Time Machine will not back up external drives on my Mac Studio

Question

Level 1

8 points

Time Machine will not back up external drives on my Mac Studio

I have a Mac Studio with an internal drive, plus 3 external drives: 2 drives for photos etc, 1 exclusively for Time Machine backups. Time Machine backed up the contents of the internal drive plus the 2 external drives for photos, to the dedicated backup disk, up until May 2024. Since then it has not backed up the external drives.

When I open a finder window for the external drive (for example, the drive MV4), and then choose "Browse Time Machine Backups" from the menu bar, a stack of windows appears with a timeline at lower right, as I'd expect. The top window shows "Today (Now)" and the topmost directories in MV4, as expected. When I press the upward arrow just to the right of the stack, the underlying windows appear, all with "MV4 primary@snap-133665" at the top, and no directories or files as contents. The directory "2024-08-16-164529" on the backup disk, for example, lists a directory "MV4" but it contains nothing.

All disks are APFS. External drives are connected to USB ports on the Mac Studio.

The internal drive has 600 GB free. For some reason it's formatted as 5 volumes. Not sure that's relevant. It's a feature I'd like to get rid of.

Mac Studio, macOS 14.6

Posted on Aug 17, 2024 9:26 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 17, 2024 5:24 PM in response to nanofish

The only issue I can see is that you are not patient enough when looking at these backups.

Magic takes a minute. Because each backup set stores only the changed files, along with Pointers to all the other previously stored files files that did not change, building a complete window for restore will take TIME to populate, and if you were to wait a bit longer, I expect all those other files would 'pop' into view -- once time machine.app finds them and finishes populating those windows. It can seem like forever, especially if you have just lost some files, but wait a little longer and I expect you will see the results you crave.

Time machine was built to be rock steady, NOT fast.

Reply

Answer 2

nanofish Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 18, 2024 11:11 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

My issue appears to be similar to the one on this post: the permissions on /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots

are messed up.

Time Machine snapshot could not be create… - Apple Community

I'll try the OP's solution on that page. It'll solve various other problems as well.

Because each backup set stores only the changed files, along with Pointers to all the other previously stored files files that did not change, building a complete window for restore will take TIME to populate, and if you were to wait a bit longer, I expect all those other files would 'pop' into view

This page did not populate after more than 20 min. When Time Machine was pointed at backups before May 2024, it populated in less than a second, with nearly the same content.

It can seem like forever, especially if you have just lost some files, but wait a little longer and I expect you will see the results you crave.

I did accidentally delete some files earlier, but recovered them with a strategy independent of Time Machine that I thought rather clever. :) Since then, I've backed the disk up with the unix command "rsync".

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

The only issue I can see is that you are not patient enough when looking at these backups.

Magic takes a minute. Because each backup set stores only the changed files, along with Pointers to all the other previously stored files files that did not change, building a complete window for restore will take TIME to populate, and if you were to wait a bit longer, I expect all those other files would 'pop' into view -- once time machine.app finds them and finishes populating those windows. It can seem like forever, especially if you have just lost some files, but wait a little longer and I expect you will see the results you crave.

Time machine was built to be rock steady, NOT fast.

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 17, 2024 11:29 AM in response to nanofish

if it backed up today at 10:24, and does not show an error status, that all seems perfectly normal.

what is NOT normal is for you to 'Browse other backup disks' if yours is established, and working trouble-free.

That feature is used when your Mac loses track of its backup disk, such as after a major upgrade, and can help you find a missing disk and re-connect to it. That feature is NOT for routine use, and that is why it is not in the ordinary menu, but only accessible with the Option key.

Time machine stores its backups in a complex database form, This allows you to restore as of any date&time still contained in the backups set. But the raw backup files are NOT human-readable -- they are intended to be accessed in preparation for restoring files ONLY from Time Machine.app (never to be confused with Time machine preference pane):

...

Reply

Answer 4

nanofish Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 17, 2024 11:42 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Here are screenshots of my issue. I hope this clarifies things. Thank you for your patience.

This is what I see on "MV4_Primary" in Finder. Looks good:

I got to "Browse TimeMachine Backups" and I initially see this. Also good, looks much like your image above, although not exactly.

I press the upward arrow to the right of the window stack, move to the past, and I see this. No good! No files are seen on MV4_Primary.

If I continue into the past, I reach the last valid backup of MV4_Primary, made on 5/2/24. This is what the disk looked like then:

Reply

Answer 5

nanofish Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 17, 2024 11:52 AM in response to nanofish

FWIW here are the corresponding images for Time Machine backups of the Internal HD.

Here's the finder window, showing top-level directories.

I go to "Browse Time Machine Backups" and again everything is correct for "right now":

I go to the previous backup using the up-arrow and see everything there. I can navigate through the directories to restore the desired file. Of course, my problem is that this does not work except for the Internal HD.

Previous days are present, for the Internal HD, as well. As I would expect. Again, this works only for the Internal HD.

Reply

Answer 6

nanofish Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 17, 2024 9:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

If I go to System Settings -> General -> Time Machine" and click on "Options...", only the disk used for Time Machine Backups appears on the list "Exclude from Backups". The internal HD and external photo disks do not appear.

Reply