Backups not visible in Time Machine

Question

Level 1

9 points

Backups not visible in Time Machine

Hi,

I am connected to the internet through the wifi of the TimeCapsule. Some while ago, I changed the password of the base station in the AirPort Utility, and since then, I cannot see any backups in Time Machine any more.

I know they are there because when I connect again to the Time Capsule in the settings of Time Machine, it says that 1TB of 2TB is available, but when I open Time Machine, there is no clickable date to which I could go back to.

Does anyone have an idea how I get to show the missing backups in Time Machine again?

Thank you for your help, Boris

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), null

Posted on Nov 1, 2016 12:29 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 2, 2016 4:44 PM in response to bugfix3r

A couple of questions..

What OS are you running? Just your profile is showing fairly old version.

What password did you change.. if it is wireless that should not affect anything.. I am assuming the admin password.

TM may have issues with the actual password that you changed.

Delete your current TM configuration. Then reselect the disk.

I have a bunch of screenshots to show you .. but this is like 30 sec task.

Then you reselect it.

Now you can put in your new password.

Time Machine will show it is going to start a new backup.. but here is the important part.. it won't.

TM will take a while. It will have to go through the existing backup to ensure it is correct.. and it will then do the next incremental..

Be patient if you have a lot of data and a slow disk this is going to take some time..

Looking at the console messages.. I can see it is now doing deep transversal of the disk.

Forcing deep traversal on source: "asusz87pro" (device: /dev/disk0s2 mount: '/' fsUUID: 2BB3E4A1-CE4C-350F-B8E8-E69BB22A5DE1 eventDBUUID: 4D1A9438-D273-4829-82DE-3AE8F18997D2)

Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|require scan|

Running event scan

initial consistency scan for '/'

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Answer 2

Nov 2, 2016 4:51 PM in response to LaPastenague

The full check of the disk took about 20min to complete.. my backup is now working properly again.. it did not run a new full backup.

initial consistency scan for '/'

Finished scan

Saved event cache at /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/z87proimac/2016-11-02-071116.inProgress/2BF1076E-5D98- 4CEA-BC2B-F5A0C076A5B0/.2BB3E4A1-CE4C-350F-B8E8-E69BB22A5DE1.eventdb

Will copy (63.6 MB) from asusz87pro

Found 353 files (63.6 MB) needing backup

104.9 MB required (including padding), 2.84 TB available

Copied 500 items (63.6 MB) from volume asusz87pro. Linked 1816.

Created new backup: 2016-11-02-072354

Starting post-backup thinning

No post-backup thinning needed: no expired backups exist

Backup completed successfully.

Ejected Time Machine disk image: /Volumes/Data-1/z87proimac.sparsebundle

Ejected Time Machine network volume.

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Answer 3

bugfix3r Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 2, 2016 4:50 PM in response to LaPastenague

Hi LaPastenague,

thank you very much for this detailed answer. I have done as you said and it seemed to work fine. After I removed and added the Time Capsule as the backup drive, it made only an incremental backup and "cleaned up" afterwards, so I assume the backups are all there, especially because Time Machine says that the first backup is from when I bought the laptop. But when I now enter Time Machine and click on an earlier date, the folder image stays black and the fan gets activated as if my laptop was working hard, but nothing happens. Is this a known issue? I gave up after 5 mins of waiting.

(I do use MacOS 10.9.5.)

Regards, Boris

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Answer 4

Nov 2, 2016 5:18 PM in response to bugfix3r

You need for it to rebuild the indexes.. and that can take several hours.. so just wait.. pulling the plug after 5min is no where near enough time.

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Answer 5

bugfix3r Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 3, 2016 9:46 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thank you very much! After about 20 mins, the content of the folders was shown and I could restore files. I assume that means that the index had been rewritten. Nevertheless, I let the laptop running in Time Machine for some hours although the fan was on all the time to ensure the index was completed.

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