Unable to access time machine backups after upgrade

I have an airport extreme with an USB disk that I've been using with my 10.8 system.
I've decided to format and do a clean install of mavericks. After that even tough I can access the timemachine and see scroll with the mouse I can't use the arrows or select anything.
Any ideas?
Regards.

desbiss wrote:
After transferring all my data over to the new profile and setting everything back up as I like I deleted the old (presumably corrupt) user profile. To my dismay I no longer have access to any of my time machine backups that were created prior to setting up my new user profile... They appear to still all be there. However, I am unable to select any of the dates prior to the new user profile's creation and the deletion of the old profile...
That's correct. What you see in Time Machine's "Star Wars" display depends on what you have the Finder window set to. While looking at the new profile, you can't see any backups that were done before it existed.
You're right, they're still there, for now, but are grayed-out in the timeline at the right, because what's in the Finder window wasn't backed-up then.
If you select your internal HD or Computer Name in the sidebar, you'll be able to see those backups.
But since they're for a different user, you won't be able to view inside that home folder or restore from it -- one user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have access to a different user's data.
It's doubtful, but you might be able to create a new user with exactly the same name as the one you deleted, log on to it, and see if the old backups appear.

Similar Messages

Unable to access time machine backups after creating new user profile

Hi,
I had visited the Genius Bar with some problems with iTunes not opening. The Genius had indicated that I likely had some corrupt files and that the easiest fix would be to create a new user profile... So we did...
After transferring all my data over to the new profile and setting everything back up as I like I deleted the old (presumably corrupt) user profile. To my dismay I no longer have access to any of my time machine backups that were created prior to setting up my new user profile... They appear to still all be there. However, I am unable to select any of the dates prior to the new user profile's creation and the deletion of the old profile...
Please help...
Thank in advance,
Des

desbiss wrote:
After transferring all my data over to the new profile and setting everything back up as I like I deleted the old (presumably corrupt) user profile. To my dismay I no longer have access to any of my time machine backups that were created prior to setting up my new user profile... They appear to still all be there. However, I am unable to select any of the dates prior to the new user profile's creation and the deletion of the old profile...
That's correct. What you see in Time Machine's "Star Wars" display depends on what you have the Finder window set to. While looking at the new profile, you can't see any backups that were done before it existed.
You're right, they're still there, for now, but are grayed-out in the timeline at the right, because what's in the Finder window wasn't backed-up then.
If you select your internal HD or Computer Name in the sidebar, you'll be able to see those backups.
But since they're for a different user, you won't be able to view inside that home folder or restore from it -- one user, even an Admin user, doesn't normally have access to a different user's data.
It's doubtful, but you might be able to create a new user with exactly the same name as the one you deleted, log on to it, and see if the old backups appear.

Unable to access time machine backup. The folder "Documents" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents.

My MacBook Pro with 750GB storage refuses to startup due to a problem with logic board (unfortunately I'm in Singapore and there is no Apple store here and zero customer support). I'm trying to access some of the files from the time machine back-up using my MacBook Air with 120GB storage, but I'm unable to open the backup. I receive an error message "you don't have permission to see its contents". Unable to access time machine backup. The folder “Documents” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.
I don't really want to migrate the data from the time machine to the MacBook Air as I simply don't have sufficient storage space on the MacBook Air. The iPhoto library which I'm trying to access is 200GB, which is more than the size of the MacBookAir.
Is there any way I can view the photos and documents stored on the time machine backup.
Thank you very much.

When you setup the Mac, you created a Admin user account with say name X
You ran Migration Assistant and it migrated user Y from the Windows machine.
User Y has different permissions than User X.
User X can't normally access User Y's account.
So what you do is log out of User X via the Apple menu and into User Y, this way you have permission to access the files.
If you want to transfer files from User Y to User X account
Transfer files between user accounts on the same machine instructions
Finder > Go menu > Computer
A window appears with your boot drive, double click on it to open
Inside is Users folder, double click to open it
Inside is your User accounts, double click on the one you want to send files too
Double click on the Public folder drop the files into the DropBox folder,
The permissions will change and can be used in the other user account when you log into it and moved to the appropriate folders.
Applications are typically installed and kept in the Applications folder which is a global access folder all users can access to run them from, but not all users can modify unless they are a Admin user.
Windows programs won't run on a Mac, but they can be instaled into a virtual machine program that is running Windows.
Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?

