UPDATE 2008-12-17: See detailed instructions in the comments.
Since I haven’t found any discussion of this on the web I’ll document my experience and see what web searches bring people to this post!
By way of background, I have two external hard disks that are used for backups, one at work and one at home. When I get home or to work I open the Time Machine control panel and change the backup destination to the appropriate external drive. The system then updates the backup.
Yesterday I let the Mac OS apply the Leopard 10.5.6 update to my MacBook Pro as part of the shutdown. When I next reconnected to a backup disk and attempted to change the configuration, I got the following error:
You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file “.001b63b6df97” in folder “Backup – Work”.
To view or change access privileges, select the item in Finder and choose File > Get Info.
I launched a Terminal and navigated to the backup volume. Sure enough, in the root of the volume
-r——– 1 root staff 16 Sep 22 09:37 .001b63b6df97
Programming Gems (on GemStone) 
156 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 16, 2008 at 11:29 am
jbb
Same thing for me ! Nothing else to add unfortunately.
December 16, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Rick, Johnstown PA
I’m experiencing the same problem. Any chance you could post the instructions to change the ownership of the file with Terminal? My UNIX commands are pretty rusty. Thanks for any help
December 16, 2008 at 12:37 pm
James Foster
[UPDATE: more detailed instructions in a later comment]
In Terminal:
$ cd /Volumes/Backup
$ ls -alF
$ sudo chown jfoster .001b63b6df97
For the ‘cd’ command, replace “Backup” with your volume name (hint, you can type the first few characters and press TAB and the shell should auto-complete). For the ‘sudo’ command, replace “jfoster” with your account name and use the file name shown in the error dialog (or the file listing given with ‘ls’). The ‘sudo’ command allows you to run the ‘chown’ (change owner) as root, but you will need to give your password to authenticate this action.
April 28, 2009 at 7:42 am
steelhammr
This worked for me after I copied the offending file name off the error dialogue box generated by Time Machine and used it to replace the file name after jfoster
December 16, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Rick, Johnstown PA
You’re the man! Worked perfectly. Thanks very much! Very helpful.
December 16, 2008 at 4:52 pm
jamieorc
I wonder if running “repair disk permissions” from Disk Utility fixes this.
December 16, 2008 at 5:02 pm
James Foster
Interestingly, “Repair Disk Permissions” is not available for external volumes. I did a “Repair Disk” on the backup volume and there were not problems. I did a “Repair Disk Permissions” on my internal volume, and that didn’t help. The problem continued until I changed ownership of the hidden file at the root of the backup volume.
December 16, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Shannaz, NSW, AUS
Thanks James, I had the same problem since I updated to 10.5.6 yesterday and had been stuffing around with permissions since. Fixed now in 2 minutes, cheers mate.
December 17, 2008 at 2:23 am
Bluemel
James Foster’s remedy works! Thank you!!!!
December 17, 2008 at 5:15 am
Toby
I’m experiencing the same problem since upgrading to 10.5.6. Can you give more detailed instructions of how to fix the problem using terminal? I’ve never used it before. Thanks..
December 17, 2008 at 8:22 am
James Foster
Detailed instructions to delete the offending file [edited based on subsequent comments]:
1. Click on the magnifying glass in the top right (Spotlight) of the menu bar.
2. In the text entry field type “Terminal” (in all these steps, type what is in the quotes, but not the quote characters themselves) and press Return.
3. In the new window that opens, type “cd /Volumes” and press Return [note the space in the command].
4. Type “ls -al” [the “l” is a lowercase “L”], press Return, and note the name of your backup volume.
5. Type “cd ” (no Return yet), type the first few letters of your backup volume name, and press the Tab key, then press Return.
6. Type “ls -alF” and press Return and note the file with a name that matches the error message.
7. Type “sudo rm ” (no Return yet), type the first few letters of the file name that is reported in the error and press Tab to get the full name on the command line, and then press Return. (Alternatively, you can change ownership as described in my comment #3.)
8. When asked for your password, enter it and press Return.
9. Type “ls -alF” and press Return and note that the file is gone.
10. Type “exit” and press Return to close Terminal (then use the menu to Quit).
11. Retry the Time Machine configuration.
12. Post a comment here letting us know how it went!
December 17, 2008 at 8:50 am
Nick
This fixed my external disk access for Time Machine. Thanks.
It looks like the 10.5.6 update modified something to do with permissions to make Time Machine stop working. Argggghhh.
December 17, 2008 at 10:19 am
Winston
First time to your website, but thanks! I googled the error message and it brought me here for the solution. Thought I’d add a little bit more information in case it helps anyone else!
Your solution almost worked perfectly for me. My added complication was having a filevaulted non-admin main user and a non-filevaulted admin user.
Terminal wouldn’t allow me to change the permission from within the filevaulted non-admin user. Probably some other way to do it, but I just logged out and back in as the admin user to make the changes. Changed the permissions to my admin user name — worked great. ‘Back Up Now’ worked immediately after.
When I logged back into my filevaulted user, the Time Machine prefs continued to show an error. But then I logged out again and Time Machine did its filevault-backup-on-logout just fine — a little longer than usual on the “preparing backup” stage, but eventually got to the actual backing up part. Errors all cleared up.
Now when logged in as the filevaulted non-admin user, regular Time Machine backups are working again while logged in, with the filevault home folder backups running as they are supposed to at logout.
Oh, and the offending file was a different file name, but the same .00 followed by ‘random’ alphanumerics format.
Thanks again!
December 17, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Toby
Okay, dude, I figured it out. For some reason, following your instructions didn’t work on my computer [Instructions have been modified to clarify things –James]. I’m working on a black MacBook (not the latest one, but the penultimate one) and my external drive is some generic piece of crap.
This is what worked for me, after a great deal of trial and error:
1. Launch Terminal (see James’s instructions above).
2. Type “cd /Volumes” and hit Return (I’m not suggesting you type the double inverted commas, just what’s in between them).
