Can't browse some older backups via Time Machine interface

Bob Timmons wrote:

...When Yosemite is installed it is supposed to add all of the data included in the Yosemite operating system and combine that with your history of backups with other operating systems. For a number of reasons.....Yosemite does not always do this.....so what happens is that Yosemite starts a whole new "master" backup of your Mac at the time and then begins to add incremental backups since Yosemite has been installed.

When that happens, and you click Enter Time Machine from the menu bar at the top of the screen, you will only see the backups that have been made since Yosemite was installed. Other backups are grayed out on the Time Machine interface display and cannot be accessed......even though the backup data is present on the hard drive, and you can see the data or folders displayed using the Finder.

Bob, it is NOT true (in my case) that choosing "Enter Time Machine" will show me all "the back ups that have been made since Yosemite was installed." For example, I have a folder on my desktop, not shown in my video, which I've had there for well over a year and which has been backed up by Time Machine regularly over the past year. If I double-click that folder to open it and display the contents in its window, and then if I click Enter Time Machine, I will only see the last 24 hours of backups for that folder! I installed Yosemite only a couple weeks after it first came out! This is just one example of many where I am only seeing the last 24 hours of backups within the TM interface, not "backups since Yosemite was installed." Do you have any comments to make on this?

(And again, please note that I know the backups made over the past year exist on the TM drive, because like I show in my video, I can dig down manually in the Finder and see them.)

Bob Timmons wrote:

You do not mention at all whether or not you have tried the Browse Other Time Machine Disks in this post or in your video...

But, if you have not done this...

1) From your normal Mac desktop, make sure that the "dock" , normally at the bottom of the screen, is displayed......and that the Time Machine icon is displayed there as well.

2) Control-Click.....or.....Right-Click the Time Machine icon to see if an option to Browse Other Time Machine Disks is displayed

3) Click on Browse Other Time Machine Disks

4) If an option to use another disk is displayed, click on the disk to highlight it, then click Use This Disk

What happens when you do this?

I did not choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" by pressing Optin and clicking into the TM menubar icon, but I did enter System Preferences and choose Time Machine and then clicked "Select Disk." I then saw my external FW drive shown with the green TM icon in the "Backup Disks" section, and I saw it again in the "Available Disks" section directly below, albeit with an orange FW icon and color. Choosing the green one or the orange one didn't seem to make much of a difference for me.

Bob Timmons wrote:

Is there something that is not allowing you to try the steps that I have suggested? Nothing to lose.

Yes, actually there is. The iMac with TM problems is my iMac at the office. I live 1 hour and 20 minutes from the office so I either need to wait until Monday or do a screen sharing remote login via my iMac at home, Sadly, I can no longer se SHARED items in my left sidebar which prevents me from using Back To My Mac here at home. Perhaps you can help me out with that here:

Back to my Mac, NAT, CTU setup, Airport Utility

If not, I will need to wait until Monday to give you a reply.

Thank you.

Bob Timmons wrote:

Right-Click on the Time Machine dock icon, then selecting Browse Other Time Machine Disks should work. ...Pondini unfortunately passed away about the time that Mavericks was introduced. Let us know when you can try it out.

http://pondini.org/TM/17.html

(I'm very saddened to hear of Pondini's passing. His site is an excellent resource that deserves much praise.)

When I press the Option key while clicking the TM icon in my menubar, if I click "Browser Other Backup Disks..." I am presented with the following dialog:

http://cl.ly/image/25182Z2p2g0c/Image%202014-12-15%20at%209.22.40%20AM.png

As you can see "James_iMac (7)" on "2TB Backup" is default selected and is the lone selection available.

With one of the folders on my Desktop opened (a folder that has only shown the last 24 hours of backups since the Yosemite update), I then clicked the "Use Selected Disk" button, and TM opened. In the left sidebar, I see "James_iMac (7)" appear under "Devices." But that is nothing new -- it appeared that way before. However, I was surprised to see that I could browse older backups for that particular folder! Superb!

Not so fast. While rejoicing over what appeared to be a newfound solution to this evil bug, I then selected another folder buried deeper in my drive, a folder I know for a fact gets backed up. With that folder's window open, I entered TM the normal way ("Enter Time Machine") and found that only "Today (Now)" was showing, all other titlebars behind it grayed out (which means I don't even have the last 24 hours of backups available to view for this folder). I then exited out and gave your trick a try. Holding the Option key down I clicked "Browser Other Backup Disks..." and then "Use Selected Disk." Much to my chagrin though, I still only see "Today (Now)" -- all titlebars behind that are grayed out (blank).

I tried many other folders in vain, both on my Desktop and buried deep on the drive. Nothing is showing beyond "Today (Now)."

The only other thing I must add is that when I have a Window open and then choose "Enter Time Machine," I will sometimes see the entire stack of Windows display their titlebars, but then a half a second later they all vanish and become grayed out (blank). It's almost as if TM is mocking me by saying, "Ha ha ha, you fool. I've got your backups and there's nothing you can do but manually dig them out! Ha ha ha!"

This is a wicked, wicked bug in Yosemite.

