Time Machine Backup not available in Yosemite

[Lodesman]

Since upgrading to Yosemite I see that my time machine backups on my external HDD are showing as 'other' on my lacie hdd.

Entering Time machine I can see all the backups but the restore button is greyed out.

Any idea why ?

(I'm not looking to actually restore anything - just curious as to why I cannot).

 

[KlytusLord]

I have the same issue, and on the Apple forums there are several posts about the problem.

So far I have not found a solution to the issue. You can restore specific files using Finder, but the actual Time Machine UI seems to be locked for some reason.

 

[Lodesman]

Thanks for that, I will have to wait for another update to enable restore in Time Machine.

Interesting that Time Machine is still making hourly backups but cannot be accessed.

 

[SaSaSushi]

There do, in fact, appear to be big problems with Time Machine in Yosemite. I am unable to navigate back in the Star Wars interface at all except if I start from the Macintosh HD and drill down to the file that I want from there. That works. That said, I hope Apple fixes these problems in 10.10.1.

 

[Risco]

Time Machine is completely screwed in Yosemite. Nothing to do with setup, as brand new retina clean install and brand new time capsule! Sometimes I can browse backups, others not at all...

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Time Machine is completely screwed in Yosemite. Nothing to do with setup, as brand new retina clean install and brand new time capsule! Sometimes I can browse backups, others not at all...

Completely agree with the screwed up comment, heres a couple of examples:

1. Can delete backups when it should not. If you dismount a disk, then when you remount it the space required calculation includes everything on the disk, not just the most recent delta - can result in some/all previous backups being deleted when they need not be (see my posts in other threads). In Mavericks it correctly calculated the requirement as just the delta.

2. May only partially back-up a file. If you copy a file to a location that TM is to backup and the backup is still in progress when TM starts, it backs up some random portion and completes the backup next time it runs. Example; I was copying a 45 GB file, TM started, backed up part of the file, paused until the Finder copy had completed then backed a bit more and stopped. Result was it had backed up 3GB of the 45GB. When TM next ran it copied the complete 45GB. In Mavericks it would (fairly aggressively) backup the whole file in the first run.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Completely agree with the screwed up comment, heres a couple of examples:

1. Can delete backups when it should not. If you dismount a disk, then when you remount it the space required calculation includes everything on the disk, not just the most recent delta - can result in some/all previous backups being deleted when they need not be (see my posts in other threads). In Mavericks it correctly calculated the requirement as just the delta.

2. May only partially back-up a file. If you copy a file to a location that TM is to backup and the backup is still in progress when TM starts, it backs up some random portion and completes the backup next time it runs. Example; I was copying a 45 GB file, TM started, backed up part of the file, paused until the Finder copy had completed then backed a bit more and stopped. Result was it had backed up 3GB of the 45GB. When TM next ran it copied the complete 45GB. In Mavericks it would (fairly aggressively) backup the whole file in the first run.

3. History will contain only the partial backup Follows on from Item 2 - above. Now having looked at the TM history - the earliest timed backup is still the partial file; the later ones contain the full 45GB. So in 24 hours time once thinning has happened I will be left with a useless backup of part of a file.

(NB quoted myself rather then edited for clarity)

 

[Partron22]

Time Machine is completely screwed in Yosemite

Agree.
I have it set up on an internal, Apple, drive.
Reformatted that after Yosemite update so as to keep things simple.
Time Machine dutifully made the first backup, and continues hourly, but it seems I can only access those backups in 1 out of 10 tries.

That is not useful.
Fortunately, I also backup w SuperDuper!.app, but Time Machine used to totally rock for hourly backup of projects I'm working on.
No more.

 

[Risco]

Agree.
I have it set up on an internal, Apple, drive.
Reformatted that after Yosemite update so as to keep things simple.
Time Machine dutifully made the first backup, and continues hourly, but it seems I can only access those backups in 1 out of 10 tries.

That is not useful.
Fortunately, I also backup w SuperDuper!.app, but Time Machine used to totally rock for hourly backup of projects I'm working on.
No more.