3. Type “cd” and then the first few letters of the name of your external drive, ie, the name it’s called on your desktop when you plug it in, then press tab. It should automatically complete the full name of your external drive. Once you can see the full name, hit Return.
4. Type “ls -alF” and hit Return.
5. At this point, you should see a list of files in your external drive, including the file named in the original error message you got when you tried to back up using Time Machine in the normal way. If you see this list, you’re doing great. Now type in “sudo rm” and the first few characters of the offending file. In my case, the file is “.0016cb8fa481” so I typed in “.0016” (don’t forget to include the full stop). Then hit tab and the file name should fill in automatically. If it does, hit Return.
6. When asked for your password, type it in and hit Return.
7. To check whether the fix has worked, type in “ls -alF” and hit Return. You should see exactly the same list of files that you saw on completing step 4, but with one difference: the offending file has disappeared.
8. type “exit” then hit Return.
9. Quit Terminal.
10. Try and back up using Time Machine in the usual manner. This time, it should work.
May 5, 2009 at 12:34 am
Jeff S
Toby, thanks for the modifications. Just worked after following James’ instructions with your adaptation of it.
How did I get such an offending file in the 1st place?
Again, thank you James and Toby.
December 17, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Jim
James, A million thanks. I’ve been the Mac Guy others call for a more years than I care to admit. You’ve humbled me, this problem had me beat. Thanks again for sharing your expertise.
December 17, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Oscar Astwood
Hi, I’m trying to follow the instructions for terminal.. my volume is named “Time Machine” when I try to change the directory, it tells me no such file or directory. I’ve tried with only the first 3 letters Tim and tab the complete name.. and nothing.
I know nothing about using Unix. but I do know how to follow instructions.. can some one please direct me.
Thank you
December 17, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Oscar Astwood
I think I should mention regarding my previous post.. TM set up is USB drive plugged in to Airport .. and it seems to be backing up while I’m logged in my profile that has File Vault enabled… the difference now is that when I log off or shut down it doesn’t go trough the back up process like it used to.. starting the back up as soon as I would log off or shut down..
Thanks
December 17, 2008 at 8:07 pm
jorge
this worked great!
thanks a lot. this surely saved alot of time trying to find out exactly what was going.
thanks again!
December 17, 2008 at 8:11 pm
James Foster
Oscar, I don’t know File Vault but your problem sounds a bit like Winston’s above. Are you the only user on the machine? Do you have an administrative account on the machine? Could you provide what you get from the following command?
ls -alF “/Volumes” “/Volumes/Time Machine”
December 17, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Oscar Astwood
Thanks for the reply James, unfortunately or fortunately my problem has taken a new direction.. I got frustrated to say the least and reformatted the drive that I was using TM for. .. Now when connected if I go select it from the TM prefs. it doesn’t show. If I connect it to the laptop first. accept the TM offer to use it as its HD and connect it back to the Airport. I can mount the drive but when trying to start a manual back up. TM gives me the msg. “The back up volume is not in Mac OS Extended (journaled) format which is required”. I formated the drive one more time, just in case and same thing. Last I did a full back up with another drive having it connected directly to the USB port and it worked fine.
I am running all this from my main Admin profile with file vault enable. I have another Admin profile without the file vault enable as an emergency because of a past experience and don’t really use it. and I have the guest acc. enabled.
I don’t know if I’m on the wrong page here when you are trying to help people with the original issue which by the way I think is great. but I’m posting to reply to you and just in case.
Thanks again.
December 18, 2008 at 1:23 am
Adrian Neilson
Thank you guys so much. I had this problem when changing from an external backup drive, to back up to a reserve internal RAID drive which I do occasionally. It took a while to understand how to do it with “ls” codes being thought to be “is”. Your patient detailed explanations are excellent. However right at the end when asked for password it is disconcerting that nothing happens when you type the password letters. It is easy to struggle if you are new to this just type the password and Return.
December 18, 2008 at 7:11 am
Jaston
Very helpful! Thanksn for posting this. I had to take the same route that Toby recommended, but it worked great.
December 18, 2008 at 8:08 am
Darrin
Hello everyone. I am having the same problem with my external drive. I have followed your instructions James, but I get this :
override r——– _unknown/_unknown for .00224126b6ab?
I then say ‘y’
Then I get this:
rm: .00224126b6ab: Read-only file system
when I use method on comment 3 to fix permissions I get this:
chown: .00224126b6ab: Read-only file system
What do I need to do to fix this??
Thank you in advance
December 18, 2008 at 8:36 am
James Foster
Darrin, Can you write to the drive from the GUI (try copying a small file to the backup disk)? Are you the only user on the machine? Do you have administrative rights? See http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12582 for a discussion of dealing with a read-only file system.
December 18, 2008 at 9:33 am
Darrin
Hi James,
I tried to copy a file, and it stated that the disc cannot be changed.
I am the primary user–with admin rights
Everything was fine prior to my update to 10.5.6
I am fairly new to Mac–but am comfortable following instructions on command line.
Here is my process for comment 3–change user
[…details removed as not pertinent for others–James…]
Hope this helps
December 18, 2008 at 9:58 am
James Foster
Darrin, The “Read-only file system” issue is one with which I don’t have experience. Did you look at the web site I mentioned? If you select the drive on the desktop and “Get Info” can you change the permissions (you probably will need to unlock it; scroll to the bottom of the Info window)?
December 18, 2008 at 10:10 am
Brenda
After several tries this worked for me for my external drive. It took me several time to realize that there is a space after cd and before the forward slash… cd /Volumes. Thanks much.
[Thanks for the comment. I’ve updated the instructions to highlight the space. This is the sort of feedback that we need since things that seem obvious to me aren’t obvious to others. –James]
December 18, 2008 at 10:13 am
Darrin
It is just greyed out, and I am unable to change it. In the greyed out window, it says my user can read and write, but just above, it says you can only read.
