Entering Time Machine I see backups only back as far as 10/10/2019, 19:12. It won't allow a screenshot so I had to take a photo
TM Preferences shows
I Imagine that equates to 19:12
Terminal shows differently:
Unless I'm being particularly dense, TM can't see the backups that tmutil can see. So I am bewildered.
I'm not sure what data Catalina arrived, but I upgraded on pretty much that day
MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
Much work with my NAS vendor has led to cautious optimism. We checked many things. They have been told my by many users that there is a problem and are taking matters very seriously. It may have come down to setting the Bonjour area correctly. This is my NAS user interface. Your NAS will be different, but equivalent settings are likely to be present
These are my two key settings. The lower one was not ticked. Obviously I am using SMB.
Now it is ticked. A simple test showed that this is likely to solve the problem. I will let my standard NAS closedown and restart process happen overnight, and brief you here in the morning with success or failure. A brief test just now leaves me cautiously optimistic
I found a similar problem. Time Machine says I have backups going back just over a year, but the only ones accessible are about 2 days ago. So I can only assume the new OS only works with newly done backups? Only resolution I found was to do a quick erase of the backup disc and restart with a new full backup. 6hours later that seems to have solved it - but thanks again Apple for not warning us the upgrade totally screws your existing Apple designed backups using Apple Time Machine to an Apple Airport disc from an Apple designed MacBook Pro...
Dear KJW: Your old backups were intact (0.99 probability), they were simply rendered inaccessible by the normal Time Machine interface given to us by Catalina. It's a shame you chose to erase your backup disk. You could have changed the name of the old backup if you wanted to try it out.
If you want to be certain that your backups exist use tmutil from the Terminal app. Enter tmutil listbackups wait a short while for your system to respond and note the date and timestamps at the tail end of the filenames.
With some extra knowledge I hope I never need these are restorable using the same utility.
There's not a lot of point in using the forum to vent at Apple, though I agree that bit can be very satisfying over things like this. They care, as my support experience is showing, but they don't come here.
Hi Mr Lurkums. OK. Yes, I panicked and started again! After upgrading my Time Machine backup, it was sitting there for hours and hours with just a 'preparing for backup' message. Meanwhile my whole laptop was unusable. Couldn't exit the time machine, couldn't even bring up the Force Quit window. So crashed restarted it and it then said I had 2 days of backups again but no mention of my last 12 months worth - they had since disappeared from both the summary and the recovery windows. I need 100% reliability in backups so did a quick erase of the time machine disk because it was by now showing as full but didn't seem to be erasing the oldest stuff. And having a mix of backups across 2 Operating System versions worried me a bit. It is possible the system was doing something amazing in the background but no indication to the user that it was. So I panicked and did a quick erase and started a new full backup. 6 hours later all is working fine again, albeit with only a couple of days of backups, but ones I have faith in being able to retrieve. Best of luck with your discussions with Apple... My next problem is what to do about the Reminder system - it has upgraded OK though somewhat scarily and reappeared betweeen my iMac and iPhone but my iPad won't upgrade software to OS13 so in the upgrade I've lost the wonderful integration between all my devices that originally sold me on Apple.
KJ W wrote:
My next problem is what to do about the Reminder system - it has upgraded OK though somewhat scarily and reappeared betweeen my iMac and iPhone but my iPad won't upgrade software to OS13 so in the upgrade I've lost the wonderful integration between all my devices that originally sold me on Apple.
I'm afraid there is unlikely to be a solution for your iPad. There is a depressing inevitability that our devices reach the end of their designed life. If it cannot upgrade then it cannot be made to upgrade. There might be risky kluges available, but you are very much on for own if you choose that route. I used them to prolong the life of a very old MBP once, and I was lucky.
Have you had any luck with support today? I've got the same issue and I'm about to open a ticket but I suspect this isn't the sort of thing any agent will be able to troubleshoot over the phone. Looking at some of the beta discussions on the dev forums it seems like this was a known issue that Apple apparently decided not to address before rolling out Catalina.
IWearBananaPants wrote:
Have you had any luck with support today? I've got the same issue and I'm about to open a ticket but I suspect this isn't the sort of thing any agent will be able to troubleshoot over the phone. Looking at some of the beta discussions on the dev forums it seems like this was a known issue that Apple apparently decided not to address before rolling out Catalina.
I will either be speaking to Support on Wednesday or Friday (not been told yet). I had no window even for myself today.
The agent was able to troubleshoot over the phone, though we soon migrated to an upper tier of agent liaising directly with engineering. I do suggest you open a ticket, please, simply because there is strength in numbers.
We've done a lot of screenshot and file uploading and guided work while screen sharing.