Yup, this is exactly my issue. Only one in every so many times can I access.

 

[Partron22]

Yup, this is exactly my issue. Only one in every so many times can I access.

For some reason, updating to Yosemite changed the name of my mac from Jonquil Sunrise to Jonquil Sunrise (5).
Changing this back (in sharing prefs) appears to have fixed the problem for me. I'll have to keep an eye on it now, for at least a few weeks. Software made to minimize the damage of screwups, should not itself screw up like this!

 

[Lodesman]

I'm relieved that others are having similar difficulties, notwithstanding that I am sorry they are experiencing problems, I just hope that Apple gets things sorted out soon.

What happened to "it just works" ?

I appreciate that OSX is very complex but to release it with such a glaring problem is nuts. Strange it did not crop up in any of the Beta releases.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Agree.
I have it set up on an internal, Apple, drive.
Reformatted that after Yosemite update so as to keep things simple.
Time Machine dutifully made the first backup, and continues hourly, but it seems I can only access those backups in 1 out of 10 tries.

That is not useful.
Fortunately, I also backup w SuperDuper!.app, but Time Machine used to totally rock for hourly backup of projects I'm working on.
No more.

"Hourly backups for the last 24 hours" ... sort of...

For me anyway its deleting backups that are less than 24 hours old; so it ran at 09.35 today; deleted yesterdays backup timed at 10.15 - not a huge issue but shows how slack the development/testing has been

Also, if you look in the console log, with the introduction of Yosemite OS X has started reporting that Time Machine is using XPC interprocess calls which "...result in unpredictable behaviour..."
Now whoever coded that message thought it was of some importance, the TM developer that used it either Didn't look/Couldn't care/Apple disagreed with itself.

 

[Partron22]

"Hourly backups for the last 24 hours" ... sort of...

Now it's flaky/crashy again.
My Console shows me the same "unpredictable behavior" warnings as you see.

Guess I'll turn Time Machine off and wait for at least a semi-official fix; remembering to be especially careful about manual backups until that comes out.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Now it's flaky/crashy again.
My Console shows me the same "unpredictable behavior" warnings as you see.

Guess I'll turn Time Machine off and wait for at least a semi-official fix; remembering to be especially careful about manual backups until that comes out.

I primarily use a different automated system to backup, paid for and has not had bug/failure that has impacted me in seven years; using TM mainly for any intra-day recovery

However, this afternoon every time TM runs it has thinned (deleted) precisely one backup completely ignoring the time difference (since when was 19:49 yesterday more than 24 hours before 16:10 today !!).

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Agree.
I have it set up on an internal, Apple, drive.
Reformatted that after Yosemite update so as to keep things simple.
Time Machine dutifully made the first backup, and continues hourly, but it seems I can only access those backups in 1 out of 10 tries.

That is not useful.
Fortunately, I also backup w SuperDuper!.app, but Time Machine used to totally rock for hourly backup of projects I'm working on.
No more.

Yup, this is exactly my issue. Only one in every so many times can I access.

If you haven't already, send them feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback/

 

[Partron22]

If you haven't already, send them feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Yes, however the 10.10.1 fix is likely at least 5 weeks off, if it happens then, and I don't feel like waiting.

I reset network prefs as described in this thread, with additions as described here: Fix Wi-Fi Problems in OS X Yosemite (write down or screenshot your router and network settings before doing this. Some of them, such as DNS servers will be lost.)
Also, based on rumor, turned off "wake for network access" in Energy Saver panel. That's supposed to prevent that renaming MyMac to MyMac (2) nonsense, which I have seen on my Mac.

This gives me a Time Machine that produces reliable hourly backups, that I can access, until I log onto another networked Mac. Then I can see the current time machine backup, but all the earlier versions come up as an empty window, with the spinning "waiting" indicator.
Getting out of Time Machine and either disconnecting the networked device, or turning off Wi-Fi subsequently gives me access to my Time Machine archives.