How can I restore my old iTunes Time Machine backup after upgrading to Mavericks?

I previously had Snow Leopard, and am wondering how I can simply restore ONLY my iTunes library from my Time Machine backup, last made only a few days ago when I had Snow Leopard. However, I seem to be unable to access anything backed up before I installed Mavericks. Any help would be great, because I'd hate to have to struggle to locate 160GB of music manually.
Many thanks!

Your choice really. Either way will work. Retaining the older backups gives you a way to restore older files. When I upgrade from 10.8 to 10.9, the backups continued without errors. Depending on what you upgraded from, in 10.8/9 you have the option to backup to 2 separate drives thus giving you some protection in case one drive fails. You can either copy the old backup to a new drive (Disk Utility/Restore seems to work best) or start a new one.

Can't reconnect to Time Machine backups after upgrade to Yosemite

I did a clean install of Yosemite and restored the user accounts from my time machine backup. I reconnected to the time machine backup on my time capsule and performed a backup. That went fine.
Now I can't access any of the backups made before I upgraded to Yosemite. They all show up in the history bar on the right in time machine but when I click on a backup nothing loads. I've run a verify on the backup and it passes. Looking at the backup file it has 400GB of data, the same as before the upgrade to Yosemite.
Any ideas why I can't access the backups?
Thanks,
Marvin

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.
If you need to restore from a backup of the hidden user Library folder, first select a snapshot, then press shift-command-G. A Go to Folder dialog will open. In it, you'll enter the path to the folder. The dialog will help you by automatically completing the parts of the path when you start to type them.
The path begins with slash character ("/"). Enter that. The rest of the parts will be separated by slashes.
The next part is the date and time of the current snapshot. Enter a "2", and the rest of the date should be filled in automatically. Press the right-arrow key to jump to the end of the path. Enter a slash to start the next part.
Next is the name of the volume (usually "Macintosh HD" unless you gave it a different name.) Start to type that, then jump to the end and enter a slash.
The next part is "Users", followed by a slash.
Next is your (short) user name, which is also the name of your home folder.
Finally, enter "Library", then press return. You should now be in the Library folder. From there you can get around as in the Finder.

Extremely Slow Time Machine Backup after upgrading to 10.8.3

Time machine backups are taking an extremely long time on my retina MacBook Pro 13 inch after upgrading to 10.8.3. It's taking many minutes just for a kilobyte to be backed up. I've tested transferring something to the disk and it's lightening fast so there's nothing wrong with the disk.
Is anyone having similar issues or know of a fix?

I had the same problem with slow backups. Called Apple 5 times and went through all the hoops checking plists, airport, and then erasing using my airport utility and the first backup of about 25-30 gigs went fine, but the second backup would take between 1-2 hours. By the time it was finished it was ready to do another backup.
After looking at community fixes I found that my Comcast Norton Anti Virus was the problem. Upon speaking for the 6th time to Apple I was told that should have been the first thing they asked, since antivirus programs check each file going to the time capsule. Even unchecking the scan external drives did not help.
I removed the Norton AV from my system and replaced it with the IAV from apple store (free) and my backups are back to normal. I timed a 100 meg using Ethernet/LAN and it took 9 minutes 32 seconds from clicking backup now, searching for backups, preparing backup, backingup, and cleanup. My Wifi connection on 10 megs took only 1 minute 29 seconds.
Now my backups run so fast I don't even see them working. Also the constant updates to Norton were casuing my backups to be 100 megs or more each time due to daily Norton updates. Now I get backups in the order of 10-20 megs - depending up what I have put on the machine. If I put music on it increases the size of the files installed.
I recommend anyone having this slow time capsule problem to turn off your full antivirus program no matter what you are using and watch the difference in speed. I am so happy! No more 2 hour backups and 45 minutes to 1 hour preparing backup! good luck

