Accidentally over-wrote a file, so went back in Time Machine a few hours and found the original file and asked Time Machine to restore it to the original location. Received an error: "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code 0)." The file appeared in grey, but once I clicked OK it disappeared. Never had any problems before.
MacBook Pro 13″, OS X 10.11
Did you use Time Machine.app [not to be confused with Time machine control panel) to find and restore this file for you?
Raw files from the backup drive, unless restoired using Timemachine.app, are double locked to keep them from being deleted by accident, and are TROUBLE to deal with directly from Finder.
Error number Zero is usually reserved for No Error. That result is really wonky. Certainly worth a re-try.
Is this an ordinary flat file? not an App-file or something with serious complexity inside it?
if you can't just 'thump on it and get it to work' then the plan of attack changes. Now you want to think about what parts you could substitue on each side to get a different result, to figure out what's going on.
source file: can you restore a different nearby file to that same directory under the same conditions? That might implicate a damaged backup file.
Destination directory:
Can you create NEW file with the same name in the destination directory? (Textedit can create a text file, then you can change its extension.)
Can you restore your backup file on top of that temporary file, over-writing the hand-created temporary file?
Can you restore your backup file, but to a different folder on the drive, or inside a new folder at that location?
these might indicate the folder is restricted or damaged somehow.
if you suspect a damaged directory, Disk Utility Repair disk is the guy who fixes those.
Hi Grant, thanks for your reply. Yes, using the correct procedure! Done it many times before but this is the first time it hasn't worked.
error restoring a single file from Time Machine
