Cannot browse other backups with Time machine

[jagooch]

When option-click the Time Machine icon, and I select "browse other backup disks" option, it opens a windows that shows the backups for my current system and the other system which is the one that I want to browse.

However regardless of which one I select to open, it always opens the backup for my current system. Is this a limitation of Time Machine? I'm pretty confident that if I was doing a full restore of my system that it would let me select the other machine's backup as the source, but it won't let me browse it.

I can open the Time Machine "share" in Finder and view the sparse bundle files for both backups just find. They also both show up in Time Machine "select disks"

I'm not prompted for credentials or anything else. No errors or other indications of access problems.

 

[jagooch]

I gave up and did an old fashioned backup by copied my user folder to a network share.

I'm selling my iMac, and want to use the Time Machine back to selectively restore files to the 15" Macbook that I'm getting in a few days. I'll just use the file that I backed up on the network share for the restore.