Imac keeps crashing in time machine backup after upgrade to mountain lion

2008 imac kept crashing (shutdown and restart) during first backup after upgraded to mountain lion. The backup size was about 10GB but time machine crashed after a while (at most 2GB) and never completed backup. So, I don't have any backup since right before I upgraded from Lion. Any suggestion?

Something strange happened. I was able to get time machine to work by going out to the login screen (the account kept logged in) and let it run the backup with the screen off (screen auto off after a few min). I tried it on two different external drives and that did the trick on both. Since the initial Mountain Lion backup was huge (155 GB), I was quite surprise that it worked at all. I assume your MBP was a Lion to ML. I also just did a 2012 MBP upgrade but that one was smoother. I did not recall having crashing issue. One thing I did find during this was that my WD passport USB drive was corrupted. Not sure it was the cause or not. I had to erase and reformat to get it back to work. Maybe do a verify disk to confirm. Good luck.

Can't access Time Machine backups after erase and install

Had iMac checked by Apple Authorized Service Provider after experiencing multiple problems I couldn't fix. No hardware problem. He did an erase and install of 10.5.8. The machine accesses my Time Machine backup, but in Time Machine/ iMacHome/ Sharing & Permissions says, "You can only read." If I access a folder in Home, like Desktop or Documents, it says,"You have no access." Permissions are locked and grayed out.
I spent over two hours on the phone with tech support last evening, and he finally said he'd have to turn it over to Apple engineers, which would take a few days.
Migration assistant only allows "all or nothing" migration, and I need to select just certain folders; I do not want to restore anything that might be corrupted.
Is it possible I could have an undetected hardware problem? Has anyone else done an erase and install and been able to use Time Machine backups to pick and choose what they wanted to restore?

Thank you for your reply. The apple support tech should have known this, but he didn't. However, in the course of our two hour discussion he said "Maybe it's because the computer name is different." I hadn't reached the new-set-up stage where I had changed the name of the computer from Apple's default, so I did that. My short name home folder I had already named the same as before, iMacHome.
But changing the computer name didn't help. After reading your reply, I unlocked the preferences (which were locked and grayed out in TM) to my home folder in the finder and assigned read and write to all folders within for everyone. Back in TM, preferences were no longer grayed out, but changing privileges was. I added iMacHome to the names in addition to staff read & write and everyone read and write. But ImacHome(Me) allows read only, options gray, and even though everyone is read and write, it says "You can only read" and I still cannot access Desktop, Documents, etc...
Fortunately I have a SuperDuper user file backup that I am restoring from, so all is not lost. But it seems to me TM backups should be readily available, and I want to solve this problem. I may still want to go back to a previous month to recover something. But mostly I'd just like to know that TM is a functional backup. It certainly isn't in my case right now.
Don't want to migrate the entire home folder. Too risky. Risky enough to bring over Mail and selected Application Support folders and keychains.
Thanks again. I think your answer is right on, but there must still be something else. I know I have those names correct because I see the old computer name on the sparse bundle, and the old home name in the TM backups. (Haven't read the tips yet. Will do so.)

Still cannot access time machine backups after Yosemite install

Can anyone tell me what to do to be able to access my time machine backups. When I enter time machine nothing except apps and desktop are accessable. Thus I cannot restore anything that was "backed up" even this morning, much less any other day this year. Yosemite was installed on Oct. 19, took 2 days to download to an 2013 iMac. The first time machine backup took over 24 hours. I have made 1 backup per day since, only problem is that I cannot access any of this data. Please help me.