It's a bit baffling why Time Machine is waiting on a network device here, since everything that's being backed up is on local machine. However, at least I seem to have some semblence of intra-day backup working again.
---
Added after several hours w a networked Mac connected:
It seems that the networked machined interferes w hourly backup creation.
I've now a hole of several hours in the backup stack because I left a connection to a remote computer open.

 

[antifocus]

I have exactly the same problem...I even clean reinstalled the os. I also suffered the "camera not connected" bug.
Overall I am not impressed by Yosemite.

 

[johnnnw]

The backups refused to work for me so I have stopped relying on TM for anything, full of bugs right now.

 

[JoeFkling]

just purchased a brand new time capsule and I cannot even access the drive. I can see it but cannot access it. I can with older macbook but no on imac with Yosemite. I have sent feedback, now we wait for a fix. Months and months.

 

[Azzin]

just purchased a brand new time capsule and I cannot even access the drive. I can see it but cannot access it. I can with older macbook but no on imac with Yosemite. I have sent feedback, now we wait for a fix. Months and months.

What did AppleCare say when you rang them?

 

[ItWasNotMe]

The backups refused to work for me so I have stopped relying on TM for anything, full of bugs right now.

Agree that its full of bugs, glad its not my primary backup mechanism. This is the list of those that I've experienced:

• On remount of disk, uses full size (including data already backed-up and not needing backup) rather than delta
• Backs up partial files if large copy is running in parallel with the backup (use to continue running and backup the whole file)
• Hit or miss whether you can see backup history through Time Machine UI
• Deletes backups <24 hours old
• Time of next backup in preferences bears little relation to time it runs (can be +- 30 minutes either way)
• Skips backups randomly (used to produce message if skipped because already backed-up in previous 10 minutes)
• Unpredictable behaviour messages in log

New but useless 'feature'

• Thins backups in reverse order so deletes the latest backup first

All newly introduced with Yosemite.

 

[JoeFkling]

What did AppleCare say when you rang them?

I haven't had the time to sit on hold yet. I'll probably give them a call this weekend.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Now it's flaky/crashy again.
My Console shows me the same "unpredictable behavior" warnings as you see.

Guess I'll turn Time Machine off and wait for at least a semi-official fix; remembering to be especially careful about manual backups until that comes out.

An example of unpredictable behaviour?

30/10/2014 09:02:16.364 com.apple.backupd-helper[46]: Attempt to use XPC with a MachService that has HideUntilCheckIn set. This will result in unpredictable behavior: com.apple.backupd.status.xpc
30/10/2014 09:02:18.051 com.apple.backupd[823]: Starting automatic backup
30/10/2014 09:02:24.325 com.apple.backupd[823]: Backing up to /dev/disk2s2: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb
30/10/2014 09:03:44.257 com.apple.backupd-helper[46]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup: Backup already running

So its not going to start running because its already running, or does Apple have some semantic difference between "automatic" and "scheduled"

What utter rubbish

 

[Partron22]

What utter rubbish

Yes, thought I had things going well by turning off WI-FI, but now it's become unreliable even after that extreme measure.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

Yes, thought I had things going well by turning off WI-FI, but now it's become unreliable even after that extreme measure.

I'm watching it like a hawk; its taken me exactly a week to get everything backed up using TM. I was going to say back to where I was, but of course I'm not as all the TM backups older than a week have gone. Glad I use something else as my primary.

Couple more things I noticed today that are not on earlier post.

1. Last thing I added to TM was my movies; I was intermittently looking at preferences while playing a movie. TM ran for about 40 minutes then just stalled. As soon as I quit the movie it started again. May explain why some 'hourly' backups are missing if it waits for an open file to close.

2. More trivially, the semantics of some of the log messages are wrong; in particular the one that states " No post-backup thinning needed: no expired backups exist" - what it actually seems to mean is that there may be some NOW but there were none when TM started so there won't be any thinning.

More I think about it more certain I am that Apple completely rewrote it and IMHO used the wrong principles.

• What user wants from a backup is security
• What Apple seem to have designed/coded for is raw speed