I checked again, and the two users in the system are both administrators.
I did look at the link–I found the command line confusing as to what to do.
I am leaning to just reformatting, as the system is working okay—would you agree??
Thank you for your patient assistance James
December 18, 2008 at 10:21 am
Vetea
You saved my files! Thank you so much for your help
December 18, 2008 at 10:22 am
James Foster
Darrin, What happens if you click on the lock icon at the bottom of the Info window? Does that unlock things so that it is no longer greyed out? On the other hand, if you use the drive only for backups and are satisfied that you don’t need any history, then reformatting would be the simplest approach. Go for it!
December 18, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Darrin
Hi again James,
The lock would not respond either. I do only use it for backups, so I opted to reformat, and that cleared the issue. I don’t think I needed older backups, so it certainly was the easiest fix for me. But again, I really appreciate your attempt!!
December 18, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Dizash
Huge help. Looks like it’s making a complete backup though. Much appreciated. I’d rather wait the time to make the backup then have it not work.
Thnx
December 18, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Michael Dziedzic
Thanks James. Completely fixed the problem.
December 18, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Mat
Wow… awesome. Perfect fix.
December 18, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Jaston
I noticed one other thing. I also have a set-up where I have an external hard drive at work, then an additional one at home. Typically, when I come home from work, I have to go into Time Machine preferences to select the hard drive, otherwise the back-up fails until I re specify the drive at home as being my time machine drive.
Since the 10.5.6 release, I no longer have to do that. It just starts backing up without me having to re-specify every time I go from home to work, etc.
December 18, 2008 at 10:39 pm
WTS
James,
Excellent information here – thanks for being so thorough. I encountered an odd twist, though. I was having this exact same problem after the 10.5.6 upgrade. I found this discussion, and was in the process of examining permissions of files on the backup disk when the problem cleared itself, without me changing anything. Time Machine now appears to be working perfectly, even though I never changed any permissions or deleted any files.
Another discussion group suggests that Spotlight may have been re-indexing everything after the 10.5.6 upgrade, and that caused a temporary change in permissions that interfered with Time Machine. Hmmm.
December 19, 2008 at 8:18 am
WhatComesToMind.com » Blog Archive » Time Machine borked by 10.5.6?
[…] Perfect fix available on the web. […]
December 19, 2008 at 11:12 am
Seth
James,
I was able to change the file’s permissions (in this case it is .017f20c4780).
However, when I issue the rm command, the result is “Operation not permitted.”
Even when logged in as root I can’t remove the file even by its inode number.
Any suggestions?
December 19, 2008 at 11:25 am
James Foster
Seth, It might be sufficient to just change the file’s permissions. Did you try Time Machine after changing the permissions. Also, I found a discussion of deleting undeletable files at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011124145736956. Use at your own risk!
December 19, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Seth
TM still throws a fit. I’ll look over the link you posted and decide whether I’m interested in that approach. I’ll let you know what the outcome is either way.
December 19, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Henry Benjamin
Many Thanks the sudo chown fix worked
You saved me half an hour waiting for Mac support who at the entry level know very little
December 19, 2008 at 3:22 pm
John
Thank you James! Your detailed instructions were a lifesaver. I was able to delete the offending file and get my TM backup working again.
I have recently become a mac convert after 15+ years as a PC/Windows drone. I’ve been EXTREMELY happy with mac’s simplicity and non-invasive operating system. When I saw the “you don’t have sufficient access rights” type message, I feared the mac was reverting to all the bad stuff I remember from PC. Please tell me this was just an aberration. Does this problem reoccur every time you try to switch to a different external backup drive for TM?
Thanks again for a great fix.
December 19, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Seth
An update to my previous comment. Time Machine still didn’t work after applying the changes to file permissions. And even after booting in single user mode, mounting the usb drive, and changing flags (as mentioned in the link you provided James) TM still threw a fit.
I had to format the drive.
December 19, 2008 at 5:22 pm
MC
Have not used the Terminal app before, so please forgive me if I’m making a “rookie” mistake.
When following the detailed instructions listed above, I get to the point where it says “Enter Password,” but when I start typing in my password, the cursor does not move. ?? Even if I continue to type in my password and hit Return nothing happens. ??
I’m able to hit “Ctrl-C” and then type “exit” and Quit Terminal, but not enter my password.
December 19, 2008 at 5:53 pm
James Foster
MC, “Rookie” questions are fine. We do expect the Mac to be usable without having to go through these steps! When the system asks for your password it does not echo the characters as you type them in case someone is looking over your shoulder. Just go ahead and type your password and then press Return. One of the “features” of Unix is that if everything went fine it does not give a response. Thus, without an error you can assume that the remove (or change ownership) worked. The goal of the second ‘ls’ command is to see that things are different.
December 19, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Oscar Astwood
Ok James, I think I’m back on track.. I fixed the problem of TM not seen my back HD and entered the command that you mentioned above on terminal. and this is what I got.
/Volumes:
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@ 5 root admin 170 Dec 19 17:10 ./
drwxrwxr-t 36 root admin 1292 Dec 17 19:16 ../
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Dec 18 22:31 Macintosh HD@ -> /
drwxr-xr-x 3 oscarastwood admin 102 Dec 19 07:36 Time Machie/
drwx—— 13 oscarastwood staff 398 Dec 18 22:22 Time Machie-1/
BaByMac:~ oscarastwood$
December 19, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Oscar Astwood
Again I should have mention.. my problem is TM not backing up my file vaulted profile when I log out as it used to. the regular back up seems to run fine when I’m logged in..
Thanks.
December 19, 2008 at 8:05 pm
MC
James, thanks for your help in this frustrating TM matter. Your guidance and solution worked for me.
