Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

TM Auto Backups Still broken in 10.11.1

AlteMac

AlteMac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Automatic (hourly) backups, which was broken in the release of 10.11, is not yet fixed in 10.11.1. I also cannot use TMEditor to do automatic backups. Manual backups work okay.

2012 MacPro. TM disk is external Firewire. all worked fine in 10.10.5
 
weinschela said:
Automatic (hourly) backups, which was broken in the release of 10.11, is not yet fixed in 10.11.1. I also cannot use TMEditor to do automatic backups. Manual backups work okay.

2012 MacPro. TM disk is external Firewire. all worked fine in 10.10.5
Click to expand...
I had an issue where Time Machine wasn't backing up regularly in 10.11, but resolved it by toggling TM off and back on, and resetting the backup destination. It's been working fine since, and it works fine on several other computers I use, without intervention.
 
The issue is described in another thread and for some there is solution. If you have a UPS connected via USB (as on a APC Back-UPS 1500) disconnect the USB and reboot. The computer will then do automatic TM backups. Hopefully this will get fixed at some point in a . revision.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 997440
weinschela said:
The issue is described in another thread and for some there is solution. If you have a UPS connected via USB (as on a APC Back-UPS 1500) disconnect the USB and reboot. The computer will then do automatic TM backups. Hopefully this will get fixed at some point in a . revision.
Click to expand...

Yeah that works, did it yesterday. Of course today we had a medium length power outage, first in a long time, that my Mac didn't notice because it was not monitoring the UPS.
 
Automatically backs up on mine, so far, on 10.11.1.

However, the UI isn't working properly. Going into the TM UI from any other folder other than (~) will bounce me right back to (~). Does this happen to anyone else? It happened in Mavericks, but Yosemite fixed it. Now, it's back to Mavericks in terms of that behavior.
 
KoolAid-Drink said:
Automatically backs up on mine, so far, on 10.11.1.

However, the UI isn't working properly. Going into the TM UI from any other folder other than (~) will bounce me right back to (~). Does this happen to anyone else? It happened in Mavericks, but Yosemite fixed it. Now, it's back to Mavericks in terms of that behavior.
Click to expand...

I just ran a test where I was several levels down from Home (~), entered TM, when back a week and restored a file that had been deleted. It worked fine.

DS
 
dsemf said:
I just ran a test where I was several levels down from Home (~), entered TM, when back a week and restored a file that had been deleted. It worked fine.

DS
Click to expand...
Actually, I meant ABOVE (~) - for example, can you please test it in the /Applications folder and report back?
 
KoolAid-Drink said:
Actually, I meant ABOVE (~) - for example, can you please test it in the /Applications folder and report back?
Click to expand...

You are correct. If you start outside of your home directory, it will move to the home directory. To me this makes sense because that is where you have write authorization. I was then able to navigate to /Applications and restore a file after supplying the name and password for the admin account.

DS
 
dsemf said:
You are correct. If you start outside of your home directory, it will move to the home directory. To me this makes sense because that is where you have write authorization. I was then able to navigate to /Applications and restore a file after supplying the name and password for the admin account.

DS
Click to expand...
That's not what is supposed to happen. The whole purpose of Time Machine (and this has worked that way in Yosemite, Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard, and Leopard) is to be able to take you back "in time" wherever you are browsing in Finder. So, if you're in the Applications folder and want to restore an app, you go back in time and restore the app. It's not supposed to 'bounce' you back to your (~) directory. This behavior did not exist on previous versions of OS X, with the exception of Mavericks. You can test this on Yosemite, if you'd like.

When Time Machine was first touted in 2007, Apple said it could take you back to time whichever folder you're in. It has nothing to do with authorization. It's a bug. You do have write authorization in Applications, you just have to supply your user password.

You've confirmed my suspicions - it's an OS-wide El Cap bug. This existed in Mavericks, and it exists now in El Cap. It's definitely a bug.
 
I stumbled across the fix for reviving automatic backups and keeping your USB UPS connected. In Terminal, enter the following:
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine RequiresACPower -bool FALSE
Enter your administrator password when prompted, then reboot, and backups will resume.
This confirms that when the Mac is connected to a UPS, Time Machine improperly detects that the computer is on battery power.
This command also will allow backups to happen while the computer is actually running on battery power so once the bug is officially fixed, you'll probably want restore the default setting by entering the following in Terminal:
Code: 
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine RequiresACPower
 
  • Like
Reactions: 997440, Cerise, AlteMac and 1 other person
chrfr said:
I stumbled across the fix for reviving automatic backups and keeping your USB UPS connected. In Terminal, enter the following:
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine RequiresACPower -bool FALSE
Enter your administrator password when prompted, then reboot, and backups will resume.
This confirms that when the Mac is connected to a UPS, Time Machine improperly detects that the computer is on battery power.
This command also will allow backups to happen while the computer is actually running on battery power so once the bug is officially fixed, you'll probably want restore the default setting by entering the following in Terminal:
Code: 
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine RequiresACPower
Click to expand...

Nice find! If Apple didn't keep closing my bug reports, I'd post this back to them.

-Kevin
 
I just got a call fom an Apple tech person, who took lots of detailed info from me, said they are aware of the issue and they are working on it. The fix above works. Kudos to CHRFR!
 
Some on the Apple forums are reporting that backups aren't running if you have the UPS USB plugged in at startup. If you startup the Mac without it plugged in, and then plug it in afterwards, backups run.

-Kevin
 
netnothing said:
Some on the Apple forums are reporting that backups aren't running if you have the UPS USB plugged in at startup. If you startup the Mac without it plugged in, and then plug it in afterwards, backups run.

-Kevin
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what this thread has been discussing, except that in my case, as soon as I plugged in the UPS, backups stopped working. The fix I posted above allows me to have both the UPS plugged in and automatic backups to continue.
 
chrfr said:
Yes, that's what this thread has been discussing, except that in my case, as soon as I plugged in the UPS, backups stopped working. The fix I posted above allows me to have both the UPS plugged in and automatic backups to continue.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that......realizing now I'm getting my threads mixed up.

-Kevin
 
Thanks!!!!

I discovered last night that TimeMachine hadn't been running on my Mac Pro since 11 November - why that date I'm not entirely sure!

Unplugging the USB cable from my APC 1500 UPS did the trick - what a bizarre situation!!!!!

Roger
 
Unplugging the cable has to be done with every reboot. Actually, you don't have to reboot, just restart the TM process, backupd-helper with the cable unplugged.

Addendum: DON'T RESTART backupd-helper. It isn't working anymore and it appears that TM is having to redo a large portion of the backup.
 
Last edited:
chrfr said:
Or just use the fix I have in post #12 in this thread.
Click to expand...
If I use the fix in #12, I'm afraid that I'll forget to restore the default when the bug is officially fixed, if I even notice when that happens.

DON'T RESTART backupd-helper. It isn't working anymore and it appears that TM is having to redo a large portion of the backup.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back