Time Machine advice

[RebornTheGame]

I am a complete OS newbie.

My TM stopped making successful back ups to my TC on the 7th. Concurrently my Finder has been 'Not Responding' and generally locking up programs and tasks.

I have tried a few suggestions from a previous thread (clearing cache, checking rights, uninstalling pathfinder, etc), but despite the very patient and generous support, none of it has resolved the problems.

So I have decided to do a TM roll back to prior to the problems.

I assume my reminders, notes and contacts will be updated from the Cloud (right?).

To restore the documents I have edited since the 7th, should I copy my documents folder to my external drive?

To keep my Outlook emails, I assume I should do a pst export to my external drive... right

Any advice or suggestions?

How hard is a roll back like this to do?

 

[Macman45]

I think I\d try and sort out the other issues before you roll back.

Have you tried:

Disk Permission and verification:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

An PRAM Re-set:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

If these both fail to correct the problem. try an SMC re-set:


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964


You can also point the Mac back towards the Time Capsule backup device by opening time machine in system preferences and choosing the disk again. If all that fails to help then a clean installation of OSX might be a better way to go. You can then reinstate the files you need from the backup disk.

 

[RebornTheGame]

Many thanks MacMan45.

Yes, we checked Disk Verification and Permission, but I have just done this again to be sure... all green.

We also tried a PRAM re set and a SMC re set... I will try them again now.

Before doing a clean re-install I will still need to make a manual copy of the Documents folder and the pst, because my last time machine is 3 days old.

My only reason for preferring using TM was because I have a number of Hazel and Outlook rules I didn't want to have to redo, and quite a few apps like Divvy, CleanMyMac, ClipboardHistory, I was hoping to avoid setting up again. (I haven't installed any new apps recently).

 

[justperry]

Many thanks MacMan45.

Yes, we checked Disk Verification and Permission, but I have just done this again to be sure... all green.

We also tried a PRAM re set and a SMC re set... I will try them again now.

Before doing a clean re-install I will still need to make a manual copy of the Documents folder and the pst, because my last time machine is 3 days old.

My only reason for preferring using TM was because I have a number of Hazel and Outlook rules I didn't want to have to redo, and quite a few apps like Divvy, CleanMyMac, ClipboardHistory, I was hoping to avoid setting up again. (I haven't installed any new apps recently).

Hi RebornTheGame

I just want to warn you, avoid CleanMyMac, that might have been your problem!!

 

[RebornTheGame]

Damn! And I thought it was a smart app to install. I have had it on my machine for a few months. Will uninstalling it now help?

 

[justperry]

Damn! And I thought it was a smart app to install. I have had it on my machine for a few months. Will uninstalling it now help?

No.

Five Mac maintenance myths

 

[RebornTheGame]

No.

Five Mac maintenance myths

I obviously haven't gotten over all my Windows habits / instincts. What do you recommend as the best way to uninstall it?

I cannot remember when it last prompted me to 'clean my Mac', I don't think it was that long ago. Could it had done something that has caused this mayhem?

I guess / hope that a rollback / os reinstall would fix the problem?

The main reason I am so underwhelmed by a reinstall is because I have Win7 on a partition and so many apps / app settings that I am not looking forward to having to recreate.

 

[justperry]

I obviously haven't gotten over all my Windows habits / instincts. What do you recommend as the best way to uninstall it?

I cannot remember when it last prompted me to 'clean my Mac', I don't think it was that long ago. Could it had done something that has caused this mayhem?

I guess / hope that a rollback / os reinstall would fix the problem?

The main reason I am so underwhelmed by a reinstall is because I have Win7 on a partition and so many apps / app settings that I am not looking forward to having to recreate.

Just don't use it, programs like these should be avoided for maintenance, OS X doesn't need it, you probably have read the link now.
It won't harm your mac if you just leave it alone.
Only when you get into trouble you should do maintenance, and many if not all can be done without programs, for instance, this program cleans your trash, you can do that yourself, empty caches, simple as I told you before.

Oh, forget windows with all its problems.
And don't install a virus scanner, if you want to scan you can download clamav and do it manually instead of crappy virus scanners which are always on.