December 20, 2008 at 11:12 am
fg
The instructions posted on December 17, 2008 at 8:22 am worked perfectly for me. Thank you so much!
December 20, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Neon
James, I am a complete and total non-techie and I’ve never been in Terminal before … and yet your (revised) directions were clear enough for me to fix my “You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file” TM problem. Thanks!
December 20, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Rick, Johnstown, PA
James, you’ve been a busy boy since I was here. I had the same problem happen to another drive that had been working perfectly the last time. I followed your precise instructions and again the result was success. I’m curious why this happened to the two drives in the first place 8^/
Thanks again for your help.
Rick
December 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
Mark
James, many thanks for sharing your insight. I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do otherwise. Being a novice at this can you explain what we are deleting when we follow your instructions? You obviously know what you’re doing, but I’m wondering what the ramifications are of deleting this file… other than the fantastic benefit that TM now works I’m curious to know what deleting file .0016cbc95488 actually means – in laymans terms.
Many thanks for your help.
Mark.
December 21, 2008 at 11:17 am
James Foster
Mark, I’m actually not sure exactly what this file does. It appears to be a marker of some sort that the Time Machine puts in the root of the Volume so that whenever it is connected Time Machine can recognize that it has used it before for this machine. My experience is that if the file is not present, Time Machine will recreate it and you will be none the worse for wear. My expertise is mostly trying things and sharing my experience. I suppose I should have a disclaimer of “no warranty…”
December 21, 2008 at 11:17 am
Özkan
Hi @all,
I don’t have any error message, but after update to 10.5.6 my Time machine is always on “preparing” status when I want to backup, but it does not start backuping. What I have to do? Please help me, is there also a trick in terminal for this too?
Regards,
Özkan
December 21, 2008 at 11:49 am
Doug
James, fantastic! The only issue I had was I had to have a space after the cd command (#5) and the command in #7 before I typed in the first few letters of my backup drive. Other than that your help was flawless! Thank you. Doug
December 21, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Mark
James, no problem – I wasn’t expecting a warranty! Thanks for the explanation – and the invaluable help.
Mark.
December 21, 2008 at 1:12 pm
James Foster
Özkan, I’m not sure what would cause Time Machine to be stuck on “preparing.” How long did you let it stay on that status? Maybe reboot and then let it sit on preparing for several hours. I’m just guessing here… James
December 21, 2008 at 5:19 pm
James Foster
Stephen, It looks like you’ve managed steps 1-4 of my instructions from December 17, 2008 at 8:22 am. Could you post the results of steps 5-9 (or as far as you can get? After the “cd /Volumes” followed by Return in step 3, you need to type “cd SP” and press Tab then Return. This should produce something like “cd SPH\ Big\ Backup” (where the backslashes are there to say that the spaces are part of the volume name).
December 21, 2008 at 5:33 pm
John
James, I cannot seem to get rid of the file. I get to the point (after several tries) when it asks for my password – on my MacBookPro, I do not have a password for my Admin account, so I just hit “Return”. Somehow, however, the file is still present. Everything else seem to work as you described. Is it asking for some other password?
Thanks so much!
December 21, 2008 at 7:09 pm
James Foster
John, What happens after you hit Return. Does it give an error? Could you post a copy of the Terminal session with the “ls -alF” before and after the “rm” command?
December 22, 2008 at 4:41 am
Jeremy Steele
James Foster: I eventually got it to work, following your instructions of 17 Dec. 2008.
I can’t say how important it is to notice the SPACES within the quotes in the instructions.
And one other thing: if one’s own backup name has spaces in it (e.g. mine is “JS 1 TB Backup”), do not type beyond the first ‘word’ (i.e. JS) before hitting the tab key, because the program likes to fill in the rest itself, inserting slashes.
I can’t believe how many goes I had to have at it, making sure I typed everything EXACTLY as you specified.
But I can hear Time Machine backing up now as I type this.
Thanks!
December 22, 2008 at 8:05 am
Mano Singham
Wow, that was terrific! Clear explanations that even a moderately clueless guy like me could follow and solve the problem.
Thanks!
December 22, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Stephen
Dear James,
I have been successful in removing the file name. Thanks!
Since I have another backup (at work) I guess I might need to do the same to that. Is that likely? I gather this problem is thought to have occurred because I was upgrading to the latest iteration of the OS at a time when Time Machine was at work.
Very many thanks. If I knew where you lived I’d buy a Christmas drink.
December 22, 2008 at 3:58 pm
mst
great!! thanks, backing up like a champ now… happy holidays…
December 22, 2008 at 5:40 pm
John
James, the following is what I tried tonight – the file is still there – I must be overlooking something simple.
Thanks!
Last login: Mon Dec 22 18:21:14 on console
new-host-3:~ JB$ cd /Volumes
new-host-3:Volumes JB$ ls -al
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@ 5 root admin 170 Dec 22 19:33 .
drwxrwxr-t@ 41 root admin 1462 Dec 18 10:23 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Dec 22 18:21 JB’s MBP-320 -> /
drwxrwxr-t@ 37 root admin 1326 Dec 18 10:23 SD Bootable Backup
drwxrwxr-x 12 JB JB 476 Dec 21 17:18 Time Machine Backup
new-host-3:Volumes JB$ cd Time\ Machine\ Backup/
new-host-3:Time Machine Backup JB$ ls -alF
total 32
drwxrwxr-x 12 JB JB 476 Dec 21 17:18 ./
drwxrwxrwt@ 5 root admin 170 Dec 22 19:33 ../
-r——– 1 root wheel 16 Oct 9 13:25 .0017f2c6a992
-rw-rw-r–@ 1 JB JB 6148 Dec 21 19:02 .DS_Store
drwx—— 3 JB JB 102 Jun 10 2008 .Spotlight-V100/
d-wx-wx-wt 3 JB JB 102 Dec 22 19:33 .Trashes/
-rw-r–r– 1 JB JB 0 Jun 10 2008 .com.apple.timemachine.supported
drwx—— 837 JB JB 28458 Dec 22 19:33 .fseventsd/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root JB 102 Jun 10 2008 Backups.backupdb/
-rw-rw-rw-@ 1 JB JB 48 Jun 10 2008 Synchronize! Volume ID
new-host-3:Time Machine Backup JB$ sudo rm .0017f2c6a992
WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type “man sudo” for more information.
