Problem With Time Machine

[Dreambird]

I'm sorry to be back again but I've run into an issue with my Time Machine drive that I really need help with, please. Info I really don't want to bother you with so just a short note... severe health problems at this time just leave me unable to effectively deal with this... I cannot afford to be w/o a reliable back up method and Time Machine is the best method at this time.

I use a USB external physical volume as Time Machine... I call the volume (drive) Back In Time and I have directed Time Machine in from the preferences for it to use this volume and it accepted that. It apparently does backups as normal to it and if I open it from the sidebar in Finder the backups are there and are indeed backups of my internal drive. However when I choose to enter Time Machine I see backups of only my Home directory not what is on the Back In Time drive. Furthermore when I go to /Volumes there are 3 drives in there called Back In Time, Mobile Backups and an alias to X-Drive which is my internal drive. Mobile Backups is a mysterious volume with apparently 10 complete backups of my internal drive all created 2021-08-07-"number" so it looks just like a Time Machine volume but only those 10 backups all created yesterday. I have no idea where this volume came from, it's not one I created but it's info says it was created Dec 31, 2000 and modified current time. Format is Unknown (mtmfs). Of course I can't delete it, and I don't know if it's the problem with the drive I use for Time Machine. I do have an external portable USB Flash Drive that I use to back up parts of my Home directory but it is not connected at this time nor is it called Mobile Backups. It's a 2TB drive so it could be used with something like SuperDuper to a point... my internal drive is 500GB so lots of room but I've not used SuperDuper in some time, last time I tried you couldn't make a bootable drive with it but I think that's been rectified, it's been a long time since I tried. I did erase Back In Time and assure in Time Machine prefs that it was selected and accepted and it did make a new first complete backup... and is set to make one every hour as usual. It was doing that even before I decided to erase it and start over but I wouldn't know how to access the backups and restore them as from the menu bar icon to entire Time Machine all I get is backups of my Home directory, not at all what is actually on the drive.

I've also just tried renaming Back In Time to Time-Machine but still when trying to enter Time Machine it shows only my Home directory. However it did make the hourly backup and the mysterious Mobile Backups in /Volumes is gone. So now it only contains Time-Machine and the alias to X-Drive. If I name the drive Time Machine with no dash... it's still the same thing when I try to enter Time Machine. But the mount point changes to Time Machine 1 instead of just Time Machine which I can see by using Disk Utility. Does that matter? I'm guessing it does, but don't know for sure.
I've googled the issue but found nothing helpful.

I really do need to get Time Machine working but have no idea how. I do have screenshots however Firefox will not let me attach them here... it freezes solid. Until I figure out what my sign-in password is for TS so I can use Safari my hands are tied in that regard. Dah! Sorry...  Please help me! I just can't deal with this right now and I'm desperate. If someone can help me with my password I'm happy to come back with the screenshots. Meanwhile... going to bed... I'm exhausted.

[jchuzi]

You can access the TS password in Firefox by the following method:

1. Go to Firefox > Preferences > Privacy & Security
2. Scroll down to Logins & Passwords
3. Click Saved Login...
4. With some luck, your TS login should be there. You can reveal it by clicking the Copy button and/or clicking the eye icon to its right, which will reveal the actual password. Then, you can paste it into Safari.

[Xairbusdriver]

You say TM always opens showing your "Home directory". Do you mean your Home icon/directory (the item in a Finder Sidebar that looks like a little house with your user name beside it)?

What item in a Finder window Sidebar is selected when you open TM? TM should open with whatever is selected in a Finder window. It should open with an exact copy of whatever is showing in the top-most Finder window (if you have more than one Finder window open).

If you can get your TS password out of Firefox, copy it to a new TextEdit window and save it. If you are not using a password manager, you might as well use the most insecure method available. Of course, there is also Keychain...

[Xairbusdriver]

There are two options for changing you TS pw when you can't remember it:
1. Let the Admin (pick one) change your current pw and send it to your email address.
2. Use the "Report to Moderator" link at the bottom of one of your posts to send us what you want your pw to be. Also note which Admin you want to make the change.

