Cannot access Time Machine backups

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Level 1

20 points

Cannot access Time Machine backups

When I click on Time Machine on the top menu bar, it shows:

“Latest Backup to “DS420plus.local:

December 14, 2022”

When I go to Time Machine > Browse Time Machine Backups, the only backup it shows is for 2022-12-14 and it shows only this:

Macintosh HD > Volumes > com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots > Backups.backupdb > Curt’s MacBook Pro > 2022-12-14-082841 > Macintosh HD - Data

If I double-click “Macintosh HD - Data” to open it, there’s nothing inside it.

What happened to my backups?

I back up to my NAS. I went to my NAS > Time Machine > Curt’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle. It shows “2022-12-14” as the Modified Date for these folders:

band

mapped

The band folder is 570 GB in size.

The mapped folder is 17 MB in size.

When I open the “band” folder, it has 8523 items, starting with a file with name “0” and Modified Date of 2022-02-03. The last file has Modified Date of 2022-12-23. Before this, there are files with Modified Dates of 2022-12-14. So, it looks like “Curt’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” has my multiple backups. But how come I cannot access them with Time Machine on the Mac?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Dec 23, 2022 9:01 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

curt0 Author

Level 1

20 points

Jan 12, 2023 3:33 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks for your suggestion, but here's what I did and it worked:

I turned on the NAS, removed and re-added the Time Machine connection to the NAS and started the backup. It gave this message:

“Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”

The backup disk image “Curt’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use.

Check that the image is not in use by another computer. If the image is not in use and the error persists, try rebooting the server.”

I restarted the NAS, started the backup and it completed successfully. The Browse Time Machine Backups now work.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

117,124 points

Dec 23, 2022 4:04 PM in response to curt0

Does your NAS claim to support the Time Machine over SMB specification?

If so, you can try contacting Apple Support.

If it doesn't claim to support Time Machine over SMB specification, then connect the NAS manufacturer for support.

A NAS only recently became supported when Apple adopted SMB as the default network service. But, the NAS must support the Time Machine over SMB specification.

How old is your NAS? Or, more importantly, is the firmware/software current?

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Cannot access Time Machine backups

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