To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.
Password:
new-host-3:Time Machine Backup JB$ ls -alF
total 32
drwxrwxr-x 12 JB JB 476 Dec 21 17:18 ./
drwxrwxrwt@ 5 root admin 170 Dec 22 19:33 ../
-r——– 1 root wheel 16 Oct 9 13:25 .0017f2c6a992
-rw-rw-r–@ 1 JB JB 6148 Dec 21 19:02 .DS_Store
drwx—— 3 JB JB 102 Jun 10 2008 .Spotlight-V100/
d-wx-wx-wt 3 JB JB 102 Dec 22 19:33 .Trashes/
-rw-r–r– 1 JB JB 0 Jun 10 2008 .com.apple.timemachine.supported
drwx—— 837 JB JB 28458 Dec 22 19:33 .fseventsd/
drwxr-xr-x+ 3 root JB 102 Jun 10 2008 Backups.backupdb/
-rw-rw-rw-@ 1 JB JB 48 Jun 10 2008 Synchronize! Volume ID
new-host-3:Time Machine Backup JB$
December 23, 2008 at 2:18 am
James Foster
John, It looks to me like you are properly following the steps I suggested. This means that something else is wrong–a problem I didn’t experience. If it were me, the next thing I would try would be the link I posted at December 19, 2008 at 11:25 am dealing with deleting an undeletable file. Note that Seth tried that and still Time Machine didn’t work, so he reformated the drive and started the backup over from scratch. If you aren’t willing to do that just yet you might need to find another solution.
December 23, 2008 at 5:06 am
John
James, Thanks – at least I know I’m not crazy (maybe). I’ll try your suggestions.
December 24, 2008 at 6:37 pm
D
I don’t get an error. It just keeps saying “Preparing…” which means I don’t know the file name. Is there any other way I can get the file name?
December 24, 2008 at 7:12 pm
James Foster
D, I’m not having that problem, so I don’t know what it means. A quick Google search for “Time machine preparing” seems to have several pages with people describing similar problems.
December 27, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Jack Hutteball
James, thank you for your excellent help. The process worked for me and Time Machine is now backing up again. Does anyone ever wonder if these little “bugs” are purposely inserted by Apple to keep their tech support in operation? I converted from PC last May to get away from things like this.
December 29, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Thomas Mastin
Thanks for all your valuable advice James. I had the exact same problem. I have two external hard drives that I rotate off site for back up purposes. The drive that was attached during the upgrade to 10.5.6 does not seem to be affected. However, today, when I switched my back up drives and brought home the other drive, I was not able to get Time Machine to use it. I got the infamous error message advising me of a permissions issue with the obscure “.myMACaddress” file.
I followed your very clear instructions on using the chown command (chown sounded like a less severe option than the rm command) in Terminal, and “voila,” problem solved. Time Machine is now using the drive as normal, and I didn’t lose a single back up set off my drive.
Thanks again. It’s because of people like you that people like me don’t have to be UNIX savvy in order to solve little irritating bugs when they arise.
December 30, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Antonino Giglio
THANKS A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It works perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀
December 31, 2008 at 1:09 am
Octavio Martinez
Hi James,
Same problem as others and followed you procedure until I erase the file. Then I go to Time Machine preferences, TM recognizes the backup volume an seems to make it happen but when I hit “Back Up Now” the same problem ocurs again and the “You do not have appropriate access privileges to save file…” appears again.
I’m making something wrong? please help me… I trust in your advice.
Thanks !
December 31, 2008 at 8:31 am
James Foster
Hi Octavio,
Are you sure the file was deleted? Could you post the results of step #9 of my instructions from December 17, 2008 at 8:22 am? If the file was deleted and you don’t have permission to write to the directory, then you have a different problem. If the file wasn’t deleted, then either you aren’t following the instructions or you have an undeletable file (in which case see my comment at December 19, 2008 at 11:25 am).
James
December 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Octavio Martinez
There you go:
octavio-martinezs-imac:Volumes Tavo$ ls -alFalF
total 72
drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 Dec 31 13:09 ./
drwxrwxr-t 34 root admin 1224 Dec 30 03:24 ../
drwxr-xr-x@ 16 Tavo staff 544 Dec 13 18:17 Good Software/
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Dec 31 11:22 Macintosh HD@ -> /
drwxr-xr-x 8 Tavo staff 340 Dec 31 02:03 TAVO-MAC/
drwxrwxrwx 1 Tavo staff 32768 Dec 31 13:09 TAVO-PC/
Once again the problem still shows up when trying to backup Time Machine.
December 31, 2008 at 4:22 pm
James Foster
Hi Octavio,
This looks like the result of step #4, not #6 or #9. Please continue with #5 from this point and post the result of #9.
James
January 2, 2009 at 8:31 am
Dave P
I ran into a different problem this morning, but along the same lines.
I too got the error message about not being able to access .00123… file. However, after rm’ing it, it dawned on me that it wasn’t the FILE that TM couldn’t get to, but the permissions on the directory for the TM volume. to wit:
[cerberus]:SpaghettiStraightener:/Volumes/Spag Ext% ls -al
total 16
dr-x—r-x+ 11 cerberus staff 442 Jan 2 10:23 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 170 Jan 2 10:15 ..
