What does it mean when the Time Machine icon turns white?

a brody wrote:

Generally that it can't see the Time Machine backup drive.

Energy Saver, and put hard drive to sleep when possible in the settings, and closing the lid of the laptop can lower the power threshold of the external ports. Given that you have an iMac, I would explore those settings to ensure you haven't inadvertently left it in lower power mode.

Just checked the "Energy Saver" panel. The only thing I have checked is "Prevent your Mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off." I think there's something wrong with the drives.

It's the icon for 1Password.

I just noticed that it happens at least when I click the TM icon in the upper right of the screen. I have been having my two backup drives mysteriously become unavailable maybe once a day, except in some cases to see, but not descend into, the top level. Power-cycling them fixes it. I'll put that in another post unless OWC can help me.

I think it'd be nice if it did that when backups are disabled. But you have to open the TM preferences panel instead.