Either way, wait for an email from your chosen Admin telling you the change has been made. Many of them have other commitments and are not always up on how to change these passwords.

[Dreambird]

Thank you, Jon... it was indeed there. In fact it was also in the locked file I use for passwords but just didn't even think to look there last night... so at least I can now use Safari to come here. My Firefox is running out of time on El Capitan... it's running on the ESR channel so it gets security updates for awhile yet but it's really glitchy. I hope to upgrade at least to High Sierra soon... I saved the installer when it was still available in the Mac store and it does contain the Contents/Resources so it is definitely complete however from what I see online there "might" be an issue with Apple not signing it anymore so don't know yet if it will run.

Can someone please remind me of the key combo to get a screenshot so I can show everyone what I get when trying to enter Time Machine from the menubar icon? Grab won't work in that instance.

I'll be back in a bit to look over everything posted so far better... I just need a chance to wake up a bit. I really slept in today so it's 12:35PM here.

[Xairbusdriver]

System Prefs is your friend.

Open the Keyboard item in System Prefs, select the "Shortcuts" tab/label.
In the left-hand list looks for "Screenshots" and select it.
In the right-hand box is the list of the five different types of screen shots. Basically shift + command + 3 or 4 or 5. Throw in the control key for the last two.

Get to know System Prefs, there is a lot of extremely useful info in there.

[Dreambird]

Jim, you're right that it will show any item that you highlight in the Finder sidebar but it does the same even when highlighting Time-Machine.

It will pop-up the usual bunch of windows that it normally does but they are all my home directory... the windows are all of my entire home directory... all the folders that it contains and the header of the windows have the name of my Home directory, deekay.

However just now I tried while "in" Time Machine, clicking on various folders in the sidebar that shows there. Upon clicking on my interal drive, X-Drive and then on Time-Machine the top window opened Time-Machine and showed the folder called Backups.backupdb which contains all the backups... so I tried clicking on that, lo and behold it did open and show my Computer name and clicking on that showed all the backups which then organized themselves into the view one should normal get when entering Time Machine! From there I could "surf" them using the up and down arrows to select one... so apparently it "is" working albeit in a round about way. I also tried accessing Time-Machine in recovery mode and they do show there as they should. In recovery mode there is a statement: "Select the Time Machine backup you want to restore. Only complete backup of OS X appear in the list." So I suppose that is reassuring that it is making complete and usable backups. 

Yes, I hear what you're saying about the passwords, I know I should look into a true password manager and probably will. But for now what I use is a locked note in the Notes app here I have listed them all. I locked the note with a strong password, not the best solution but I like it better than Keychain. The ones that save in Firefox can be auto-filled on most sites and it can be locked with a Master Password as well, that one has drawbacks I'm aware of that are serious such as apparently if I signin and use it on a public computer it has a nasty habit of leaving behind info that should be removed when you leave the machine making sure you've gotten rid of your history on it so I never use in on anything but my own machine and iPad. It does produce very secure passwords if only it would not leave them behind somewhere you wouldn't want them to be. The "error" was complained about online quite some time ago so I'm not sure if they've remedied it... but it never has come up to the standard it should.

Thank you for reminding me of the System Prefs. I'll look there.

[Dreambird]

OK... so I got a screenshot of what happens when I select Time-Machine in the Finder sidebar and enter Time Machine from the menubar icon:
Even though "I" have selected Time-Machine in the sidebar before entering this is what it does.

[Dreambird]

From there... while in Time Machine I can click on Time-Machine in the sidebar and browse until I get to X-File in one of the folders... I use the top one and then this is what I get when it finally shows all my backups, which according to what it said while in Recovery Mode are complete backups. In Recovery Mode I don't have to do all the clicking around, it opens as it should there.

[Dreambird]

Anyway, all this came about because my Messages app is still doing some weird things, the latest is new to just the last week. It refuses to load images that my sister attaches to her messages... I get only an icon, BUT if she uses a screenshot of her iPhone it will load that as a jpg image. Any images I attach in messages to her work fine. So I thought to try a restore from a backup before this starting happening which in when entering Time Machine did what it did and gave me a bit of a shock!