-r——– 1 cerberus staff 0 Jan 2 10:12 .001b639da3cb
-rw-r–r–@ 1 cerberus staff 6148 Jan 2 10:17 .DS_Store
The permissions on “.” are wrong, busted. Pretty badly too. Running this:
[cerberus]:SpaghettiStraightener:/Volumes/Spag Ext% sudo chmod 775 .
Set the permissions correctly (based on other TM volumes I’ve seen).
[cerberus]:SpaghettiStraightener:/Volumes/Spag Ext% ls -al
total 16
drwxrwxr-x+ 11 cerberus staff 442 Jan 2 10:23 .
And now TM is happily backing up.
Hope this helps folks out.
January 3, 2009 at 3:12 am
Ole, Denmark
TKS a LOT – it worked here too James. Tks for saving “my life”. I was a bit confused when I entered my password which letters were hidden….but I manage how to fix.
Happy New Year.
January 3, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Greg Sommer
Thank you James! Count me among your many friends!
I just got Time Machine running again using your wonderful instructions. Curiously, however, Time Machine started running a full, start-from-scratch, backup session rather than an incremental backup. Does that mean I lost all my previous backup sets?
Also, I initially had some trouble getting the file name correct in step 5. The following suggestion from http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1832147&tstart=0 did the trick:
Type “cd” followed by a single space, and then drag the Time Machine drive to the Terminal window.
The picture at the top of the page is breathtaking. Where is it?
January 3, 2009 at 8:08 pm
James Foster
Hi Greg,
The picture is of the Columbia River Gorge during a visit to Oneonta Gorge. See http://picasaweb.google.com/WeybridgeWay/OneontaGorge# the full outing.
James
January 9, 2009 at 12:39 am
Chris F
This worked perfectly for me. Thanks James!
January 10, 2009 at 4:00 am
Karen Roberts
Thank you, James Foster!! Your instructions on how to “delete the offending file” worked just great. Thanks again!
January 12, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Nigel Flegg
Great fix. Thanks James. Shouldn’t be up to helpful individuals to solve an Apple problem though…
January 14, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Clive Blanks
Thanks James, worked a treat and Soooo well explained, spaces and all!!
January 15, 2009 at 8:13 pm
mhool
James,
After it asks me for my password it responds “permission denied.” probably something stupid i’m doing… any ideas, though?
January 17, 2009 at 1:45 pm
10.5.6: Time Machine non funziona piu' | hilpers
[…] piu’ On 12/16/08 4:15 PM, maxim2k wrote: > Qualche idea su come risolvere? Trovato il fix: https://programminggems.wordpress.com…16/mac-10-5-6/ Saluti. « [10.5.6] Safari, snipurl… | Conteggio battute da […]
January 18, 2009 at 6:36 pm
James Foster
mhool,
If you were denied permission to delete or change the mod of a file when using sudo, then something else is wrong and I’m not sure what it is. Take a look at the links posted at December 19, 2008 at 11:25 am.
January 22, 2009 at 3:29 am
Sebastien Merion
Fantastic, thanks James, instructions on your comment December 17th worked very well for me 😉
First time I used Terminal !
January 24, 2009 at 10:55 am
David Gregory
Hello and thanks in advance everyone, especially James, for the discussion…I have been reading through it all, and the referenced websites.
I am having a similar problem but the differences may be important. Briefly:
I backed up through Time Machine to the same external HD as my only Time Machine backups (I know, bad idea…NEVER DO THIS!)
In the process, it partitioned my external HD and changed permissions on the user folder of the backup I need (“…you do not have sufficient access privileges”). Now my current backup is Partition 2, and what I need is on Partition 1.
I mis-used some sudo commands I didn’t fully understand from a user forum (sudo chmod 644 … and ls -la) and it somehow locked me out of the whole HD; was able to get back via Finder – Get Info – (unlock at bottom) and manually changing permissions. But I still cannot access the older folders I need. User name after ‘Get Info’ is ‘unknown’, and I can give ‘everyone’ ‘Read and Write’ privilege, but it doesn’t change anything.
I am nervous about ‘ rm ‘ because I don’t want to accidentally remove any of the files I need…it’s all I have left! But I haven’t been able to access the first partition’s subfolders through Terminal to change permissions only those (i.e., it’s not permissions on the entire HD, which seemed to be the case in the discussions above).
From what I understand, I need to ‘delete or change the mod’ of the folders in question; but I’m not sure what level of the file hierarchy to do that at, or what file name should go into the command line after ‘rm’, because I’m not getting an error message. There are two number series (like MAC address) listed. Is it safe to ‘rm’ both? Neither is associated with the Jan. 11 2009 backup I need, but the 16 May 2008 may relate to the original backups (which started in May 08) which I need.
Is there a way in UNIX to change permissions other than deleting the -r——- files? Does it matter if the older backups are under a different user name / password? The old and new backup subfolders (within Backups.backupdb) are only differentiated by a lower vs. upper case ‘A’ in ‘ Apple’s MacBook Pro 15″ ‘ as the computer name.
Any advice very appreciated, and I will not be offended if you edit this note to make it more useful to other readers.
Thanks a million in advance,
David
January 24, 2009 at 7:18 pm
James Foster
David,
First, you are good to be cautious about using ‘rm’ (remove), especially on a folder. The instructions for changing permissions (chmod) is above at December 16, 2008 at 12:37 pm.
You mention that the backup is all you have left. Did something happen to your main (internal) hard disk? Is there something you really need to get off the backup? If so, then I’d suggest that you pay an expert to get it for you. I believe that there is a good chance we could walk you through fixing this, but if the files are important, I’d prefer not to risk it. As you will find reading the above comments, some people have simply chosen to reformat their external drive and start over. If you don’t have an urgent need for anything now but just want the insurance, then I’d suggest you buy another external disk (probably the same price as a consultant) and just keep the old one in case you decide you need something in the next year or two.
James
January 25, 2009 at 11:03 am
David Gregory
Thank you for your response.
