Can't go back in Time Machine

howardfromlafayette wrote:

I wanted to restore a file from Time Machine (Ventura 13.2.1 M1 iMac). I opened my Finder to Applications and selected the file I wanted to restore. Then I clicked on Time Machine/Browse Time Machine Backups, and tried to scroll up on the side. I could go up a few hours, but when I tried to select a date from last week, nothing happened. I hit the up arrow next to the finder, and nothing happened. Now that I am done, I see the icon in my menu bar is white. It was black before.

What's going on? Why can't I get back to last week's backup?

Well does not sound like it is available....

Is your external drive plugged in and mounted?

Local snap shots are stored locally on your internal drive for ~24 hours only and are over written.

Some time upgrade makes you lose older backups...depending on the the history of things/circumstances.

You can try holding the Option key and click your TM icon>"Browse Other Backup Disc"

and see if you have any access.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

About Time Machine local snapshots on Mac - Apple Support

If you value your user data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

Having a container disc is normal (I have that). I might suggest that you get a new drive and format to APFS and start a new TM backup. Save your old drive just in case. Also try this on your non working disk:

Open TM and then click shift-command-C and it may let you scroll back in time.

Shift-command-c just "unlocks" TM permitting you to go back in time even before the new OS was installed. This may not work for all configurations. Never had much luck copying old TM drive files to a new drive especially after APFS system was used. I usually just start over.

Did you just update the OS to Ventura from older OS and using the same TM drive? If you did it will only go back in time to the point you installed Ventura.?