Of course I have to say I am not sure an OS restore on my MacBook Pro would solve the problem anyway as it happens on my iPad as well which is not even attached to my laptop or synced with it in quite some time. OS's on both laptop and iPad are as in my signature. On my iPad I can still get up to date versions of Firefox but not of some apps and of course I really need to upgrade to iPad OS 14.something, which I will probably do soon at which point syncing with my laptop will probably not work anyway, at least not by attaching the iPad to the laptop and going through iTunes. My sister has a brand new (almost) iPhone and a spanking new iMac running Big Sur so maybe that is the issue? No clue on my part. But that's what prompted me to look for a restore option through Time Machine.

[Xairbusdriver]

What you are seeing may be the way Mojave (or whatever OS is on that Mac) operated. I can't remember what it may have looked like back then. Especially since I don't remember ever opening TM with the TM volume selected. I don't know why you would do that, you can already see what's in that volume just by using Finder.

The "normal" way I use of TM is to select a file I want to Restore from the TM backup:

• Select a file/folder/app/etc. in a Finder window and then open TM. Now, TM knows where I want to put the backed up item... Finder is already 'pointing' at it, I selected it before I opened TM.
• I now use the 'previous' or 'forward' buttons to select a date that I think/hope is 'good'. This step tells TM what I want to use instead of the item I selected in step 1.
• Lastly, I tell TM to restore the current item (just do it), in the TM display with the backed up item at the place I selected in the Finder window.

You can also use the time/date 'scale on the right-hand side of the screen which is more efficient for going back more than a month or year.

[Dreambird]

It's OS 10.11.6 (El Capitan)...
It definitely doesn't look the way it used... I don't know why but just that "something" along the way has changed. I do have a screenshot of something similar to how it use to look but not exactly as I just can't get it to do that anymore. I've used it to do a full restore when something has gone sideways to go back to a point when I remember it working correctly. I haven't done that for awhile but was contemplating doing it to see if it would help for my Messages "image attachments" not showing issue but have decided against it as I doubt it would help since it's doing the same thing on my iPad for no good reason that I can think of.

What I always did was as you say... I'd open Time Machine in Finder and determine which backup I needed to try... I never had to go really far back, maybe a week or less generally. Once I had decided which backup I wanted I'd make note of it's name on a piece of paper and entire Time Machine through the menubar icon where all the backups would show in a similar way as in the above screenshots but the backups not my home directory which is what it does now no matter what I've selected in the sidebar.

The screenshot I'm attaching shows all the backups in just the front window and selecting one doesn't activate the restore button. After some fiddling around I found I had to browse to my internal drive, X-Drive and then they will show as a cascade as in the screenshot above but STILL selecting the one I want does not activate the restore button. It appears that now I have no choice but to boot into recovery mode and select the one I want to activate a restoration.

I'll get a screenshot for that too if I can. At least in recovery mode it states the list only shows "complete" OS X backups so one can be sure of that. It did take me awhile to figure that out... so I have to admit I simply panicked when the option to restore a backup didn't work as before. My apologies and I am embarrassed that I didn't just reason it out as before... there's no excuse for that as my brain still functions and processes things just fine, it's simply mostly depression setting in due to extreme stress and the brain fog that creates.

Thank you very much for the help! I'll be back with the screenshots shortly.

 

[Dreambird]

Screenshots... you can see that all backups show only in the front window whereas they used to cascade and one used the up/down arrows or whatever. If I choose one here it does not activate the restore button and also a screenshot if I browse the backup I want to an application I wish to restore again selecting it does not activate the restore button. So for me I can't do any sort of restore from Finder anymore. I couldn't get a screenshot in Recovery Mode as that is disabled but I did go through as far as choosing a drive to restore and the restore button appears that it should work if I were to click on Restore. So the final question would be Why can I no longer do a restore from Finder and hopefully it does work in Recovery Mode? I don't know if it would fix anything if I chose to reinstall the OS over what I have but I don't know if I can do that from Recovery Mode as I would think it would install the OS that originally came with the machine which would probably not be a good thing. I do have a copy that I downloaded from the Mac store of the full installer for El Capitan if that would work. I see online that apparently some of these older OS's are no longer signed by Apple so it may fail... I hope not as I still hope to upgrade to High Sierra with the full installer I downloaded and saved. The newest OS is not an option for this machine. It seems apparent that something does still need fixing but I really am a bit stumped about how best to do it. High Sierra would probably be perfect for this machine as it will run that and since the machine still runs like a top that's probably all I'd need until it times out at which point it would be time to think about a new machine perhaps.