The internal HD on my MacBook Pro was replaced by Apple, so I needed to reload everything manually (‘restore from Time Machine Backup’ failed; Kernel Panic); then I lost access to what I needed.
Short answer: after much struggle, a friend simply suggested “Why don’t you copy the file you don’t have permission to open to another drive? If you have permission to copy it, once it’s copied, you might be able to access it…” Simple, and brilliant. The only issue is, when copying the Jan 11 backup folder from a TM backup, I wasn’t sure if it would really copy all of the files going back to May ’08 (because of the indexing / sparsebundle setup)…but it seems to have worked (still need to check/correlate every file).
So, the work-around worked, I have a second copy of everything, and you can skip the rest, although if you are up for it, I still would like to get access to the original folders (now that there’s no risk of loosing things permanently) to be sure I really have everything.
I looked at your December 16, 2008 12:37 post, but didn’t run it exactly. I don’t see ‘chmod’, just ‘chown’:
___________________
In Terminal:
$ cd /Volumes/Backup
$ ls -alF
$ sudo chown jfoster .001b63b6df97
____________________________
I am not clear on two things:
1. Is there a reason there are no ” / ” ‘s in line 3?
2. Since I’m not getting an error message, but just can’t get into some of the sub-folders, I don’t know which of two ” .001……..” files to use. One is dated May 27, 2008 (hopefully that won’t come through as a smiley face again!?), which I assume is my original TM backup (May is when I started it); the other is Jan. 22, so should be my new TM backup (which I put on the same external HD – mistake). Is it safe to run ‘chown’ on the May “.001…” file? Do I need “/ ” ‘s?
Not understanding #2, and based on other forums, I tried (among other things):
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/”(my external HD)”
sudo chmod 644 /….
sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/(my external HD)”
at one point I got “ls: illegal option — /”, and at some point lost access to the whole drive.
I also tried to drill down near to the folders I need, to try changing permissions on an adjacent folder I don’t need anything from as a test. It stops giving me the “~ apple$ ” command line prompt, and goes to a “>” only which doesn’t seem to respond to anything. While digging in incrementally, via ‘cd /’ and ‘ls -alF’, I get stuck at the second level; under ‘Backups.backupdb’, my old and new backup folders are called, respectively, { apple’s MacBook Pro 15″ } and { Apple’s MacBook Pro 15″ } … both factory settings by Apple after replacing my HD each time. Quite inconvenient. I have tried various combinations of adding quotes, removing quotes, changing spaces, but I keep getting ‘file not found’ or just the “>” command line prompt.
Is there any way to get past this {…15″ } problem, or do you think it’s another problem? There must be a way, or naming things with quote marks should hang up the OS regularly. What does “>” mean or do? One thought was to manually delete the { ” } from the folder name, then ” cd /” down past it and change permissions on the sub folders; if they didn’t recognize the path back, I could always add the { ” } back to the name later?
Sorry so long, thanks in advance for any suggestions. Really appreciate your advice –
David
January 26, 2009 at 5:24 am
downlord
Worked perfectly. Thanks
January 26, 2009 at 8:46 am
Barry
Worked like a charm. Thanks David!
January 27, 2009 at 5:17 am
Xavi
I am experiencing same problem as Darrin!!!! Get info is just greyed out and I can’t change it!!!!! Any help is appreciated!!!
Many thanks!
January 31, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Michael Hacker
James – Your Dec 17 fix worked – thank you very much, clearly, you are a genius of the highest order. Only ‘plaint is that for a semi-illiterate like me, I could have used even more explicit directions, i.e., when to add a space and when not to – had to try several times before it all worked. Also, for some reason Terminal was not accepting my password, so I went in and re-entered the same password and then it all worked. Many thousand thanks.
February 2, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Mark
Thanks for the help. A life saver!
February 4, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Larry
Thank you James!!! Your detailed Terminal instructions repaired my problem and TM backups are restored.
February 5, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Peter
Hey
Most of the time, when I try to backup it just freezes somewhere during the backup and I have to unplug it. What can I do? I tried leaving it to backup all night but it was still frozen.
My problem is that it only mentioned the file permission problem once and I didn’t jot down the name of the file.
Any help is appreciated!
February 6, 2009 at 1:51 pm
James Foster
Peter,
It sounds like your problem is different from mine. I’m afraid I can’t offer any advice on it.
February 8, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Anna
I’m getting “resource busy” when I enter the file name that’s causing me problems.
February 8, 2009 at 4:14 pm
James Foster
Anna,
The “resource busy” error suggests that the file is open elsewhere. I’d suggest that you restart your Mac, turn off Time Machine (using the preferences), and then try the steps described above without launching any other application. If that continues to report a problem, then it is likely that you are experiencing something different from my situation and I’m not sure I can offer much more advice.
February 8, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Eric Bowers
Thank you for this help. This has solved my Time Machine problem.
I was getting the same nonsensical message when trying to switch between two different backup drives, as just recently I have begun keeping a backup drive off-property.
February 9, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Scott
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 14, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Francis
Great help. Thanks!
February 17, 2009 at 8:54 am
Rob Hanson
Great to find a few options to follow depending on your level of competence!
As far as Terminal id concerned, I’m definitely a Newb :0)
Back ups now back online, thanks James.
February 17, 2009 at 10:03 am
Rob Hanson
Hi again James,
Just wanted to check I was ok to reproduce your instructions on my Blog (for Switchers to Mac) as I’m sure they could be useful?
I’ve given you full credit for the fix, and included a link back to this post on your Blog too.
If you’d rather I just linked back to your post than reproduce the instructions ‘longhand’ then please do let me know, I’d be glad to oblige. :0)
Thanks again,
Rob
February 17, 2009 at 10:07 am
OS X 10.5.6, Time Machine and insufficient permissions - Switchmac.Com
[…] a link to James’ Blog Post, and I’ll reproduce the ‘longhand’ instructions here […]
February 17, 2009 at 10:17 am
James Foster
Rob,
Given that the instructions sort of evolved through interactions with the comments I think a careful summary/rewrite might be a valuable service. Please go ahead.
