Time Machine not showing old backups

Question

Level 1

6 points

Time Machine not showing old backups

When I enter time machine, it doesn't show any of the old backups.

In the Time Machine preferences panel the Oldest backup is January 1st 2009 and it still backups every hour.
I'm using Time Capsule and OS X 10.5.6.

Whats wrong?

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Apr 5, 2009 3:06 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 5, 2009 3:51 AM in response to ramz3z

Same situation for me.

Time travel window is empty but it is still possible to browse all the backup by doing this:

1) open backup image "xxx.sparsebundle"
2) browse other time machine disk (right-click on time machine on the dock).

No way to get it back on the Time travel window...

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Answer 2

Quellson

Level 1

0 points

Apr 5, 2009 5:38 AM in response to ramz3z

Hi ramz3z,

have renamed your harddrive?
If yes, try to go back to the old name, it worked with my mac.

Quellson

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Answer 3

ramz3z Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 6, 2009 9:32 AM in response to Quellson

Weird results today. An hour ago I could browse my backups and now I can't. I haven't done anything to the Time Machine or Time Capsule in between so this is really weird?!?

I haven't renamed my harddrive.

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Answer 4

VA2020

Level 4

3,455 points

Apr 6, 2009 11:06 AM in response to ramz3z

Hmmm... how are you viewing the backups? Via the Time Machine interface or Finder? If you are using Finder, TM mounts the sparsebundle for backups when needed, but after awhile, it unmounts. Only if it is mounted can you view your TM backups via Finder.

Hope that explains it.

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Answer 5

ramz3z Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 7, 2009 1:23 AM in response to VA2020

I'm using the Time Machine interface from the original icon in the dock.

I figured it out. Just a minute ago I went to Time Machine, it mounted the backup and showed it on my desktop but when the "space" view came I wasn't able to browse anything. It didn't show any dates. I exited Time Machine and immediately went back and now I was able to browse all the backups and all the backup dates were shown. I tried it later and again I couldn't browse my backups. This time I waited and finally they showed up and everything worked. It just seemed to take a long time for the backups to be browseable.

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Answer 6

VA2020

Level 4

3,455 points

Apr 7, 2009 12:52 PM in response to ramz3z

The other reason you cannot go back in time is if you don't open finder and essentially have a blank desktop. In this case, if you click on the TM icon, you will only see the Desktop view and not your Macintosh HDD.

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