A bit more information would help figure out the problem. Maybe a screen shot of what you're seeing or not seeing (use Command+shift+4 to save an area of the screen or a window -type space first to capture an entire window- to a file and then attach that file to your posting reply). You might look at the Console app to get more information about what actually happened during your backups - suggest putting "backupd" (without the quotes) in the search field at the top right of window in Console - with the "All Messages" query selected on the left part of the window). Console is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. After you enter the backupd in the search field only those messages that contain that string will appear which helps a lot since so many messages are normally shown without any search field string.
Depending on how long ago the backups happened, you might need to select previous versions of the system log files - they get archived and compressed to files like system.log.0.bz2 or system.log.1.bz2 (these are in the /var/log query choice if you don't see them in the existing query choices - just click on the triangle to the left of the "/Var/log" entry if needed). Console knows how to show the messages that are in these compressed files, so you don't need to do anything other than click on the query name.
Also if you look in TimeMachine in System Preferences are there any exclusions (click on the Options button in TM System Preferences to show what the existing exclusions are)? A screen shot of those would be helpful also.
Is there only one drive with the single Mac OS partition on it?
Hope this helps a bit...

Can not access time machine backups. after transfer to new macbook pro

Irecently up graded to a new MacBook Pro. I baked up all my files on an external drive using time machine. Now when I try to retrive my files from the backups.backupdb folder I can not access may of my files. Message: "The folder “Music” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."
I'm fairly certain I have a diffrent user name on my new machine but dont know what my old user name and password were (never really used them).
How can I access 3 years worth of work in this time machine backup?

Irecently up graded to a new MacBook Pro. I baked up all my files on an external drive using time machine. Now when I try to retrive my files from the backups.backupdb folder I can not access may of my files. Message: "The folder “Music” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."
I'm fairly certain I have a diffrent user name on my new machine but dont know what my old user name and password were (never really used them).
How can I access 3 years worth of work in this time machine backup?

Cannot Access Earlier Time Machine Backups After Upgrade To Mountain lion

I went into Time Machine to recover some past emails. It shows that it had backed up my emails for the last year, however it will not let me recover anything before my upgrade to mountain lion. Does anyone know of a workaround for this problem. Thank you.

Christopher Sant wrote:
Once it does finally recognize (after a good while) it simply says "Error, time machine could not complete the backup"
There should be more to that message. See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup, what you've done, and the results.

Time Machine backup after upgrading from 10.6

Hi all,
I'm planning to upgrade from 10.6.8 to 10.7 on a MacBook from 2007, and I have a question about my Time Machine set-up. I have this backing up on an external HD, and I am wondering if, when I've upgraded to 10.7, the Time Machine software will access the same set-up I had in 10.6.8? Will it just pick up from where 10.6.8 left off or will I have to start again?
Thanks,
David

Sadly, after a few successful backups, the same old folder message came roaring back.
Console says:
11/8/11 11:39:48.506 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
11/8/11 11:39:48.632 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/VERBATIM BU/Backups.backupdb
11/8/11 11:39:49.456 PM com.apple.backupd: 2011-11-08 23:39:49.431 FindSystemFiles[97145:f07] Looking for system packages
11/8/11 11:39:58.046 PM com.apple.backupd: 2011-11-08 23:39:58.045 FindSystemFiles[97145:f07] Using system path cache v`56'.
11/8/11 11:39:58.454 PM com.apple.backupd: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/VERBATIM BU/Backups.backupdb/RonViMac3h size:37
11/8/11 11:39:58.501 PM com.apple.backupd: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/VERBATIM BU/Backups.backupdb/RonViMac3h size:37
11/8/11 11:40:08.530 PM com.apple.backupd: Backup failed with error: 2
Google says that lots of people are having this problem after upgrading to Lion. Clearly not everyone, but those of us HAVING the Lion problem must have something in common!

How can I access Time Machine backups after doing an erase/reinstall of Mavericks?

