Time Machine only showing backups for 6 days, and acting oddly

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42 points

Time Machine only showing backups for 6 days, and acting oddly

I've been using a 6TB Time Capsule (diy upgrade) for years without issue. It's been backing up fine and has allowed me to access backups for dates going back many many months, until today that is when my Time Capsule finally ran out of space. This surprised me as I thought T.M. erased older backups to make room for new ones, but that doesn't seem to be happening in my case.

So I entered Time Machine in order to delete some files from months back but discovered that I could only see the past 6 days of backups. All my previous years worth have vanished.

Whilst doing some investigating and testing I decided to force the T.M. to show me all mounted volumes (Shift + Command + C) and my 3 HD's were shown, but only on the the window relating to the backup created 6 days ago - which is impossible as I haven't connected my third external drive (HD3) since before Christmas last year.

In any case, I decided to try and free up some space by deleting all instances of 3 large files on HD3 (select file, press gear icon and select 'delete all backups relating to that file') and after inputting my password the files vanished. I left Time Machine and emptied the recycle bin (I don't think that was necessary, but I wanted to be sure) but the Time Capsule drive remains full and the 250GB of files I deleted from the Time Machine backup made no difference.

Then I mounted the Time Capsule drive as I had read that I should be able to click on the backup and see folders of each separately dated backup, but all I have is a single file named MacBook Pro (my computer name) that, when I double click on it, I get a window that says: 'The following disk images couldn't be opened: MacBook Pro.sparsebundle, and the Reason: Resource Temporarily Unavailable.

I've tried rebooting the Time Capsule and my Mac. I've looked at the Time Capsule through Airport and there's no errors or issues reported. I'm out of ideas and thinking I'm going to have to reformat the Time Capsule and start a brand new backup, but I'd prefer not to if there's any way of getting the current backup to work properly. I'd be very grateful for a fix if there is one?

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Jan 31, 2020 12:59 PM

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Answer 1

eyedeeuk Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 1, 2020 3:33 AM in response to eyedeeuk

I have finally managed to access the Time Machine backups folder and there's only one folder dated 2020-01-24 . I'm no closer to understanding what's going on and I thought I understood how Time Machine works. The data that's backed up is a max of 2.5TB. If it's only showing once on a single date in a single backup folder then I guess that suggests there should be 3.5TB minimum remaining space on the 6TB time capsule.

Due to my work load, on average my Mac/T.M. will only back up a new 500MB to 1GB or so per week. So I suppose it stands to reason something has gone wrong as the backups that were there - spanning the whole of 2019 and beyond, are no longer visible (and it doesn't make sense that the T.M. backup folder is only showing 24 Jan 2020 as a backed up date, but when I enter time machine - so you see the screen that scrolls back into the past - I have the option to choose from 6 days since 24 Jan 2020).

So if I had to guess I'd say the T.M. index is broken - but I'm no expert when it comes to Time Machine and reaching at straws really. I definitely don't want to have to reformat and start the backup from scratch as I may well need filed from early 2019, but if those files are lost anyway...?

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Answer 2

eyedeeuk Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 20, 2020 4:04 PM in response to eyedeeuk

Just incase anyone ever has a problem like the one I experienced, the 'solution' was to perform a full erase and new backup. The time capsule backup file was corrupt and unusable. I could have utilized data recovery software to attempt to manually find and copy old backed up data but, as it would be such a big job, I decided to erase the time capsule and start from scratch. Took a full week to back up 4.5TB of data.

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Answer 3

Feb 20, 2020 5:06 PM in response to eyedeeuk

Sorry I did not see your initial posts .. I was out of commission for a week about then.

Unfortunately your solution is generally what most people are forced to do. Thanks for sharing the experience though as it can help others.

Time Machine is no where near as reliable as it used to be. To the point where we really recommend people consider an alternative like Carbon Copy Cloner.

Certainly with Apple doing major upgrades to the OS every 12months and even some of the patches can be near 1GB, TM gets lost what system files are needed and what isn't so automatic deletion of old files has become moot.

And when you manually delete files out of a backup that is just asking for trouble. One problem is the backup is in sparsebundle container. In order to actually recover space you need to use the compact command to recover the space out of the sparse bundle.

Also if your TC is getting elderly.. over 3 years.. and definitely over 5 years, it might really be time to consider a replacement.

I like the older gen4 and keep a couple of them running, 7-8 years old now.. but they could die at any time.

I have installed a Synology NAS. You could move your 6TB drive to NAS although you will not be able to get away with using it as is.. it has to be correctly formatted and prepared for a different OS. Using a NAS is far better as a file server and media server in your network etc.. so it does have other functions that are worthwhile and helps justify the cost which is considerable to be sure!!

One thing good to be aware of is power nap can have issues with Time Machine. Apple is not exactly forthcoming with info but we did find out backups during power nap is bad. It maybe one of the major causes of corruption to the backup. It is better to set power nap off.

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Answer 4

eyedeeuk Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 24, 2020 3:18 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks for your input LaPastenague. Totally agree and Powernap has never been turned on.

Having experienced numerous other Time Machine issues over the years I unfortunately had a feeling from the outset that the solution would eventually prove to be a complete erase and backup. The lack of stability of the software is troubling and I have previously considered changing my backup solution to a NAS box. I believe it's totally unacceptable that consumers believe their Mac is being backed up correctly for what could be weeks or months only to discover that the index is corrupt and the backup created unable to rebuild their computer if it were to catastrophically fail etc. The Time Capsule itself (a gen4) has been excellent however, and has performed all its duties perfectly for many years (here's to many more!).

Due to a number of considerations (age of Time Capsule hardware, software reliability and additional network functionality) I'm more interested than ever in purchasing a NAS solution, but until then I will be checking the validity of my Mac's Time Machine backup files far more frequently.

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Time Machine only showing backups for 6 days, and acting oddly

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