Time Machine useless with Yosemite should I ?

[Lodesman]

As Time Machine is useless under Yosemite 10.10.1 in that it makes hourly backups but none of these are accessible for restore (restore key greyed out) should I bite the bullet, switch TM off, delete all my backups off my external HDD and start again.

Do you think this will enable TM to work again ?

I don't think I have anything vital in my backups anyway.

Or should I wait until something/anything issues from Apple.

Any advice, as always, is welcome.

 

[Partron22]

continuum malfunction

switch TM off, delete all my backups off my external HDD and start again.

Do you think this will enable TM to work again ?

Didn't work for me when I tryed it.
I'm currently relying on weekly SuperDuper! backups, and will continue to do so until, and even after Apple exterminates the vermin which infest their time-stream.

 

[SaSaSushi]

As Time Machine is useless under Yosemite 10.10.1 in that it makes hourly backups but none of these are accessible for restore (restore key greyed out)

I have a different issue with TM in Yosemite. I do get a restore button, but I can't move back in time using the Star Wars interface unless I first select the Macintosh HD folder in Finder and scroll back in time from there. That works.

Does selecting the Macintosh HD folder cause your restore button to reappear by any chance?

 

[liya1201]

I have a different issue with TM in Yosemite. I do get a restore button, but I can't move back in time using the Star Wars interface unless I first select the Macintosh HD folder in Finder and scroll back in time from there. That works.

Does selecting the Macintosh HD folder cause your restore button to reappear by any chance?

I second SaSaSushi. I almost deleted the TM because I can only scroll back to October 2014. It took me quite a while to figure out that I actually can only go back to earlier time points from the root level (aka Macintosh HD).

 

[jbarley]

I'm not sure if Yosemite TM is buggy or if Apple has designed it this way.
It is not as easy to navigate as earlier versions that's for sure, but like others, with a little perseverance I've also found that although cumbersome, it is still functional.
The fact that Apple did not fix it in the recent update makes me think that while on the surface TM appears broken, maybe it's a new Apple 'feature'.

 

[Lodesman]

Does selecting the Macintosh HD folder cause your restore button to reappear by any chance?

Opening the Macintosh HD folder and then selecting Time Machine on the menu bar at the top of the screen does NOT give me a Restore button (unless I am not doing something correctly).

It was such a useful and easy method of backing up before Yosemite.

 

[gr8tfly]

What in particular are you attempting to restore? Just having a folder ("Macintosh HD") open won't work (and never has, that I know of). You always need to select a file or folder.

For what it's worth, I just entered TM myself, using a single backup that dates back to 2011, and I'm able to select any date/time, click on an item, and then can use either the Restore button or the action in the tool bar (they're enabled). It seems noticeably more responsive than Mavericks (I hadn't really entered TM until tonight). The drive is in a FW800 MacAlly case, though that shouldn't make a difference.

If you are trying to restore a complete volume from TM, the only way to do that is by booting into Recovery HD, or starting the Installer (which will restart), or booting to a separate bootable volume of the Yosemite installer (like a USB drive).

(Currently running the public version of 10.10.1.)


Edit: well, even though I had no problem using Macintosh HD, I'm finding some oddities when starting from, say, "Documents". It starts out looking like there are no older backuos, but if I navigate up to Macintosh HD, then back down to my Documents folder, the past becomes clear, so to speak. Then, I tried going over to Desktop via sidebar, which looked ok, then back to Documents, I again lost the past. Going back up the hierarchy, then back to Documents, and I was able to regain the past. So, yea, something not quite right, but far from non-functional, especially with no starting folder upon entry to TM (it defaults to Desktop, and works properly). For the most part, TM worked fine.

Some of what I'm seeing could be due to such a large (time-wise) TM backup, which contains at least a few full backups which used to be triggered upon changing machines or drives. Between 2011 and 2013, I had changed internal drives a couple of times (more space, then SSD), before changing machines to the rMBP a I have now.

At least the fan-revving star-field has retired. While cool looking, and serving its purpose in separating user environments, I always felt it was such a waste of power. It also made remote troubleshooting by screen sharing a less than "stellar" experience.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Examine the picture I attached. Depending on how long the text of the month/time is, the UI cuts off the text - in some cases, this makes it hard or impossible to tell what time (AM/PM). I've reported this during the betas, but I guess Apple didn't deem it important enough. In my picture, it says 3:02 AM, but the "AM" is cut off; you can barely see the A. This would make things harder for people with visual disabilities, or elderly eyes.

Definitely a bad UI decision in this specific case. The Mavericks and earlier TM UI would have the text of the day/time under the Finder window, not on the side. A much better choice, methinks.

 

[Lodesman]

What in particular are you attempting to restore?

At the moment, nothing. I really want to have the ability to restore as before in Mavericks without having to jump through hoops to do so.

There seem to be a number of differing issues with regard to Time Machine - I wonder if Apple are interested - they never seem to respond to anything.

Mind you, if they did, they would need a huge department just fielding queries.

 

[ItWasNotMe]

I'm not sure if Yosemite TM is buggy or if Apple has designed it this way.
It is not as easy to navigate as earlier versions that's for sure, but like others, with a little perseverance I've also found that although cumbersome, it is still functional.
The fact that Apple did not fix it in the recent update makes me think that while on the surface TM appears broken, maybe it's a new Apple 'feature'.

Even after the 10.10.1 'update', its seriously, seriously buggy especially if you are using it to backup external drives.

Apple appears to have taken a very solid implementation in Mavericks and re-written from scratch, making speed more important than having a robust backup. Result is riddled with errors.

 

[gr8tfly]

Examine the picture I attached. Depending on how long the text of the month/time is, the UI cuts off the text - in some cases, this makes it hard or impossible to tell what time (AM/PM). I've reported this during the betas, but I guess Apple didn't deem it important enough. In my picture, it says 3:02 AM, but the "AM" is cut off; you can barely see the A. This would make things harder for people with visual disabilities, or elderly eyes.

Definitely a bad UI decision in this specific case. The Mavericks and earlier TM UI would have the text of the day/time under the Finder window, not on the side. A much better choice, methinks.

I didn't see this on my system, however I am using 24hr format. If I make the folder window wider (there is a max TM will allow), I don't get any clipping, but if I were AM/PM, I can see there wouldn't be enough room. I don't really want to change my time format, but I would hope it would make the folder window narrower (and I guess by your screen shot it doesn't). It's a glitch. Report it through Feedback (or Feedback Assistant if you are in the Public Seed program). In any event, it doesn't render TM unusable - just annoying.


update to my previous post:
After doing a repair disk on my internal drive (the one being backed up with TM), I no longer have any trouble starting at any folder (Desktop, Documents, etc.). They open, and have a working timeline, without needing to do any fussing about changing paths as I wrote above. I don't have any way of knowing whether the disk repair or simply restarting OS X fixed the odd behavior. Next time I see it (hopefully not), I will just restart and see what happens. I will file a Feedback Assistant report though.

 

[jms969]

I had to move to carbon copy cloner to do backups TM is completely borked!!!

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Report it through Feedback (or Feedback Assistant if you are in the Public Seed program).

I did. Multiple times. When the first public beta came out, it was one of the first things I reported. Still no fix since around July.