Time Machine deleting backups?

[Cinematographer]

After some research i believe i was wrong about the backup consolidations. TM does simply delete any backup not needed for the daily/weekly versions.

Thanks for the clarification, BlackViper.

OP: to use the TM drive as storage simply copy the files to the drive anywhere that is not the backups folder, same partition is fine.

Well, Apple explicitely recommends to use another partition for files outside of Time Machine. To do it that way is likely to cause new problems.

Why delete the specific directory I was viewing something from though?

I believe I did answer your question in my post. Did you read the post you're citing?

Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH BlackViper that you actually gave me some decent straight forward answers rather than cryptic mumbo jumbo, […].

If the advice that was given to you in this thread appears cryptic to you, please tell us which part you don't understand. People in this forums usually are very helpful. But some of us - including me - can get angry if posters appear to be resilient (if that's the word in English) to the given advice, if they just want to vent while the forum members are actually trying to help them.

To help you understand what's happening on your TM drive, I posted two screenshots of my TM drive below. The one on the left is from today, the one on the right from two days ago. As you can see, two dates have been deleted in the meantime, "vanished into thin air" as you said. As I understand it, the same thing is happening to you. But it is exactly what you should expect from a Time Machine drive: to delete the daily backups that are older then 30 days - except one backup per week. One backup per week will be kept until the TM drive is full.

And please don't say that your TM is off. I read that. But most probably it doesn't make any difference if it's on or off.

 

[flyfish29]

Why delete the specific directory I was viewing something from though? If I could recreate this problem I would but since I don't want to risk losing anything else (not like there is anything left) I can't do that, I rather have Time Machine/Finder/Whatever delete older and probably obsolete backups then that SPECIFIC one...

Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH BlackViper that you actually gave me some decent straight forward answers rather than cryptic mumbo jumbo, next time I will do exactly what you said, I'l leave Time Machine alone.

And trust me, I doubt it, it's not possible for my files to be there, it's like they were just wiped spot-free, vanished into thin air. The first time that this actually happened was when I was watching a video of House and it said the video was corrupted and then it said all the videos were corrupted, and then it asked me to 'locate' the directory and when I went to 'locate' it was gone! Idk when this was though I forgot sorry.

I will limit the cryptic mumbo:

1- your data has not likely vanished! (see #2)

2- Have you used Time Machine as described in my earlier post to recover your data?

Is that simple enough?

if you say NO to #2 and refuse to do this then I am done trying my best to help you!!

Oh yeah, I know TM is off- that IS the problem BTW!!

Good Luck

 

[robotmonkey]

I'M sorry if this is too obvious.... But have you looked in your trash? It is quite possible that you haven't emptied it so anything you "lost" when you deleted it (never delete something you want, TM isn't a storage device) is still in there.

 

[mrkgoo]

Time Machine is a service for backing up your data. It's not for archiving.

For example, it keeps a backup for every hour over the past day. One day later, 23 of those 24 backups will be removed. If a file only existed for one hour (ie only on one of those backups), chances are, it will also be deleted.

 

[Shirotai]

Not a waste

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on this so good luck!

I originally intended to use my time machine as a storage device for the movies / House episodes etc that were clogging up my macbook's hard drive, but on reading this thread realised the error of my ways and transferred them all to a 320GB portable hard drive.

So as far as I'm concerned, your time and effort were not wasted. Appreciated.

 

[ZebraineZ]

Oh NOW I SORT OF GET IT!!!

Basically it was just a coincidence that that specific backup just happened to fall between a week or something, and since time machine only keeps weekly backups, it deleted that backup because it wasn't a weekly one? Is that it?

That sucks but it doesn't explain why other non-weekly backups weren't deleted? Or what about the first time it happened? The first it happened the backup was of the same day it was deleted.

Also what dates does it have to fall under to be a 'weekly' backup? I want to make sure just in case so none of this ever happens again, because just the other day I found some frameworks for some apps that were missing, and thanks to TM I got them back and the apps work fine now, I guess that's how it's intended to be used? :/

But this was a backup from May, and it's only been june! It's supposed to keep DAILY backups for the previous month, and weekly from the ones before, and no other non-weekly backups have been deleted so far.

