Cannot browse time machine backups?

[Risco]

This is driving me nuts, I cannot browse any of my backups. It only lets me view the desktop backups, all other folders have a faded red icon as opposed to bright red.

Using a WD MyBook Live and 2014 Macbook Pro Retina 15. I have redone the backup many times now, and every time I am unable to access the folders? What gives?

 

[iubhounds]

I just checked my TM backup. It when it opened it was Desktop but I was able to open all of my folders without issues.

 

[Weaselboy]

This is driving me nuts, I cannot browse any of my backups. It only lets me view the desktop backups, all other folders have a faded red icon as opposed to bright red.

Using a WD MyBook Live and 2014 Macbook Pro Retina 15. I have redone the backup many times now, and every time I am unable to access the folders? What gives?

This is just a guess, but in the past when OS updates have rolled out, some of these third party network storage devices required firmware updates to operate correctly again. So I am wondering is Yosemite changed something about the the way networked TM backups run that broke your WD?

You might check with WD to see if they are aware of this and have a firmware update coming.

My Yosemite TM backups to a Apple Time Capsule seem okay, so I don't think it is an issue with Yosemite directly.

 

[Risco]

This is just a guess, but in the past when OS updates have rolled out, some of these third party network storage devices required firmware updates to operate correctly again. So I am wondering is Yosemite changed something about the the way networked TM backups run that broke your WD?

You might check with WD to see if they are aware of this and have a firmware update coming.

My Yosemite TM backups to a Apple Time Capsule seem okay, so I don't think it is an issue with Yosemite directly.

Yeah this is my thinking, currently I am removing file vault to at least see if it is causing an issue.

 

[gc916]

This is driving me nuts, I cannot browse any of my backups. It only lets me view the desktop backups, all other folders have a faded red icon as opposed to bright red.

Using a WD MyBook Live and 2014 Macbook Pro Retina 15. I have redone the backup many times now, and every time I am unable to access the folders? What gives?

Risco,

Although I haven't installed Yosemite yet (primarily due to all the complaints about WiFi connectivity), I recently had a similar problem with Time Machine backups to my WD MyBookLive Duo, which is connected wirlessly to my Late 2011 MacBook Pro. Whenever I entered TM, only the local snapshots were available; all red backups to the WD drive were grayed out.

I don't mean to offend you...this may be an oversimplification, and/or you may have tried already, but have you rebooted the WD drive? I ask because WD tech support suggested this as a first step, and it worked for me.

 

[Risco]

gc916 - I have indeed tried to reboot numerous times.

I just removed FileVault and can now access all my backups. Therefore something is going screwy. As much as it pains me, I am going to have to enable encryption on both time machine and HD by the looks of it.

Have you guys got encryption enabled on your time machines?

 

[gc916]

I did have FileVault enabled at the time I had the problem with the TM backups, but have since disabled it in preparation for the Yosemite upgrade. Probably unnecessary, I know, but I don't want to take any chances.

Edit: Sorry, I misread your question. I didn't have encryption enabled on the Time Machine backups.

 

[Weaselboy]

gc916 - I have indeed tried to reboot numerous times.

I just removed FileVault and can now access all my backups. Therefore something is going screwy. As much as it pains me, I am going to have to enable encryption on both time machine and HD by the looks of it.

Have you guys got encryption enabled on your time machines?

Hmm.... must be something new with Yosemite? FV never mattered with TM backups before. I would be surprised if encrypting the backups changed this though. Worth a try I guess.

I always encrypt the backups. I figure there is not point in only encrypting the Mac is they can steal my backups and get the data that way.

 

[Risco]

Hmm.... must be something new with Yosemite? FV never mattered with TM backups before. I would be surprised if encrypting the backups changed this though. Worth a try I guess.

I always encrypt the backups. I figure there is not point in only encrypting the Mac is they can steal my backups and get the data that way.

Well encryption screws it up again, only works if I manually browse for the folders.

 

[Risco]

Right so got a time capsule, worked fine a day or so and now I cannot browse again.

Wtf???

 

[Weaselboy]

Right so got a time capsule, worked fine a day or so and now I cannot browse again.

Wtf???

Well crap.

My Time Capsule seems to be working okay with Yosemite, but I have read some other threads of people having trouble.

So you unboxed a new Time Capsule and pointed TM at it and backup up and you still can't look at the backups when you enter TM?

 

[Risco]

Well crap.

My Time Capsule seems to be working okay with Yosemite, but I have read some other threads of people having trouble.

So you unboxed a new Time Capsule and pointed TM at it and backup up and you still can't look at the backups when you enter TM?

Yup, cannot use the favourites to browse. Decided to do another clean install then try and back up again.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Don't let it get too full !!

Yup, cannot use the favourites to browse. Decided to do another clean install then try and back up again.

Slightly off-topic, but there are also TM problems in its space calculations

I have four external disks, one of which is dedicated to Time Machine, the other contain data. I backup a selection of data from each of these to the TM disk, and have exclusions on the internal disk as well. Not all disks are connected all the time. All worked fine in Mavericks

I upgraded from Mavericks to Yosemite.

In Yosemite, first occasion on which Time Machine runs after my photos disk has been mounted; TMs required space calculation includes data already backed up not just the delta. However, when it runs the backup it only copies the delta. Example:
Will copy (20.5 MB) from Macintosh HD
Will copy (Zero KB) from Photo Masters
Found 24224 files (273.06 GB) needing backup
295.78 GB required...
Copied 49 items (20.5 MB) from Macintosh HD
Copied 8 items (11.6 MB) from Photo Masters
Created new backup...

The 295.78 GB is the total already existing on the TM disk, the 11.6 MB was the correct delta.

Why is this important?

A. If the incorrect calculation is more that the free space on the TM drive then it will start deleting backups - so all my Mavericks backups were destroyed
B. TM won't auto-delete the most recent backup, so if the incorrect calculation plus the size of the latest pre-existing backup is greater than the size of the TM volume then you have to initialise the TM disk and start again - goodbye backups and I'm now into day three of rebuilding the first backup under Yosemite

Or how about this for arithmetic...

247KB of files to back up - 450GB required ; only 30MB actually backed up