 

[switon]

RE: Wow!...

Hi guys,

Is this yet another "Clean My Mac" induced problem? I've read that a number of others have had troubles after using "Clean My Mac". (And, of course, it has been reported that there were/are also hacked versions of "Clean My Mac" still lurking on the Internet that provide a backdoor for hackers.)

RebornTheGame: If I were you I would follow justperry's and Macman45's advice and do a "clean install" in order to be certain of removing all vestiges of Clean My Mac. Do not roll back to a TM backup that has Clean My Mac on it. You might use your TM backup to recover your Documents and your work, but do not use it to recover your /Users/gary/Library and subdirectories or any of the system directories such as /Library, /System, and /Applications; and /bin, /private, /sbin, /usr, /var, /dev, /net, etc.

Good luck,
Switon

 

[GGJstudios]

I obviously haven't gotten over all my Windows habits / instincts. What do you recommend as the best way to uninstall it?

You don't need to do a clean install unless you want to, as the following method will remove all traces of CleanMyMac. The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:

Best way to FULLY DELETE a program​

I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. Here's a recent example. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.

Five Mac maintenance myths​

 

[RebornTheGame]

My sincere thanks to you all for this terrific advice. I will keep you posted on how i go with resolving this.

Best

Gary

 

[switon]

RE: clean or not to clean, that is the question...

Hi RebornTheGame,

I see that GGJstudios recommends that you don't need to do a "clean install", and he/she is the expert so you should probably follow his/her advice.

On the other hand, if it were I, I would probably still do a "clean install". Why? Well, since there have been reports of hacked versions of Clean My Mac, you might have picked up one of the hacked versions and this hacked version might have added a worm or backdoor that is well hidden and thus not readily removed by the "FULLY DELETE a program" method. A clean install, on the other hand, would definitely remove all vestiges of the Clean My Mac, including a hacked version of Clean My Mac. Okay, I'll admit it, in theory even a clean install may not remove all vestiges since a hacked Clean My Mac could have also modified the firmware that would not necessarily be replaced during a clean install. But I think this is unlikely.

Regards,
Switon

 

[RebornTheGame]

On the other hand, if it were I, I would probably still do a "clean install". Why? Well, since there have been reports of hacked versions of Clean My Mac, you might have picked up one of the hacked versions and this hacked version might have added a worm or backdoor that is well hidden and thus not readily removed by the "FULLY DELETE a program" method.

Many thanks Switon, but I downloaded CleanMyMac directly from the supplier and purchased a license directly from them.

 

[switon]

RE: spoofs...

Many thanks Switon, but I downloaded CleanMyMac directly from the supplier and purchased a license directly from them.

Are you positive? The DNSChanger servers were recently taken down by the FBI. It is possible, in theory, that the Clean My Mac's website was spoofed and that you entered your data on a hackers site instead. I don't know if this was the case for Clean My Mac, but it definitely has been the case for other well-known websites, including Amazon, Google, and various banks. So it is possible that Clean My Mac also suffered from spoofing --- actually, I think it unlikely because there is much less money to be stolen on a spoofed Clean My Mac website than on a spoofed Amazon website, so I doubt hackers would waste their time with Clean My Mac - unless they were amazingly clever hackers who were trying to stay "under the Internet radar", so to speak. The DNSChanger malware reputedly setup millions of spoofed websites, not all of them could have been Amazons or Googles.

In addition, several well-known hacker malware programs did precisely this: they infected a user's machine putting up windows saying that the user's machine was infected and directing the user to a spoofed website that downloaded, for a price, an app that removed the original malware. There is nothing quite like creating your own market, I alway say.

Switon

 

[RebornTheGame]

Issue resolved

Thanks again to everyone for the support. The issue appears to have been a corrupted TM backup. My TC was the other side of a network switch and at some point it error'ed and that caused the corruption. Now that we have deleted that backup and started a new one, all seems to be well.

I have moved my TC to a direct network connection.

Nevertheless I have completely deleted all traces of CleanMyMac.

It seems other people have been reporting similar issues.