Applying privileges to "Backups.backupdb"

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Level 1

22 points

Applying privileges to "Backups.backupdb"

Hi all,

Please can someone help with advice regarding the long time it's taking to apply privileges to "Backups.backupdb".

I've had a problem with time machine getting most of the way through a backup but failing every time at the same point (approx 500 / 600MB through the process of making the latest backup) and therefore I have decided to check if it's not the external hard drive itself that might be the issue. Since you can't run disk utility to check permissions I've decided to try something else.

What I'm trying to do is copy the 'backups.backupdb' folder and it's entire content (about 400GB) onto a separate drive. Then I intend to wipe the first drive and replace the previously copied folder with all my backups back onto it. The theory being that there may be an issue with the hard drive and I'm going to try reformatting it to exclude that as the possible problem.

In trying to copy the backups.backupdb folder onto a separate external drive, there seemed to be a permissions issue, so I tried Get Info on the backups folder, authenticated myself by clicking the padlock so I could make changes to the sharing & permissions section, then changed the privilege for the entry that says 'myname (Me)' to read and write. I then clicked the settings cog icon and selected 'Apply to enclosed items'.

The presumption was that it would change the permissions to allow me to copy the 'backups.backupdb' folder, so that I can then wipe the hard drive and copy it back, without losing any previous backups.

However.... and sorry the explanation has taken so long to get to this point... but it's taken about 10+ hours so far to process the change in privileges and it just says, Applying privileges to "Backups.backupdb" with no option to stop it and try another solution.

1. Should it take this long?

2. Is there a different solution that allows me to copy the backup to another drive, so that I can wipe the time machine drive and copy the backups back to it?

3. How can I stop this process if there is another solution?

The dialogue box said I couldn't go back once this had started and now I can't even eject the time machine external hard drive or even shut the machine down!

How long will this go on for and is it normal???

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you...

Clown Guy

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Apr 17, 2011 12:59 PM

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Answer 1

clown guy Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 17, 2011 1:31 PM in response to clown guy

I've found some other potentially related threads for others who may be reading this with the same issue about moving a backup folder:

How do I move my Time Machine data to another hard drive?

Time Machine -- Frequently Asked Questions

Moving Time Machine: New Hard Drive

Anyone any thoughts on my issue?

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

Apr 17, 2011 1:32 PM in response to clown guy

I wish you had asked for guidance before doing this. NEVER change the permissions of a TM backup.

Wait for it to finish, then remove the permission entry you added. I have no idea how long it will take.

If you're having problems with your TM backup, it would be best not to copy it. Start a new one on the new drive, and keep the old one around for a few weeks or until you're sure you won't need anything in it.

However, if you insist on making a copy, first open the Info dialog on the volume you're copying to, and uncheck the box labeled "Ignore permissions on this disk." You'll need to unlock the dialog to do this.

Then drag the backups.backupdb folder from the old volume to the new one. You'll need to enter your admin password to do this. This is the ONLY time you should ever touch Time Machine files with the Finder. NEVER try to retrieve backup files by searching inside that folder.

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 8

46,086 points

Apr 17, 2011 1:37 PM in response to clown guy

clown guy wrote:

1. Should it take this long?

2. Is there a different solution that allows me to copy the backup to another drive, so that I can wipe the time machine drive and copy the backups back to it?

3. How can I stop this process if there is another solution?

1. Yes. However, Time Machine is quite delicate. I sincerely doubt that it would be able to recover from this.

2. No. As far as I know, you can't move a Time Machine from one drive to another. There may be some hacks out there but it seems pointless to risk them. The last thing you want to hack around on is your backup.

3. I have no good answer for this. I consider your existing backups to be toast. At best, you could copy individual backups from the backups.backupdb folder onto some other drive. That alone will take a long, long time. But then you couldn't even do that before. That Time Machine drive will never be useful for Time Machine again I'm afraid.

My first suggestion is to wait for a few hours. No, the apply permissions operation will not be done by then - or ever. I am hoping that someone else who knows more about this issue will show up and give you better advice. Today is a busy day for everyone with the forum upgrade.