@flyfish, no trust me my data is gone for sure, even if it was barely a month and if it was a non-weekly backup, wasn't supposed to be deleted until the next month, it's gone. It's no where to be found and Time Machine has gained the same amount of free space as it was taking when it wasn't deleted, and when viewing my files through Time Machine the backup isn't there or in any other backup, it was the only backup to be deleted... That's why it's confusing because if any of what any of you said is true, this shouldn't only apply to that specific backup, it should've been applied to every other previous backup, that was TM was 'scheduled' to delete that is.

 

[robotmonkey]

Oh NOW I SORT OF GET IT!!!

Basically it was just a coincidence that that specific backup just happened to fall between a week or something, and since time machine only keeps weekly backups, it deleted that backup because it wasn't a weekly one? Is that it?

That sucks but it doesn't explain why other non-weekly backups weren't deleted? Or what about the first time it happened? The first it happened the backup was of the same day it was deleted.

Also what dates does it have to fall under to be a 'weekly' backup? I want to make sure just in case so none of this ever happens again, because just the other day I found some frameworks for some apps that were missing, and thanks to TM I got them back and the apps work fine now, I guess that's how it's intended to be used? :/

But this was a backup from May, and it's only been june! It's supposed to keep DAILY backups for the previous month, and weekly from the ones before, and no other non-weekly backups have been deleted so far.

@flyfish, no trust me my data is gone for sure, even if it was barely a month and if it was a non-weekly backup, wasn't supposed to be deleted until the next month, it's gone. It's no where to be found and Time Machine has gained the same amount of free space as it was taking when it wasn't deleted, and when viewing my files through Time Machine the backup isn't there or in any other backup, it was the only backup to be deleted... That's why it's confusing because if any of what any of you said is true, this shouldn't only apply to that specific backup, it should've been applied to every other previous backup, that was TM was 'scheduled' to delete that is.

Once again, you emptied your trash? You'd be surprised what you find in there

 

[ZebraineZ]

Once again, you emptied your trash? You'd be surprised what you find in there

What do you mean? I'm the not type of person who leaves things in the trash unattended for 5 years, my trash is empty and has been empty, and whenever something is in it I know what's in it, and that backup never was in it ever ever.

 

[craig1410]

Time Machine is designed to be used as an automated backup system and if you use it as such then you do not need to know how it works internally. In fact the internal workings are subject to changes at Apple's discretion so you shouldn't even attempt to understand the internal workings as it will most likely change over time.

Restore what files you can back to your primary drive and then start again, this time using TM the way it is intended. If you do this then you will see it for what it is... A wonderfully simple way to backup your files! No more confusion, frustration or misunderstandings!

 

[Cinematographer]

Correction

[…] Now your backups are being deleted even with TimeMachine not running, either because the TM disk completes its scheduled task even when it's off (off probably means: no *new* backups) or because you trigger the deletion by accessing the files ready for deletion through Finder.

I finally had the time do a little test and found out that my assumptions weren't right. With Time Machine off, backups aren't deleted, even when it's time for deletion and even when the files are accessed through Finder.

It has to be something different that causes your problems.

 

[flyfish29]

@flyfish, no trust me my data is gone for sure, even if it was barely a month and if it was a non-weekly backup, wasn't supposed to be deleted until the next month, it's gone. It's no where to be found and Time Machine has gained the same amount of free space as it was taking when it wasn't deleted, and when viewing my files through Time Machine the backup isn't there or in any other backup, it was the only backup to be deleted... That's why it's confusing because if any of what any of you said is true, this shouldn't only apply to that specific backup, it should've been applied to every other previous backup, that was TM was 'scheduled' to delete that is.[/QUOTE]

Well, if the data were that important you could possibly recover it even though it was deleted because when something is deleted it is not written over and is often accessible if you know what you are doing. But since you said we should "trust" you then I guess we won't go into how you might attempt to recover that data using other means.

Also, what I don't understand is this- you say only 1 specific date was deleted....is that date the first time your lost files were backed up by TM? Cause if it isn't you should be able to go to any previous date and recover the files through time machine.

I agree with Craig- you dont' need to understand why. All you need to do it use it correctly from now on and I think you will be pleased. But I will add- have a second backup option because even the best backup will occasionally encounter problems.