Bob Timmons wrote:

James_iMac(7) is likely not the correct name of your iMac. The "(7)" indicates that the Yosemite "naming bug" is alive and well on your iMac.

All that you can really do is open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock), then open Sharing.

Edit the name of your Mac to read correctly

Close Sharing and System Preference and restart your Mac

Check Sharing to see if the corrected name "sticks"

I opened the Sharing preference pane and deleted the " (7)". I noticed that TM still showed the "(7)" (sidebar, devices) so I logged out and back in. Upon returning to the Sharing preference pane I found the evil "(7)" had returned. So renaming the computer does NOT stick, unfortunately.

I will now send some feedback to Apple at the following page:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

I would like to encourage everyone else with this Time Machine problem to do the same.

Anyone wishing to show Apple my video may do so. Here is the URL again: http://youtu.be/gO3Yux6zMik

Many thanks for your kind suggestions to date, Bob. Even though my problem remains, I greatly appreciate your time and helpfulness.

I found an interesting discussion about the "Computer Renaming Bug" at Macworld:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2849849/bugs-and-fixes-whats-with-yosemite-renam ing-shared-devices.html

I spotted a set of Terminal commands by "fds" and by "r0d3nt" in the Comments below that article. I tried the Terminal commands they suggested and then I restarted. I was pleased to find that those Terminal commands prevent my Computer from being renamed. Double-clicking my external FW800 drive and viewing the computer name shows it to be back to normal too.

A step in the right direction, BUT there are still 2 problems:

(1) My Computer name is still being renamed on our local network like multiple times as shown in this screenshot:

http://cl.ly/image/3Z1u1o3S221P/Image%202014-12-15%20at%204.25.10%20PM.png

(2) I am still having Time Machine problems via Enter Time Machine. And it's funny too. The first folder I opened after the Restart worked great when I clicked Enter Time Machine. I was able to go all the way back to the first backup a couple years ago. Then I exited and selected the folder on my Desktop which worked great earlier today, and now I find that it only shows me "Today (Now)." So it seems like the FIRST folder I try (after a Restart) allows me to go back in time, but trying it with other folders restricts me to "Today (Now)."

There is also one more point of interest, and I don't know if it is related to the problem or not. Sometimes my TM backup drive's icon is GREEN with the TM logo on it, and other times (such as now, after my Restart) it is ORANGE (with no TM logo). If this is not a bug or a problem, it certainly is confusing and makes no sense to me at all.

All of this is very troubling and bizarre.

And by the way, I am using the latest (as of this time) OS X 10.10.1.

Considering how slow Apple is in fixing this wicked bug, I've continued to browse the forums trying to find a solution.

I killed the renaming of my Computer on the Network, but in the process my computer no longer appears on the network. Here's what I did:

1) Open System Preferences > iCloud and untick Back to My Mac and Find My Mac.

2) Open "Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration" and delete these prefs:

• preferences.plist

• com.apple.airport.preferences.plist-new

• com.apple.airport.preferences

• NetworkInterfaces.plist

3) Shutdown Computer.

4) Reboot Time Capsule (which acts is our office internet router)

5) Boot iMac again and find the iMac doesn't appear under SHARED in the left sidebar, but it's no longer being renamed there either.

But the Computer Renaming Bug doesn't seem to be related to the Time Machine Bug in my testing.

As to the stupid Time Machine bug... I can confirm that whatever is the FIRST folder I open and then click Enter Time Machine (from the menubar icon), works great. I can go back in time as far as I like. But any folder I open after that and then Enter Time Machine flashes the titlebars on for a half second and then blanks them out. However, if I RESTART and then open one of the folders I tried before with blanked titlebars, it works. Like I said, it's the first folder I open that is magical. To access any other folders and go back in time means I must RESTART to access that TM data.

It's completely stupid and idiotic.

It works but it doesn't. Meaning, I have long known that starting at the ROOT level gets me places when it comes to the TM UI, but that is not the proper way to do it. Indeed, if I cannot open a specific Finder window and then click "Enter TM" from the menubar and then be able to view all backups of THAT particular Finder window in the TM UI, then the TM UI has no meaning whatsoever. Why no meaning? Because the entire benefit of using TM is that I can CONVENIENTLY open any Finder window, then Enter TM, then go back in TM "viewing THAT PARTICULAR Finder window ONLY." I don't want to dig around via the ROOT level.

I would also like to mention that yet another reason your trick worked for me today is because whatever folder I start with, be that at the ROOT level or any folder in my HD, I have zero problems going back in time via the TM UI. However, once I exit the TM UI and then open ANOTHER FOLDER and then Enter TM again, all backups 24 hours and earlier are not accessible. And then if I RESTART and try again from ANY FOLDER I choose, I can view old backups from within the TM UI just fine, but exiting and opening another folder in the TM UI prevents me from viewing older backups.

There is a heinous BUG in Yosemite that pertains to TM which Apple refuses to publicly acknowledge. But I and countless others can attest to the fact it is there. And yes, I have filed the appropriate bug report with Apple. If you have not, please do so here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

Hopefully if a large enough number of us pound on Apple, they MIGHT fix it in the next Yosemite update. I certainly hope they don't wait until the next major update, because this wicked bug needs fixing ASAP.

Thanks.