The TC is also pretty picky when it comes to hubs.. so not everything works even then.
Are you running SL as per your info..? That should be no problem but for Lion you need to download airport utility 5.6 to even see what is connected. There also could well be some issues in 7.6 firmware for the TC.

Time Machine will not start (code -43)

After getting a new 1TB external usb drive and changing format for use with time machine the program no longer launches producing unexpected error (code -43) instead. I had hoped to have three of four partitions on this drive for use with old windows machines as well as my mac. There are quite a few code 43's reported here with no definitive answer as to what it means. As i want to use the external drive as storage and not just backup will time machine be happy sharing the drive (if it ever works). Can I have one partition for time machine and others for various uses on the same drive.
After seeing the quantity of posts here I am a little worried about using TM, but I have also read reports of it's greatness and even a major reason to upgrade to Leopard. Any help would be much appreciated.

Can't help with the TM stuff, but the error is:
fnfErr = -43, /*File not found*/
As to which file, I haven't a clue. However, TM help does have this:
+You can use Time Machine with FireWire disks, USB disks, and Time Capsule. The disk used for backing up must be in *Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, and must have Access Control Lists (ACLs) enabled*.+
This appears to preclude using it with windoze boxes; i.e., formated as FAT-32 or NTFS,

Time Machine saves the day

i had to post this. Somehow all my contacts lost their phone numbers. Of course this was all synced out to MobileMe and my iTouch. No numbers anywhere. These are numbers i have had for 20 years. Not recoverable. Not sure what did it but I thought I would see if Time Machine works specifically with Addrress Book.
I open address book and open Time Machine. There are al the address book back ups. I scroll back to one that has phone numbers ad hit restore all. Several seconds latr all mu numbers are back. In several more seconds the numbers are back one my iTouch.
That is a tribute to Time Machine if I ever saw one.
Great stuff.
Greg

Trevor.Dennis wrote:
So you don't have anything like Shadow Protect running in the background?
Video editing software only needs to save the steps taken to achieve the edit, and references the actual video files from the hard drive. So the saved files are only tiny, and it takes very little drive space to auto save to incrementing file names. Obviously, Photoshop files can be huge by comparison, so the only way to save with a different file name is to do it manually.
I think most regular posters to this forum make a point of updating the file name of a large project every hour or so, and as a direct response to reading so many horror stories like your own. The worst story I remember was from a poster whose computer had crashed half way through saving a large PSD file. After several response, questions and answers, it turned out he was using a laptop with a failing battery. He told us that he could see the battery was getting low, but left it and left it before finally hitting Ctrl s and running off to find the laptop's power lead. When he got back the laptop had run out of power and shut down, and his PSD file was lost forever. He may have been a prime candidate to a computing Darwin Award, but his stupidity still did the rest of us a service so we could learn from his mistake.
Ouch.
My digital audio workstation works on the same principle; it creates a backup save just in case things go wrong (which--knock on wood--hasn't happened to me) and only references audio/MIDI files that are related to the project.
My advice is to always, always back up sensitive documents. There are lots of ways of doing this, from manually to automatically. (e.g., A lot of higher-end routers let you connect external storage via USB so you can run backup software that detects any changes to a monitored folder over a network and then backs up any changed/updated documents to the connected storage. I prefer to do it myself manually, though.)

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

Time Machine and Permissions- URGENT

I have been getting really frustrated with Time Machine. It's a good concept but needs some work.
I do have a semi-urgent matter though. I have been using time machine since leopard came out and it seemed to be working okay. HOWEVER, when I tried to access some files on the external drive that are not at all related to a time machine backup Mac OS X gave me the whole "you are not authorized to open this. Your permissions are all wrong, etc."
I have checked all the usual suspects. Made sure the ignore permission box was checked. I tried changed the permissions to other users but any time I made a change and closed the get info window everything was reverted back to the original settings from Time Machine (or what ever made the original change).
I really need these documents, so I turned on root and tried changing or accessing the permissions that way. No such luck. Same thing: it reverts back to previous versions when I close the window.
Any one have ideas? I have spent about 2 hours trying different things. Maybe there is something that I am not thinking about - -
~Thanks

bump... i found still need help with the permissions. (the documents are not quite a urgent at this point)

Time Machine backup error message

I am making a second backup with a new HD. It made the first Time Machine backup, but ever since, I get the error message "unable to complete backup".
The Time Machine buddy gives me this message:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/DIANE EXT HD 02/Backups.backupdb
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/DIANE EXT HD 02/Backups.backupdb/Diane Tolomeo’s iMac size:7
Error: (-50) Creating directory 2011-11-03-142638.inProgress
Failed to make snapshot container.
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/DIANE EXT HD 02/Backups.backupdb/Diane Tolomeo’s iMac size:7
Backup failed with error: 2
Can this be fixed? If so, how?

