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Time Machine Permissions Problem

Hello everybody, I have a massive problem. I did a clean install of Mountain Lion, and everything ran fine, until I noticed that my messages were missing. So I restored the entire system to two days ago (09 Oct). So far so good. Then I noticed that some files were missing (but the messages were back). "Shouldn't be a problem", I thought, and entered Time Machine. To my big surprise, I saw that every backup from the current day (today) untill the date I had restored (9 Oct) was greyed out, and the folders had a little "no entry" symbol (red dot with white horizontal line) on them, so I could not acces them. So, restore back to present, to back up the missing files. When I wanted to enter time machine, I saw that every folder in my home folder which was dated before the 9.Oct (date I used for the initial restore) had the "no entry" sign on them. So now I have a time machine drive, on which I can only access today's files.


Is there a workaround to get access to my files once again? I am currently restoring my system to the 9 Oct state (with the missing files on an external HDD), and will hope that I can access ALL my backups once the restore is complete.


Anyone know why TM is behaving like this?


Thank you very much in advance 🙂

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Oct 11, 2012 3:17 PM

Reply
7 replies

Oct 11, 2012 8:15 PM in response to moritzhberg

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it, then drag or copy it — do not type — into the Terminal window:

find . $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 -o -acl \) -exec ls -Odel {} \;

Press return. The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

The normal amount of output from this command, below what you entered, is about 80 lines, sometimes less. If you get much more than that, don't post it; just reply that it happened. If you get less than about 100 lines, post them — the text, please, not a screenshot.

If any personal information appears in the output, edit before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Oct 12, 2012 6:04 AM in response to moritzhberg

This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.

You still won't be able to access the problem snapshots in the time-travel view. For that, you'll need to use Migration Assistant, which will create a new user account containing the files. You'll then copy them to your existing account and delete the new user.


Step 1

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:

sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:20 ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ 2> /dev/null

Be sure to select the whole line by triple-clicking anywhere in it. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.

The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2


Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.

When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities Terminal from the menu bar. A text window opens.

In the Terminal window, type this:

resetpassword

That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window opens. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your boot volume if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select  Restart from the menu bar.

Nov 22, 2013 7:49 AM in response to moritzhberg

I'm very interested in this post as I have the same problem.......(Can't read certain TM Backup Folders)

Briefly, I decided after downloading Mavericks on top of Mountain Lion to do a clean install of Mavericks from a USB Stick, I've done this simple procedure on previous occasions when upgrading to Lion and Mountain Lion but this time I experienced all-sorts of problems, especially with my Calendar which resulted in the loss of all of my Calendar data both on my iMac and iCloud.

No problem, I thought, I'll just go into Time Machine and recover my Calendar from there, my incremental TM Backups go back to Nov last year (2012), not every hour but mostly each week. I don't need the hourly stuff......


When I went back into TM I find that certain Files have the little Red No Entry sign on some Folders, these restricted Folders always seem to be "Desktop", "Downloads", "Library", and "Movies", no others just those.........why I don't know, the "Library" I can understand but not the other stuff....


The only thing I can recall doing slightly differently when I clean re-installed Mavericks was the owners name, in the previous Mountain Lion install I used my first name only, however in the Mavericks re-install I used both my Surname and Christian name BUT on every install I've always used the same User Name and Password.


The other point worth mentioning is that my iMac was returned to Apple last Oct/Nov (2012) when they recalled machines for suspected faulty batch of Hard Disks, mine needed a Disk replacement. It maybe just coincidence but my TM Backups seem to have the No Entry Signs appear after that Disk replacement...........and subsequent re-install.


I've read this post so far and carried out steps one and two..(Linc Davis).... This gave me a much improved Calendar, it was previously unstable and crashed every time I loaded it.. It is now stable but empty, it has no Data, nothing.........even iCloud appears to be empty as well....


Next I thought (as Linc Davis above) I would try Migration Assistant to gain access to my historical TM Backups but this only shows the latest backup which I did yesterday and is useless for what I want to recover. (i.e previous to Mavericks install.)


I'm reluctant to go willy nilly messing with the TM permissions but I would like to gain access to every TM file in those historical records (about 30 Backups in all).

Besides I can't for the love of me see why I should be locked out of my own files, why would Apple need to do that, surely there must be other ways of securing TM backups ?


Please, is there a way of removing all of those gastly "No Entry Signs" on my TM Backup Folders without messing everything up.

I want to be able access my Backups for the reason I first made them.... that is to preserve my historical data, why else would I take the trouble to backup in the first place....???

Nov 25, 2015 1:32 PM in response to twodogron

Twodogron: I know this is a little late, BUT consider it for next time. As I was googling the Time Machine little red "No Entry" signs, I came across your post. I know this is a little late, BUT consider it for next time.


Rather than take the steps prescribed with the Terminal (though that may work), I called Apple Techs since I still had Apple Care on my MBP. Their solution was quite elegant. In Finder navigate to the Time Machine Device and a folder with the red "No Entry" symbol. Highlight the folder with the little red "No Entry" symbol and drag it to your desktop. Though you will not be able to open the folder in the Time Machine backup likely due to slight mismatches in the way you set up your Mac after the restore you did, similar to my own oversight i.e. Dan vs Daniel, you will be able to copy it to your desktop and then you will be able to Open it. Before the Copying will take place, it will require you to enter your password, which it sounds like isn't a problem for you.


Hope that helps you, or maybe someone else who google searches and winds up here.

Dan

Time Machine Permissions Problem

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