[Xairbusdriver]

What I always did was as you say... I'd open Time Machine in Finder and determine which backup I needed to try...

That is not what I said I do. I have never done that. Please re-read what I posted in my reply #10. There are three numbered steps. None include opening the TM backup volume in Finder to "pick a backup date" to use. The whole point of opening TM in its own window AFTER selecting an item to backup in Finder, is to cause TM to indicate there even is a backup of that, particular item in your backups. Then, you can browse the 'pages' or the active date/time 'scale' to pick the one you want to use for the re-store. I cannot see any reason to ever look at the raw TM backup directories, which should never be touched/deleted/moved/etc.

In the second screen shot, you seem to be showing the various hourly backups on 8/8/21 (Those are the only things that might be listed on the right-hand date/time 'scale'. Why you would look at them that way is unknown to me. But it just confirms that you don't have any other backups to use except the one ones since 8/8/20 when you erased the TM volume.

As for there being no "cascading" pages of available backups. the images you posted don't show that there aren't any. There are no dates/times prior to "Today". As you posted earlier (original post on August 08, 2021, 12:40:46 AM), you have erased the TM backup volume and re-named it. That completely removes any and all backups before that date/time.

I have never had the need nor desire to restore the whole OS from TM and that is not the primary purpose of TM, anyway. It is designed to make backups of any items you may have changed in the last hour of computer use. It is what is called an "incremental backup". This is somewhat the opposite of a CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper backup which is easier to use for a whole volume restore. A CCC or SD backup will NOT have copies of all the changes you made to an item several time during the day; it will have only the last version of that item.

[Dreambird]

Apologies... I worded that incorrectly. But at this point... it doesn't matter "what" I select in Finder. When I choose to enter TM through the menubar... it opens my home directory as in the screenshot attached to post #7. That is my problem... it is not working as it should and what I select has become irrelevant so far as entering TM goes. I don't know how else to explain it.

I didn't know you'd never done a full restore... but OK, now I do. If I boot into Recovery Mode where you can choose Time Machine also to do a full restore, it does tell you that if you wish to restore just a file or app to do so from Finder. So yes, that SHOULD work, however as I said, in any case I can select whatever I want in Finder and it will open like the screenshot in post #7.

Before, if I found the backup I wanted to use by locating it in Finder first and then entering TM and selecting it... it would open the contents of everything in my Time Machine drive in a manner as shown in the screenshot in post #7 which it simply no longer does. I have done full restores that way and they worked or one can enter Recovery Mode and choose one there for a full restore... I've done it that way before too.

I hope this is clear, I'm really not trying to contradict you... I'm just trying to explain what I've done before and had it work. So far as I know you can click on your Time Machine drive in Finder... it will show you all the backups there and it doesn't hurt a thing if all you want to do is locate a good backup, which I've generally done by "Get Info" to see when the backup was done so I can go back to a time when things were OK.

You are correct, since I did erase my Time-Machine drive there are only backups since I did that. I did that since I'd decided a full restore would probably not work anyway given that the problem occurs on my iPad which hasn't even been synced with my MacBook Pro in quite some time. My hope was that the TM drive had become somehow corrupted and starting over might correct that. I haven't run Disk Warrior yet, which I will just in case my internal drive needs it. In the past I've found online that one could erase the TM drive for that reason if it wasn't working correctly. Oh... just trying to be clear past research online indicated that if one had several years of backups on their TM drive it is possible it may develop a corruption that erasing it would solve. I am sorry I can't point you to a specific site for that but I can say I always used reputable tech sites... not just what someone, somewhere said.