My MacBook Pro cannot access time machine.

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Level 1

8 points

My MacBook Pro cannot access time machine.

When I click on "Enter Time Machine" from the Time Machine icon on my menu bar, nothing happens. Apparently (?) my MacBook Pro is being backed up because I can see the ongoing process when I back up manually using Wi-Fi, but I cannot access any files because of the lack of response. I am using an Apple Time Capsule backup disk.

Time machine also states that the latest Time Capsule backup was Feb 3, 2018, despite the fact that today, when my MacBook was just manually backed up, is 7 February 2018 (I was doing the backup wirelessly; and tried twice—both connected to power and not connected to power).

Details:

Computer running Time Machine - MacBook Pro (Retina 15 inch, Mid 2015) running macOS High Sierra ver. 10.13.3 (current). Disk not full.

Backup Disk - Apple Time Capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi with Hard Drive, 2 Tb model A1409, Part No. MD032LL/A, firmware version 7.6.9 (current). Disk not full.

I travel a lot and in the recent past have backed up my computer to an external drive--1 terabyte WD My Passport Ultra--attached by USB, and the backup has gone flawlessly and I can see the files on the Passport drive. I can backup to the WD drive whether or not I am connected to power.

????????? What happens if I need to recover from some sort of failure on my MacBook Pro now that I am backing it up to an Apple device?

Sigh.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Feb 7, 2018 7:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tesserax

Level 10

158,268 points

Feb 8, 2018 12:40 PM in response to stickyidea

When I click on "Enter Time Machine" from the Time Machine icon on my menu bar, nothing happens. Apparently (?) my MacBook Pro is being backed up because I can see the ongoing process when I back up manually using Wi-Fi, but I cannot access any files because of the lack of response. I am using an Apple Time Capsule backup disk.

Try the following:

Hold down the <option> key, and then, click on the Time Machine (TM) icon in the macOS menu bar.
Select the option: Browse Other Backup Disks ...
A new window should open with a list of all TM backup locations. By default, TM backups are stored in the Data "folder" on the Time Capsule. Each backup location will appears with something like the following: "<computer name>" on "Data"
Select yours, and then, select "Use Selected Disk."

If your Mac's TM backups are not appearing there might be another issue. Do you use the Time Capsule for storing other files other than for TM backups?

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Answer 2

stickyidea Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 8, 2018 2:14 PM in response to Tesserax

Thanks Tesserax,

When I <option> and click the Time Machine icon and click on 'Browse other backup disks', nothing happens--no list of the devices shows, no new window comes up--but I did not have a finder open at the time. However....when I opened a finder, I saw that my Time Capsule can be found under "Devices" and I can navigate to the disk and find the sparsebundle for the backup.

User error? Ignorance of how MacOS works?

I just never noticed before that the Time Capsule was there on the finder.....you know, when you look at things a million times and just don't see it....or, was it not there to be seen prior to this specific attempt to enter Time Machine? (I had been out of the country with my MacBook for 5 months, but my MacBook has been up and running in the USA for a week. Time Capsule worked every time prior to this time away, but my stays were for three months, not five).

Also, I can now enter Time Machine.

Good thing that you responded to my query and had me trying things. Kudos.

Dee

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,268 points

Feb 8, 2018 2:56 PM in response to stickyidea

I'm glad you got it working again.

By default, the Time Capsule has a "folder" on its internal hard drive, called "Data" for the TM backups. These backups are called "<your computer name>.sparsebundle. Although you can open these in the Finder app, you are strongly encouraged not to and use the Time Machine interface instead. Messing with the contents of a sparsebundle can lead to corruption of the backup set. You would only want to do so, as a last resort to recover data.

FYI. The way Time Machine (TM) works with Mac notebooks is a bit different than it does with desktops. The basic difference is that if TM cannot locate an external backup drive (directly attached, Time Capsule, or another network drive), it will create what is known as "Local Snapshots." The idea is that TM will work continuously whether a backup drive is available or not.

Ref: About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support

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My MacBook Pro cannot access time machine.

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