"Change disk" problems in TimeMachine

Problem persists with TM turned off at the switch, and yes that's the pref file I've trashed (repeatedly)

Haven't tried it from Safe Mode (can you explain what difference that might make?)

Sorry for the delay - took a while to get an opportunity to test this but no, I'm afraid the problem persists despite a Safe Boot

A couple of further observations that might be a clue to someone?

1. I'm under the impression that when a new drive is mounted for the first time, TM should prompt user as to whether the volume should be used as a backup destination (and then writes a small file to the volume to mark that it shouldn't ask again). Despite re-partitioning the drive (which I thought would erase such a file) I don't get this pormpt

2. The change disk button does nothing whether TM is switched off or on in the System PrefPane (and whether or not I've just trashed the TM prefs file), but the first time you click the change disk button there is a slight "hesitation" (the button stays "pressed" for a moment or two before "popping back up" without anything happening, as if something's being checked or looked for) which doesn't occur on subsequent pressings. This order is unaffected by whether you click first with TM on or off

Thanks BDAqua and Pondini

I had found your great site Pondini and tried the "Turn off Back to my Mac" trick before posting my initial query. I'm posting the Console output below (sorry, rather lengthy) from the following actions. (Starting with TM turned off in System Preferences and System Preferences quitted)

1. Launch DiskUtility and reformat the FireWire drive I want to use as TM destination

2. Trash TM prefs

3. Unmount the target volume and remount

4. Open TM system preferences and try to click Change Disk (TM still turned off)

5. Turn TM on and try clicking Change Disk again

The error message "*** -[NSCFString substringFromIndex:]: Range or index out of bounds" seems to result from the first attempt to Change Disk - the second click doesn't appear to generate anything.

Hoping this makes sense to someone, and thanks again guys...

Rob

Wednesday, 7 December 2011 5:26:13 pm Europe/London

Dec 7 17:26:21: --- last message repeated 3 times ---

Dec 7 17:25:59 Vygotksy [0x0-0x37037].com.apple.finder[553]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored

Dec 7 17:25:59 Vygotksy [0x0-0x5d05d].com.apple.systempreferences[678]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored

Dec 7 17:25:59 Vygotksy [0x0-0x36036].com.apple.systemuiserver[551]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored

Dec 7 17:26:25 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: **********

Dec 7 17:26:25 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Disk Utility started.

Dec 7 17:26:25 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Incompatible applications: app=com.apple.DiskUtility, targetApp=com.apple.Safari

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Preparing to partition disk: “HD-227”

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Map

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: 1 volume will be created

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]:

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Partition 1

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Name : “TimeMachine”

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Size : 74.5 GB

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]:

Dec 7 17:27:09 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Creating partition map.

Dec 7 17:27:17 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Formatting disk1s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name TimeMachine.

Dec 7 17:27:21 Vygotksy kernel[0]: hfs: Initializing the journal (joffset 0x256000 sz 0x800000)...

Dec 7 17:27:23 Vygotksy fseventsd[68]: log dir: /Volumes/TimeMachine/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 8A327B35-A60C-48BA-815F-F991DD61BACC

Dec 7 17:27:23 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]: Partition complete.

Dec 7 17:27:23 Vygotksy Disk Utility[684]:

Dec 7 17:27:36 Vygotksy /usr/sbin/ocspd[701]: starting

Dec 7 17:27:37 Vygotksy dotmacsyncclient[699]: PROPFIND /Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Clients/9CADF747-F710-46C6-8ACB-508D5837EBD0.client (FAILED), httpStatusCode:508, errorType:100, transactionState:5, txnId:E1D0841B-FDB1-4A4C-A21E-C388AB8EFE1B, auto-retries=0, manual-retries=0

Dec 7 17:27:37 Vygotksy dotmacsyncclient[699]: PROPFIND /Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Clients/9CADF747-F710-46C6-8ACB-508D5837EBD0.client (FAILED), httpStatusCode:508, errorType:100, transactionState:5, txnId:F4895280-C084-4AAF-95B8-9F4F2A2A6FD2, auto-retries=0, manual-retries=0

Dec 7 17:27:39 Vygotksy com.apple.launchd[531] ([0x0-0x61061].dotmacsyncclient[699]): Exited with exit code: 156

Dec 7 17:27:55 Vygotksy Finder[553]: Incompatible applications: app=com.apple.finder, targetApp=com.apple.Safari

Dec 7 17:29:07 Vygotksy System Preferences[722]: Incompatible applications: app=com.apple.systempreferences, targetApp=com.apple.Safari

Dec 7 17:29:26 Vygotksy System Preferences[722]: *** -[NSCFString substringFromIndex:]: Range or index out of bounds

Wednesday, 7 December 2011 5:29:49 pm Europe/London

Dec 7 17:29:56: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Dec 7 17:29:58 Vygotksy System Preferences[732]: Incompatible applications: app=com.apple.systempreferences, targetApp=com.apple.Safari

This has taken me a while, but eventually got round to a full archive and install (slightly complicated by having to reset passwords in single user mode as the passwords to the preserved user accounts somehow got lost in the process). Currently rolled back to 10.5.0 pending running the Combined Software Update back to 10.5.8 and - the Time Machine problem persists (and again, something that I also find puzzling and may be related, even when I reformat the external FireWire drive I want to use as the TM target) I'm not prompted whether I want to make this volume a TM target disk

The only clue in Console is the System Preferences[722]: *** -[NSCFString substringFromIndex:]: Range or index out of bounds message as before...

Any ideas what might be going on please?

Hi BDAqua

My understanding is that lost passwords after an A & I of Leopard are a known and unrelated issue (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1543) an not an indication of a need for scorched-earth approaches :-) The solution posted there has fixed that particular problem.

I see no other signs of "deep down corruption" - all disk integrity checks etc are fine and every other aspect of operation is as expected. I'll run the 10.5.8 update tonight but am not optimistic this will address the cause!

@Pondini: did you ever get to the bottom of the cause why BackToMyMac can cause this problem? Is there a clue there? I've signed this machine out of what is anyway now a defunct MobileMe account (as it's a Leopard machine it can't access iCloud)