I recently did a complete erase of my hard drive and re-installed Mavericks. I chose to start clean rather than use any Time Machine back-ups. I used the same external hard drive for my new Time Machine back-ups. Now I cannot open any back-ups/items prior to the re-install via Time Machine. They are listed along the right hand sidebar in Time Machine (star wars view) but will not open when clicked on.
Some files I can access if I go to the actual backup folder - ex a Pages doc BUT ff I try to open the iPhoto library from the back-up folders stored on the external drive, I get the following error message -
I cannot open the iPhoto "package" to access individual photos from these back-ups.
So - how can I get Time Machine to allow access to the pre-install back-ups??
thnx
Message was edited by: Rant&Raver
corrected some spelling errors!

To restore the library from your TM backup follow the instructions in this screenshot.
If you want to restore all of your Home folder documents you can use Migration Assistant.

Unable to access time machine backup

Due to a crashed disk I am unable to restore from my backup and have lost everything. I can look at the data but I can't restore. I believe it has to do with the user account.
in the account section I am logged in as Administrator with the name Daniel McCarter which appears to have a space between the first and last name.
Underneath that is my correct email address.
when I look at the Backup the name of it is Daniel's iMac
Any help with straightening the out would be appreciated
Dan

The right thing to do would have been to use Setup Assistant to restore the data: Move your data to a new Mac - Apple Support
If you have some reason not to want to do that, see below.
While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.
If you need to restore from a backup of the hidden user Library folder, first select a snapshot, then press shift-command-G. A Go to Folder dialog will open. In it, you'll enter the path to the folder. The dialog will help you by automatically completing the parts of the path when you start to type them.
The path begins with slash character ("/"). Enter that. The rest of the parts will be separated by slashes.
The next part is the date and time of the current snapshot. Enter a "2", and the rest of the date should be filled in automatically. Press the right-arrow key to jump to the end of the path. Enter a slash to start the next part.
Next is the name of the volume (usually "Macintosh HD" unless you gave it a different name.) Start to type that, then jump to the end and enter a slash.
The next part is "Users", followed by a slash.
Next is your (short) user name, which is also the name of your home folder.
Finally, enter "Library", then press return. You should now be in the Library folder. From there you can get around as in the Finder.

How to access Time Machine backups after using migration assistant?

Can someone please help me with a TM issue.
My HD died so I fitted a new one. I figured that I would do a clean install rather than use TM to bring across a whole bunch of 5 year old junk and Aps that all broke after the Leopard -Snow Leopard -Lion -Mountain Lion upgrades.
Installed 10.8.2 Mountain Lion, no issues. Then used TM to drag and drop all the Applications I actually wanted, still good. Then used Migration assistant to bring in the remainder of the settings, documents, mail etc. For some reason you cannot migrate to the current default user so you have to create a new user profile which I did. New profile was great so I deleted the other profile created at install that was pretty much blank.
At this stage everything looks awesome but I noticed a video clip was missing in a Final Cut project so I went back into TM to retrieve it. Now, all the documents in my old user profile in TM have a little no entry symbol on them and I do not have permission to look at those files.
It looks as though I am now being treated as someone else on a different machine and no doubt TM will continue to work from this point on but how do I tell it that there is just one user on this machine and I want access to all the historic backups too?
Any advice will be gratefully received.

Many thanks for your response Mende,
I am trying to specifically NOT do a full TM restore because I have some issues with some programs that I cannot delete. I wanted a fresh start but from what I understand the TM will bring back everything as it was, including all the corrupt system files. Fixing the TM permissions would be the preferable option.
(I attempted to make a windows partition on my system once, thinking it would make some sort of clever fake-windows desktop supported by Mac coding. It actually wanted me to do a full windows 7 install on the partition with windows install disks so I cancelled the process. Because it was a partial install I have not been able to uninstall the modifications and my system was crashing regularly due to some sort of stray code).
Just out of interest, if your OSX install is perfectly good, will TM use that or will it still take your OSX from the TM backup?
Apart from that one stray file, my system is now super clean and faster than ever... but maybe there are still some things missing that I haven't noticed yet.

Unable to access time machine backups after upgrade

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