If no one else has any better ideas, the only thing you could do is unplug the Time Machine drive or hold down the power button to force the machine to shut down. Either option is very likely to corrupt your Time Machine drive. It could even corrupt your startup volume too.

Once your system is running again. Use Disk Utility to erase your Time Machine drive and start a fresh one. If you have anything irreplaceable on it, you may want to manually try to copy that off. I know you had problems with that. You will just have to drill down further and copy individual files and smaller folder. It would be a good idea to boot from your install disk and use Disk Utility to repair your startup drive too. Don't try to that with your Time Machine drive - you know what would happen 🙂

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

Apr 17, 2011 1:44 PM in response to etresoft

As far as I know, you can't move a Time Machine from one drive to another. There may be some hacks out there but it seems pointless to risk them.

You can, and it's not a hack:

Mac OS X v10.6: How to transfer your backups from your current hard drive to a new hard drive

If you upgrade to a new hard drive with a larger capacity, you may want to transfer your existing Time Machine backups to it before using it for regular backups. To keep your existing backups on your new, larger backup hard drive, follow these steps:

Connect your new hard drive.
In Disk Utility, make sure it has a GUID partition and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If needed, reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended with a GUID partition. If you do not know how, see the steps in this article. Note: Back up any data on the hard drive before you format it.
Select the new drive's icon on the desktop and choose Get Info from the File menu.
Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" is not enabled.
Open Time Machine preferences in System Preferences.
Slide the Time Machine switch to Off.
In Finder, double-click the current backup hard drive to open its Finder window.
Drag the folder "Backups.backupd" to the new hard drive.
Enter an administrator user name and password, then click OK to start the copying process. This may take some time to complete because all your backups will be copied.
In Time Machine System Preferences click "Select Disk…"
Select your new hard drive, then click "Use for Backup."

Now, on your new hard drive, you will have all of your existing backups from the previous backup hard drive plus have more room for more new backups.

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Answer 5

clown guy Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 17, 2011 1:52 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc,

Thank you for the feedback. Some good points there.

I wish Apple would provide some authoritative guidance on migrating time machine backups from one disk to another instead of letting people resort to trial and error and using the discussion forums when they get a problem. Not very proactive Apple! It's not exactly a crazy idea to move the backup folder to a bigger disk.

Anyway, to pick up on your points. I'll take the advice to heart and won't change permissions on a TM backup again. Thank you for that.

Rather than start on a new drive, I'm only trying to move the backups so I can reformat the original drive then put them back, since there may be an issue with the hard drive (there may not be an issue and that might be a red herring but I'm trying to eliminate it as a possibility since there are very few other controls to effect in the TM prefs in order to get Time Machine working again).

I'll wait until the privileges change finishes, which looks like being many hours yet, then I'll try the suggested process above.

Do you know how I can stop the current process? See attachment. Clicking the red button does nothing, ejecting the disk does nothing, shutting down the machine does nothing.

Rest assured that I will always use the TM interface to retrieve files and won't search inside the backups folder. I know enough to know that wouldn't be a smart move. I merely thought that it was relatively simple to move the backups folder from one disk to another.

If anyone else has any feedback on how I can stop the process, so that I can simply point TM to a second disk until the first one isn't required any more, then that would be helpful.

Any thoughts?

Clown Guy

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Answer 6

clown guy Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 17, 2011 2:06 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc,

I'll wait for the privileges process to finish... if ever. And failing that I'll have to risk shutting the machine down by force. I'm aware of the consequences.

I'll then follow the steps suggested above.

Thank you for the feedback and I'll have to give it a go and see what happens. I'll report back if I can but I'm presuming it may take some time for the privileges process to conclude.

Thanks again,

Clown Guy

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

Apr 17, 2011 2:19 PM in response to clown guy

I wish Apple would provide some authoritative guidance on migrating time machine backups from one disk to another...

It does. I just posted the link. The same information is probably in the built-in help, though I haven't checked.

Rather than start on a new drive, I'm only trying to move the backups so I can reformat the original drive...