This is important, but not yet urgent. If I need to revert to backups I will be guided with tmutil which I am not competent to use unguided. Backups are proceeding, so I am choosing not to be unduly concerned
I called support early today and got a case #. The tech told me he saw "nothing on their end" about this issue and put me on hold to check other sources and came up with the same answer. He finally recommended a Catalina re-load and scheduled a call back from Apple in two hours to check results with the assurance that all we talked about was written in his notes. The re-load went smoothly but didn't correct the error and I never got a call back so called back myself later this afternoon.
The tech I talked to this time said "not much written down." (Grrr). He did find an internal Apple thread on this issue and bumped me up to "Senior Mac Support." This tech and I spent about 90 minutes going through numerous diagnostics, screen sharing, and finally uploaded two diagnostic files to Apple. He said Engineering normally takes 2-3 business days to respond. He hopes to call me back in 48 hours. If not then, this next Monday, and worst case we have a call scheduled for a week from Monday. I got an email from him with a direct phone number and his emphasis that I could email/call if there were problems.
As a data point, Time Machine works fine went retrieving files from the Finder menu. It's only Mail that's a problem. Also, the tech said that reverting to Mojave for email retrieval is a viable option based on my last Mojave backup.
Lastly, I've painfully learned to muzzle my genetic urge to upgrade immediately after new software is available. As I read the blogs with 20/20 hindsight from people much smarter than I, it's clear that many of them are in a "wait and see" mode.
The problem is not really there. Namely if you wait until all old baking cups are read in, you can scroll back in your TM.
It is also possible to access all TM backups of your "backup bundle" via Finder.
After you've called on the time machine, the "backup bundle" can be seen as a disk. This disk will be visible on your "Disk Utility". Now you can indicate with your mouse that you want to open this disk in Finder.
MikCas wrote:
The problem is not really there. Namely if you wait until all old baking cups are read in, you can scroll back in your TM.
It is also possible to access all TM backups of your "backup bundle" via Finder.
After you've called on the time machine, the "backup bundle" can be seen as a disk. This disk will be visible on your "Disk Utility". Now you can indicate with your mouse that you want to open this disk in Finder.
I adore the autocorrect to Baking Cups!
I have waited as you suggest, I'm afraid [somewhere that was redacted] froze over before anything happened, except on the days when it all worked like it is supposed to
You must perform the following steps:
1) open TM and go back one day;
2) Stop TM
3) Open disk utility
4) Now you see the sparse bundle disk;
5) now indicate with your mouse that you want to open this disk in Finder
6) Open the sparse bundle
7) Now you can see all data backups
8) now go to TM and now see all your backups in TM
MikCas wrote:
You must perform the following steps:
1) open TM and go back one day;
2) Stop TM
3) Open disk utility
4) Now you see the sparse bundle disk;
5) now indicate with your mouse that you want to open this disk in Finder
6) Open the sparse bundle
7) Now you can see all data backups
8) now go to TM and now see all your backups in TM
Thank you for those steps. I would expect those to work, too. They have not worked (inside TM using Enter Time Machine, though I can see the files in finder with ease), which is why I am deep inside Apple Support at the moment. It seems that some of us suffer from an issue that others of us do not have.
You have reminded me of a route that I had forgotten, and I am very grateful, as will others be who are following this thread. It beats using tmutil!
In Catalina, by the way, it renames the .sparsebundle file to .backupbundle and adds a folder Mapped if one views the file in finder with Show Package Contents when right clicking the .backupbundle file
Thank you for your points.
It is a pity that it does not work 100% for you.
PAY ATTENTION! I tested the situation to temporarily go back to an old bakup in a test environment. When restoring a full backup with "CMD + R" and then the option "Restore backup, you will see all your old bakups and it works well. So in case of emergency, luckily nothing is wrong. :-)
The backup run failed silently at the end of the preparation phase. The disk unmounted at approximately that time. Enter Time Machine gave me a screen that was 'waiting' and it waited until the end of my patience. I'm reaching the conclusion that it is a mounting problem, and one that has appeared since Catalina. After all, it all worked in Mojave
I have forced the disk to mount through finder with smb://[local ip address] can see it in Finder and and am watching a new backup in prepare mode.
Prepare mode has ended and it is backing up x MB of y MB and calculating time remaining
So it seems my thoughts on something altering in the detection and mounting of the disk may be on the correct track. It seems very odd that I need to force mount the disk
More as I learn more
After the backup completed I waited a decent period. I noted in Disk Utility that the disk was unmounted (I assume TM does this as it concludes?). In finder, though I could still see the backup bundle.
Enter Time Machine at this point led to a short wait and all my backups back to way past Catalina appeared.
Back in the Mac Present (or I could not type this) the backup is still mounted, according to Disk Utility.
Unless wiser heads disagree I am coming more and more to the conclusion that this is a disk mounting issue. If it is that means I will fall between two support stools. my NAS manufacturer and Apple, with each having the potential to suggest that it is the other ones problem.
Time Machine Backups are present but missing
