Does Time Machine Work?

So far, no one has stated that Time Machine works for them.

I want to make something very clear. I love Apple. The world would be significantly less awesome were it not for Apple. Apple inspires the best from many great people, especially it employees, and others too.

That does not spell, "Time Machine Works."

For all I know, Time Machine works exactly as advertised. I cannot find evidence of a single case where it does.

Regarding other backup measures, they all are off topic of this thread. This thread is examining Time Machine to determine if it works the way it is described by the documentation already cited above. There are no questions about what it is supposed to do. There is no evidence that it does that on any computer anywhere.

Király wrote:

I've been using Time Machine since it was first released more than 9 years ago; it has always worked for me exactly as advertised.

In your original post you asked if TM keeps "consistent hourly backups for more than a few weeks", and no, it does not. TM is neither designed nor advertised to do that. Hourly backups are kept only for one day. Only one of these is saved and becomes the daily backup. After 30 days, these start to be pruned too, with only one retained per week.

I am really glad you caught that. The way I asked the question, you are 100% correct.

How many backups sets are there supposed to be for the last 24 hours?

I am thinking 24 hours equals 24 backups.

How many backups in your Time Machine for the last 24 hours.

How about the last 6 hours? Do you have hourly backups for the last six hours? Screen shot would help avoid the way I have miscommunicated.

I have two backups in Time Machine for the last 24 hours. The computer has been on the whole time.

Time Machine skips backups on my computer. Not yours?

John Galt wrote:

danallenhouston wrote:

So far, no one has stated that Time Machine works for them.

All my Time Machine installations work on all my Macs, which consist of every conceivable Time Machine backup configuration using multiple Macs of varying ages and configurations. Barney-15E and cwindom8.

What do you see on your screen that shows you that backups are made every hour by Time Machine? I think it is possible you are misinterpreting what is happening. If you can figure out a way to show what you see, maybe using cmd-shift-3 to make a screenshot of what you see and put it on this thread, that would eliminate the possibility of misunderstanding.

Those look like hourly backups to me.

This is great, exactly what I was looking for thank you.

How did you get that log information? I want to run that on my computer.

What version of osx are you running where that log came from?

I am trying to isolate what the problem is on my computer.

Thank you for taking the time to post that data showing your hourly backups working just fine.

Regarding information from the console or system log, I was finding anything helpful, UNTIL......Have you tried the log command at the command line? This example is posted on this thread by leroydouglas

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info

This output of that command is quite revealing.

This is great information and I appreciate it a lot, thank you. I understand it is what you use for your unique purposes. To me it is a huge tip and it really valuable, so thank you. fwiw, I am running only one Mac at this time. I love this machine. It's the first computer I ever had that is not starving for resources when I am just doing relatively normal things. It does not overheat as some form factors with less enclosed volume, such my my MacBook Former Pro that died and came back with limp that it never overcame. I love cranking the fans up it sounds like a train going by and the temperatures all go down down down. Usually, the fans are just at little above default speeds.

So I am finding out about this log data pulling because you are kind enough to tell me. Thank you. I have few conferences with Mr. Google, and he denies knowledge of where I can find a stockpile of where this type of information. It appears you are the world's foremost authority on time machine log data. That is impressive, that is not a joke.

How have you been finding this out? I am guessing you have been doing work for years that has required this sort of ability and this is the latest version. It seems like you are figuring out a lot on your own. I know vaguely about the unified logs from a briefing published during Sierra Beta testing. I found it by accident, searching for hints about messages in my log I thought I needed to understand. I finally have accepted that is a poor angle for working with logs. The logs are where we go to find information about problems, I have been advised. No problems affecting means ignore the log. ooooooooooook. This does seem more practical than my previous efforts to give the logs nothing to report as if every log entry stems from a problem.

Now, I don't need to know all about time machine on the variety of devices you mentioned having to deal with, but I do need to fix my time machine so it runs when I expect it to. At this point, I am going to see what I can figure out from the data output by this cool command you hooked me up with.

Regarding the skipped backup at approximately 0420 on your system, that is actually within my knowledge sphere. Events expected but not occuring at 0420 is a sign of positive system adaptation, a form of artificial intelligence. Basically. it means the dudes working inside the computer, who are our true heros, even more than some first responders, are taking care of business.

Why don't people believe there are dudes working inside the computer? How do they think things happen in there? Somebody has to do it. Who do they think eats the electricity we stream in and who produces the heat and the answers that come form the system? You don't have to answer that, I have another private thread on that topic.

The time for the backup has come and gone, and no backup was made.