Denied permission to access some Time Capsule files after migration to new iMac

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Denied permission to access some Time Capsule files after migration to new iMac

Over Christmas, I migrated to a new iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2014) from an older iMac. After the apparent successful migration, I deauthorized the old iMac, erased its content and disposed of the computer.

In the last few weeks, I first noticed some problems with the video library in iTunes. All the content that should have been there was listed, but the artwork was missing and, if you tried to play any of these files, I got an error message: "The [TV Show/Movie] "[TITLE] could not be used because the the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?"

Searched my Mac, and these files were indeed MIA. I first assumed this was an iTunes problem and went through all the recommended steps for finding missing music and video downloads: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408 and http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1967

No go. So I decided to go back to my Time Capsule backups from late December (before migrating to the the new iMac) to restore the missing media files from there. But when I try to open the /Users/mjgolden/Music files I get the following message:

The folder “Music” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.

(In the Time Capsule Finder window, the folder also has a small red X icon on the in the corner.)

So I am thinking the phantom files never migrated to the new Mac because of issues with the permissions or authorizations.

I have been able to restore some (but not all) of the content that was purchased through the iTunes Store by downloading it again. But content obtained elsewhere is still missing.

Any ideas?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 20, 2015 9:54 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Feb 20, 2015 9:59 AM in response to mjgcae

Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help accessing old Time Machine backups made on a different computer. I think this is what applies to your access problem.

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Answer 2

Feb 20, 2015 2:02 PM in response to mjgcae

It is really hard when you haven't seen an issue to figure out a work around.

I have certainly seen permissions issues.. and Yosemite seems to be coming up with more than its fair share of them.

Normally I would recommend a simple manual restore of the library to a different location. (Much of this is directly lifted from pondini).

Can't access old files on time capsule

In your case it might work from Finder rather than inside TM.. have a go..

No luck Permissions can be a pain.

I would recommend a more aggressive approach..

Get a USB drive of suitable size to hold the entire recovered backup.. so as big as the old computer hard disk.

Boot your computer to the recovery partition.. and do a Setup Assistant recovery of the old computer to the USB drive.

Once you do that, (several hours to a day or two I would guess. do it over ethernet for sure) you can reboot your computer normally and you should have effectively the entire old computer on the USB disk.. and you can fix permissions via disk utility (or via the major recovery method) and you have a copy of all files on the old computer you can plow through them and find your old itunes library.. hoping of course that it backed up properly.

I have done this and managed to get back old files.. that could not be recovered from TM direct or manual methods.. however permissions were a bit tricky.. and it wasn't Yosemite.. what a relief.

A few notes..

Since what you are doing has certain risks.. if you select the wrong destination you will wipe your current install.. I strongly recommend you use Carbon Copy Cloner or one of the other 3rd party backups.. this will cost you another USB drive.. to make a bootable clone.. but then you will never get yourself into this situation.. If you had a bootable clone of your old computer you could have recovered your itunes easily.

You trusted Time Machine.. Sorry but this is now foolish.

with Yosemite.. TM has descended into the depths of also ran might and might not work software. Do not ever rely on it.

What you did selling the old computer was perfectly correct.. on older versions of TM it was unlikely to fail.. although I would have tested itunes and iphoto before you wiped the old computer as they had a nasty habit of not transferring.

Now use CCC and clones. (or whatever other 3rd party backup is easily available to you). TM is still fine to run.. just never trust it.

No luck or you want to do it in some more elegant way... you have a new computer with Apple Support.. make them figure it out.

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