Take a look here
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2142747?threadID=2142747&messageID=10782279 #10782279

Time Machine Won't show on Bootup

MY dad's new Mac Pro has a weird issue. He has a 1.5TB freeagent he uses for Time Machine and when ever he boots up his mac the drive does not show up on the Desktop.
If you unplug the firewire port and replug it in, it shows up and works just fine. But every time he boots up its not there. Any ideas.
I have the exact same setup as him with a free agent running Time Machine and mine doesn't do this.

Many, many weeks ago there were articles (MacWorld and others) that described how to check and see if you had any PowerPC apps. It was stated that these apps would not work with Lion because Rosetta, which they require, will no longer be supported. Here is how you check. Hold down Option and click the Apple in the upper left. While holding Option click System Profiler. Under Software, click Applications and wait for the list to load. Toward the right side of the window click the column header called "Kind" to sort the column. Scroll the column to see if you have any Power PC apps. If you do, they won't work in Lion.
Regarding your Office 2004...... I do know that the new version of Office will work.
Hope this is helpful.

Time Machine / Time Capsule restore keeps asking for password.

I have just tried to do a restore from my time capsule, but all i get is "please enter the password" i enter it and it just closes the diolog box and does nothing.
It's the right password as you can see on this video when i try to enter the password incorrectly the window just shakes, I am using lion and Time Machine as only ever backed up this computer when it's had lion installed - so no previous snow leopard back-ups are in there. Is this a known bug? is anybody else having this problem? or does anyone know how to fix it?
check out this video if you want, It shows what's going on a little better. (sorry for the unsteady hand, i was typing as well)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2h30fyoPdw

Ok. I got it to work, sort of....
As I mentioned before I tried the "disk password" and the "Time capsule Password" options to see if I can start the back up again or start a new backup. Neither worked. So I tried the firmware down grade, but like you said that did not work. I then decided to try the "Account password" option and I have never used this option before becasue it states that if there is data on the drive it would not be acessable after creating an account. Since I wiped out the disk that was nno problem. When I created the new account and choose the drive it asked for the user name and password. I entered the info for the new account I just created(FYI this has nothing to do with your login username and password), bingo! It worked!
Now I have two partitions on the TC disk. The old one and now the new account. I am guessing this is to be used if I have multiple computers, which I don't.
I any case, I am going to wipe out everything again and try again to do a backup the way I had it before.

Time Machine Causes Insomnia - can't put to sleep

With time machine running and the backup disk mounted (iOmega 500), if I try to put the machine to sleep manually I get an alarming message to the effect that I have dismounted the disk without logically ejecting it first, with possible dire consequences. And the machine stays awake. Same thing if I repeat.
Is this a bug? Workaround?
I also note, as do others, that the machine will not go to sleep all by itself (like overnight) with TM up and running. And backups faithfully show up on the disk every hour all night long.
Is the Time Machine backup program causing sleep deprivation? Should it?

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Also read about:
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Time Machine backup growing as it's backing up

Right now, my Time Machine is backing up. A little while ago, it was at 4 GB of 5 GB. But as it's backing up it keeps growing. Currently it's at 8.57 of 9.42 GB. I have less than 1 GB left on my Time Capsule.
I think I saw this happen shortly after I upgraded to Mountain Lion. My Time Capsule is a 500 GB model purchased new in 2009.
Anyone know what's going on?

Full reset of Time Machine solved my ever increasing backup.
http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
This link show you how ot delete the plist entries for time machine. You may have to inherit backups after but I'd already messed with that. So far 24 hours on things are sweet.
Good luck
AJC

Time machine+WD mybookworld-multiple computers using time machine-possible?

Hello
i have 2 macbookpro's and a wd mybookworld 1 terabyte.
i would like to use it for backing up using time machine but for both laptops, is this possible?
thanks so much in advance

Hello and thanks very much for your help
situation:
both macbookpros are running 10.5.8 at the moment.
the drive is WD mybookworld 1 terabyte, i couldn't find whether it supports HFS or not
just found that the folders in the drive have NFS, CIFS, FTP, AFP capabilities.
1:
what i've successfully done is associate one of the laptops with the drive wirelessly and via ethernet with time machine.
How ever, when i tried to connect the second laptop (wirelessly or ethernet) it couldn't "find" the drive in time machine (under choose disk)
* [i suspect that once one computer "associates" itself with the drive another one cannot?
what can i do?]
2:
(it should be noted that i tried to remove any association the 1st computer has with the drive and followed instructions saying to delete the .backupdb- "put in trash bin and empty"
having done that still one computer can see the drive in time machine and the 2nd computer cannot.
* [question- maybe i have to delete the sparsebundle file from the WD drive as well?]
help!

Time machine: worst program ever?

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