Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I have discovered that Time Machine is not (and apparently has not been for some time) backing up system files (Applications, Utilities, System and Library). What's going on? They are not excluded in the options. Anyone have this problem and know of a solution?
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion
If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out these instructions.
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 the line below to select it, then drag or copy into the Terminal window — do not type — and press return:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist SkipSystemFiles
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. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.
Reboot and run a backup. Check that the previously excluded files are now included. The backup may take much longer than usual.
Something is definately amiss because the system files and application files on my system keep getting excluded. And contrary to what anyone might want to insist, they are not being excluded by being added to the exclusions list by me.
You wrote before that the files were now being backed up. Has that changed? How do you know they're not being backed up?
Something strange is going on. I went into TimeMachine (just prior to my last post) and my System and Application files were "not there". I deleted the plist, rebooted and now there "are there".
So, apparantly the second issue I had (just now noticed) was not the same as the first, inasmuch as the files were being backed up (and have been since 1 December, when I first deleted the plist) but for some reason they were not visible to me until I deleted the plist. Possibly a different (but related) problem, but definately not the exact same issue as previously. Something strange is definately happening here. I've also had issues of TM backups failing "due to lack of space", which should not happen since the oldest backups should simply be deleted when that occurs, and I wonder if the two things could be somehow related to each other.
Oh god the exact same thing has just happened to me. I got a replacement hard drive, swapped out my old one, only to find that my time machine backup was incomplete 😟
At first I thought I had accidentally excluded System Files, so I swapped back in my old hard drive and checked. Nothing was excluded (supposedly). Anyways I found a CNET article telling me to turn SkipSystemFiles to false through terminal so I did that, re-did a WHOLE NEW backup on a new hard drive and system files are still absent!!
So finally at the end of the day I come here and see your comment. Same issue. All my system files in "ExcludeByPath" just randomly. For what its worth, I too have Silverlight installed.
Have you reported the potential bug in the API?
ashwin103 wrote:
Have you reported the potential bug in the API?
Not at this point. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the app or some other happening from some other source. And Apple is probably getting tired of me... I seem to have a knack for "breaking" things (in the sense of finding flaws). I've long said I should be a beta tester for someone because of that ability to break anything but it hasn't ever happened1 🙂
I am on Mountain Lion moved from Snow Leopard.
Moving the Applications folder out of the finder sidebar also fixed my problem.
I did a re-boot after removing the folder. A window came up asking me if I want to use the current drive I was using for time machine backups. I agreed and a backup started.
All my missing folders are now backing up.
One of those mysterious Lion things going on.
The strange thing is that a MacbookPro Retina has the folders in the Finder sidebar and there is no problem with Time Machine.
TM is not backing up my Applications, Library and System files either.
I have not excluded anything from my TM backups.
I tried the Terminal code, but it could not find:
domain (/Library,Prefersnces/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist) not found
Presumably because I have not excluded anything.
Any ideas hoew I can make TM back up these files.
Thanks.
In view of all the problems being reported here, why not just dump Time Machine and use a reliable cloning utility such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner? Trying to get Time Machine to behave properly sounds like flogging a dead horse. If TM isn't reliable, what use is it?
Tony Furniss wrote:
I tried the Terminal code, but it could not find:
domain (/Library,Prefersnces/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist) not found
Presumably because I have not excluded anything.
The plist will always be there, as long as Time Machine has been turned on. Instead of doing it via Terminal, try turning off Time Machine, finding the file via Finder (Go>Go to folder> "/Library/Preferences") and deleting the TimeMachine plist, and then turning Time Machine back on. That should create a brand new plist with nothing excluded. At least, this worked for me.
The TM plist was there.
Followed your instructions.
TM still does not backup my Applications, Library nor System files.
While you are there (and this would apply to everyone), change the finder view to Column, select the Library folder and then make an Alias of it in your user directory. This could save you a tremendous amount of time and frustration in the future.
Tony Furniss wrote:
Followed your instructions.
TM still does not backup my Applications, Library nor System files.
Well what does the plist say now? Are the files still there in <ExcludeByPath> ?
I guess they are still there.
| !"#7_ SkipSystemFiles[BackupAlias]ExcludeByPath]MobileBackupsZAutoBackup_ RequiresACPower_ AlwaysShowDeletedBackupsWarning_ DestinationUUIDsYHostUUIDs^RootVolumeUUID_ LastDestinationID\Destinations_ PreferencesVersion O 6 6 TimeMachineÃ¡Ê H+ TimeMachine Ã¡Ê ˇˇˇˇ | TimeMachine Ã¡Ê Ã¡Ê TimeMachine:TimeMachine TimeMachine TimeMachine /Volumes/TimeMachineˇˇß ]/ApplicationsX/LibraryW/SystemT/binX/privateU/sbinT/usr | ¢ _ $D2772994-E400-3958-80D7-D85560ABC08E_ $D346E6A9-FA9A-367B-8FD6-B1EC5908DE3A° _ $0742FC7E-0752-540C-9A87-2EA3810C97A3_ $49DB845A-A6FF-3655-920F-1B2EE93D3248_ $0CF789DE-8BAB-4E9B-93D9-5E33D276872B°$Ÿ%&'()*+,-./0123456VRESULTYBytesUsed]Des tinationID[BackupAlias]SnapshotCount_ $kCSBackupdOldestCompleteSnapshotDate_ BACKUP_COMPLETED_DATE^BytesAvailable_ DestinationUUIDs 8E¿_ $0CF789DE-8BAB-4E9B-93D9-5E33D276872BO 6 6 TimeMachineÃ¡Ê H+ TimeMachine Ã¡Ê ˇˇˇˇ | TimeMachine Ã¡Ê Ã¡Ê TimeMachine:TimeMachine TimeMachine TimeMachine /Volumes/TimeMachineˇˇ -3A∂Nw#3A∂∂˘£ ≈tK¢ #5AO]hzúØπ»‹È˛ˇ 9 A O X ` e n t y z { | } Ä ß Œ – ˜ E G Z a k y Ö ì ∫ “ · Ù ˆ ˇ & ` b k t } Ä 8 Ç |
Tony Furniss wrote:
I guess they are still there.
Ok well then are you sure it got deleted in the first place? Make sure you turn off Time Machine and quit System Preferences and everything, then delete, then Empty Trash, make sure its gone, and then turn on Time Machine again. If <ExcludeByPath> is still there, you might want to try editing the plist in TextEdit or something and removing then manually but that is a bit dangerous.
Brilliant,TM's plist has changed and my back-up drive is whirring away.
Thanks Ashwin 103.
time machine not backing up system files