Instead of formatting the volume, you should run "Repair Disk" on it in Disk Utility. If there are any problems with its structure, that may fix them. However, an HFS journaled volume should rarely or never have such problems. If it does, that may indicate less-than-perfect performance of the drive mechanism or the enclosure. In that case, the drive should be considered damaged goods and not used for backup, or not used at all.

Do you know how I can stop the current process?

Erase the volume. If you do manage to stop it any other way, and I don't know how you can, you should consider the backup destroyed and start over. Comes to the same thing.

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Answer 8

clown guy Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 17, 2011 2:24 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks again for the advice Linc. Some good feedback and greatly appreciated. I'll try it and see if that solves the issue.

Thank you again,

Clown Guy

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Answer 9

Mar 25, 2012 6:49 PM in response to clown guy

Hi clown guy. Did the perms change EVER finish? I tried mucking with perms too, but, sheesh, it seems pretty stupid now, but I changed perms on the mounted sparsebundle! Genius! So I'm deciding whether to kill the finder or not, it's been like 4 hours, and obviously I don't want to be doing what I'm doing.

All I wanted to do was mount a sparsebundle locally instead across the network. The problem was that the machines were using completely separate accounts. So the mounting didn't work, and when I finally could do that using hdiutil mount after changing the high level group perm, Time Machine still wouldn't see it, so I got silly...

Still "changing permissions"...

This is a 10.5 Powerbook G4 12" !

Oh well, time to wipe the disk.

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Answer 10

clown guy Author

Level 1

22 points

Mar 26, 2012 12:56 AM in response to ijamessaxon

Hi there,

Unfortunately I don't really understand perms and sparsebundle etc so I don't think I can help. It was a year ago and I can't remember but I think I ended up force quitting, accpeting I might lose the time machine repository then wiping the drive and starting a fresh time machine archive from that moment on. I was fortunate in that I had no real emergencies during that process. 1 year later, I don't really need anything from more than 1 yea ago anyway so it's fine.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Clown Guy

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Answer 11

Jan 19, 2014 1:11 PM in response to clown guy

Hey all,

I have a MacBookAir OS X 10.7.5 (yes I know there's new upgrade...)

I found the support article (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5096) for transferring time machine to a new drive AND called AppleCare and we couldn't execute Step 6 -

Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions:" section is not checked.

There was no checkbox or way to do this.

So we tried the rest of the steps and when we tried dragging the file over to the new drive, it said it couldn't be done because it didn't have the right permissions...so the AppleCare representative actually walked me through the steps that @clownguy did and now I seem to have the same problem.... 😟

Hopefully AppleCare gets back to me soon...

So now what?

Ready to go back to PC...

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Answer 12

Feb 16, 2014 9:32 AM in response to clown guy

Hi! I did the same mistake, in it is now a couple of hours that I am changing the permissions. I have 3 backups of about 200 GB in total. How long do you think I shall wait?

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Answer 13

Feb 16, 2014 10:20 AM in response to clown guy

Ok. It took around 3 hours. Maybe someone can find this info useful. 🙂

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Answer 14

Jul 6, 2014 11:00 AM in response to clown guy

My goodness. Apple support ACTUALLY TOLD ME TO DO THIS and explained how. They said it might take "a few minutes". Hours later and I'm still waiting--and feeling rather sick, reading the above.

Fortunately I have already saved the core of my lovingly-preserved backups to another machine, because from what I'm reading this drive is gone. I will hope that what Barzi2001 says above will eventually come true for me, but I am not very happy at the moment.

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Answer 15

Jul 12, 2015 6:45 PM in response to clown guy

I didn't read all replies here - made the same mistake.

I put my computer to sleep, waited until it was really sleeping and the external HDD had been shut down (sleep mode I guess). Then I pulled the cable on the external disk. It's a hack but so far it's all good.

I was able to do what I originally intended which was to access and recover data with a mixture of sudo chown, chflags, and chmod. I thought TM backups are simply a folder structure but turns out I was rather wrong about that. My plan was to recover bits and pieces manually after doing a fresh system install - in hindsight I should have used any other method (cloning the disk etc) not TimeMachine.

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