Missing Time Machine backups post Catalina Upgrade

Thank you Peter, I did notice the file extension change. Since I don't have an immediate need to recover my system I left everything as it. Here's hoping Apple figures this out and issues a patch to fix it.

Looks like TM is starting to get more attention as people notice the stability of Catalina is questionable and want to roll back.

For those of your skimming this thread please consider including as much context as possible to help others...

Can I ask for more specifics around your setup and whether you still have access to backups prior to the upgrade? I'm hoping it will provide everyone with context as they try to figure out if their Time Machine issues are related or not.

Can you see backups older than 24 hours?

Are you seeing the amount of history you'd typically see prior to the upgrade?

Do you recall if a TM Verification was done on your backup?

Was it successful or did it recently ask you to create a new backup volume?

What is your backup media? NAS? Drobo? USB? Other?

Is that volume near capacity?

Did your Catalina upgrade install complete normally or did it hang at all?

What stage in the upgrade caused delays for you? Special Hardware? Missing Drivers? Incompatible software?

What was your previous macOS version when upgrading to Catalina?

Apple Hardware: iMac (Year), MacBook (Year)?

If you are missing backups could I ask for a description of your issues on the thread referenced above as well? Would help to relate Time Machine related issues in Catalina together more directly.

Update: Installed recent OS update released today (10/21) 10.15 (19A602). Once update completed all of the initial setup screens I had missed due to the forced restart during the "Setting up" phase were completed successfully.

Time Machine initiated large 5 gig backup of my system and left me with two TM Volumes.

iMac.backupbundle (was there before today's update) shows a current mod date and is a 'Package' volume of 1.32 TB. I have a 3.12 TB Fusion Drive and I have 2.43 TB available.

Prior to my Catalina upgrade I had access to snapshots going back to May 16th, 2019 on my Drobo 5N. A setup I've had running without issue; maybe 1 forced rebuild due to failed validation check a year on over the last 5 years I think I've had this setup.

I'm not exactly sure what types of logs or errors to pay attention to related to Time Machine, but when searching the Console i find few references to 'backup' or 'TimeMachine' in any recent logs.

I say recent because I did fine a 'TimeMachine' log but from some reason it hadn't been modified since 11/9/2018, which I haven't had a chance to look back to see if this date lines with any OS significant updates which might explain a discontinued log file.

cont.

Backups are running as expected, I only see snapshots going back to right after I installed today's OS update.   

I've provided a fairly in depth summary of my update challenges and setup context in my original post, but for quick reference, my Drobo 5n has a Time Machine configured volume of ~4 TBs available which is reported as 4.19 TB in the Time Machine panel I included above. 

 The drive is all green.

Since I don't have direct sight into the current capacity of the drobo "DeskBackup" volume, I have to estimate I have consumed 3.17 TB of the OS reported 4.19 TB.   I say OS reported because Drobo does things to dynamically allocate space based on RAID so I may have configured 4.5 or 4.0 Gb of space, but because of the way it manages this space it tells the OS what is can accommodate.  At leasts thats my RAID / Drobo / Beginners recollection of how it works. 

Based on what the OS is telling me I've consumed 76% of that volumes available space.  This is after the TM completed a large ~5.5 gb backup to the Drobo (NAS). 

Thanks for reading my thread, if I can expand on anything, lmk.  I'm genuinely curious about why this is happening. I hope what I've shared can be helpful to others. 

As a footnote; if you're also having issues with posting large replies or editing post let me know if you know what causes it. This is the second post I've had to split or duplicate because it wouldn't save the complete version.

Thanks Hans for this making that call and this update.

For my situation this didn't appear to work. Renaming the volume from .backupbundle to .sparebundle did not make the historical snapshots appear in TM.

IDK if I misunderstood or missed a step outside of simply renaming the image and entering Time Machine while viewing a finder window.

Interestingly the .backupbundle doesn't have an actual icon like a typical image file. IDK if thats an indication of the system not recognizing the file?

Thank you Lurkums, can you provide a screenshot of the Service your NAS runs? I use a drobo, here is what I see that box broadcasting...

My iMac is backing up to the Drobo like normal, but continues to suppress backup snapshots going back to May 2019. No response from my bug report to Apple which is typical.

I've got google alerts on Drobo and Time Machine, I'm sure at some point someone is going to notice a group of users have lost direct access to Time Machine backup data as a result of the Catalina Upgrade.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Quick update on my end...

In my last update I noted that I received access via TM UI to my historical backups located on my Drobo 5N after waiting 5-10 minutes for the drive to mount.

Today I tested it again and set a stop watch and monitored my Drobo's network activity.

It appears the issues aren't resolved, or at least not consistent. I waited 10 minutes and 58 seconds with the TM UI open on a finder window. At the start I was only given access to backup local to my iMac. I noticed the network activity light on my Drobo flashing which I thought indicated it was loading the image. After 10 minutes the UI did not restore access to my backups and the network activity on the drobo stopped.

My iMac was not actively backing up OR starting a back up at the time.

No word from Apple. I'm going to assume they aren't going to directly intervene as my setup is not Apple Supported.

I'll keep providing updates until I see something change.

Good Luck everyone, if you've found a possible solution or additional information around this issue I look forward to reading it.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one. I upgraded from 10.14, I didn't do I clean install. Lucky after 6 hours of work I was able to recover files from OneDrive that were deleted after the upgrade.

Note to one drive users, don't like iCloud sync the OneDrive folder, its a pain to clean up when it breaks. use ".nosync" on the root folder of the OneDrive sync folder to stop it.

Update: TM is now displaying my backups prior to my upgrade, I checked today and the TM interface displayed my complete backup history. I'm guessing there was a background process that kept those snapshots prior to my upgrade hidden. I now have access to snapshots going back to may 2019.

Issue appears resolved.

The only system change made was the removal and reinstall of OneDrives sync agent to resolve the issue that caused duplicate folders and file deletion. IDK if they are related.

It would be great if someone could clarify what is going on with TM backups.