ChangeAgent wrote:
. . .
OK. if I go in to the disk that I backup to. I find the disk image of the backup. if I load this I see what is inside.
Again, what do you mean by "load"? If you mean mounting the disk image and using the Finder to copy from the files inside it, that's not "restoring," and isn't recommended, as you will have permissions problems with the copied files.
the folder that refuses to back (all of them on the second level these are tho folders that are the dated folders of the backup) up is the one that is locked, has different permissions as it should have. If I fix the permission of the folders I can see them in the TM backup. however every new backed up folder is locked again and can not be restored till unlocked as described above.
Yes, that's correct. Time Machine tries to keep us mere mortals from shooting ourselves in the foot by messing about with the backups. Once you've manually altered things inside your backups, there's no telling what will (or won't) happen.
Try this: create a new user, and sign on to that account. Make a test folder somewhere inside it's home folder (but not it's desktop) and put some test files in it. Run a backup. Then use the "Star Wars" display to restore that folder to the desktop (an "alternate location.") Does that work? Can you see and change the restored files as that user? Are other users prevented from changing them?
I don't know exactly what's happened, but it appears your backups are badly corrupted. You can try
Repairing the sparse bundle (as Mr. Horowitz suggested), per #A5 in the
Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum, but it's doubtful that will really fix them. Your only option may be to delete the sparse bundle and let Time Machine start fresh.