February 18, 2009 at 11:17 am
Diogo Pedro
I have a similar problem whit my time machine but when i try to change the permisions on terminal it says that it’s a Read-only file system
I have some files that i rely need so i can’t format te disk the files are not backup but they are in a folder in the disk.
when i try to copy or move it says that an unexpected error has occurred (error code -1426.)
Can anyone help me please
February 18, 2009 at 11:57 am
James Foster
Hi Diogo,
I’m not familiar with that problem, but I posted a link (see above at December 18, 2008 at 8:36 am) that discusses a possibly related problem. Sorry I can’t offer more help. Maybe someone else has an idea they can post.
February 18, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Diogo Pedro
If anyone else could say or indicate a link on how to fix this
James
i have seen your link but it doesn’t say nothing taht I need thanks anyway
February 18, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Diogo Pedro
I found a way
After 3 days reading forums and writing codes unsuccessfully i fund a way to recuvery my files from the disk or duplicate them in two ways
1º in my case I have only reading permissions but for how stupid it looks i can zip the files to another location and then decompress them and there you have a copy of the file locked this uses a huge space on an hard drive but if you do it by parts it will work better.
In my case this worked you can try it by using a small file and if it work’s go for it
Then after duplicating all files format the HD
2º This one uses a recovery programme to recovery HD data I used Stellar Phoenix Macintosh 3.5 it worked fine Juste take’s a long time depending on the HD size (I have a 150g. and It took 5h.) then the programme shows you previous of the files and you choose what you wont to save The only problem was wen it asked for payment of the full version for 100$ but
I’s a rely good programme see the link for moor inf. http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/ but I didn’t wanted to pay so I come up whit solution 1
this sows us that the most complicated problems most of the times have the simples solutions (zipping a file)
Hope I helped
February 22, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Marko
OMG thanks so much, that was cool
February 24, 2009 at 8:02 am
Jeff G
Thank you, thank you!
I asked a friend who is a computer science professor at a highly reputed college for help with this. No luck. But this did the trick in about a minute. You are awesome.
March 3, 2009 at 11:24 am
Aimee
Thank you very much! So helpful, fixed it in minutes!
March 4, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Diogo Pedro
It’s stupid but it works that’s all it’s needed
March 5, 2009 at 10:02 am
Joachim
Thanks a lot for that fix from Switzerland, James!
March 5, 2009 at 10:40 pm
thejwshow
James,
Thanks, your instructions written for the average blockhead like myself was very helpful and I sorted out my issue.
Here’s a quick problem for yourself or the greater TM community out there – I have recently switched from using my TM connected by Firewire to my computer to backing up via an Airport Extreme. Unfortunately, all increments of my old backups via Firewire mean nothing to the TM now that it is connected via the Extreme. TM creates a “sparsebundle” file and tries to do a complete backup again – (and runs out of space funnily enough) . Has anyone experienced this, or have any comments/solutions?
Thanks again James
Jamie
March 12, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Joe Briskey
James–good on ya! Thanks for all of your time and effort. You fixed my TM problem. Two wrinkles: After rechecking with “ls -alF” the file was still there, but TM works anyway. I had to run your fix for each of my back up drives, deleting the same file for each drive. Both drives now work with TM.
Re: the comments about long “preparing” times? I find it is not uncommon for TM to prepare for 10-15 minutes. Perhaps longer for others? Suggest just waiting for a while; go to bed.
Joe
March 13, 2009 at 5:59 am
alexander Worley
JAMES FOSTER YOU ARE A LIFE SAVER
PLEASE DONT STOP HELPING PEOPLE
March 15, 2009 at 2:01 am
Joy Fernandez
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
March 15, 2009 at 4:25 pm
chris reed
Thanks 😉 saved a whole load of time. Things seem to be back to normal again. Chris
March 16, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Suzen
Hi Everyone,
Need Help….I’m following the instructions given regarding backing up error to Time Capsule (Time Machine) but I can’t get it going.
1. I go to the terminal and it says already: my nameMac: Zen$ (Zen is the name of my harddrive
2.then I type: cd (space)/volumes and then it says: my nameMAC: volumes Zen$
3. then I try typing cdtimecapsule (I have to type it in for when I hit the tab key nothing happens so I’m thinking I’m doing something wrong right about here
4. The is says: cdtime-bash:cdtime: command not found
Please help…thanks
March 16, 2009 at 12:13 pm
James Foster
Hi Suzen, You need to be very careful about spaces and capitalizations. The ‘V’ on ‘Volumes’ should be in uppercase. There needs to be a space after the ‘cd’ in your step 3. If you still have trouble, post the result of ‘ls -lF’ after your step 2.
March 16, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Suzen
Okay so I typed: cd /Volumes
Then I typed: cd tim (hit the tab key and nothing)
Shouldn’t it now fill in what the name of my Backup on my desktop says which is Time Capsule?
What am I doing wrong and thanks so much for your help.
March 16, 2009 at 12:42 pm
James Foster
Suzen, Maybe you need to be even more careful about upper/lower case. Does your backup volume begin with ‘T’ or with ‘t’? When you type ‘cd tim’ are you using ‘t’ or ‘T’? Again, as asked before, post the result of ‘ls -lF’ if you still have trouble.
March 16, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Suzen
Thanks so much James. I finally “GOT IT” and it works. Really appreciate your time.
March 19, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Paula Sun
Hi, i had the same problem, first it said , the backvolume cannot be found, then i followed the instructions on apple store, re-select the backup disk, and tried to select it back again, and it gave me the cannot save .001 **file error. however, i cannot do what you didd, as that file has never been saved in the backup disk, when i did ls -alF, i dont see that file , but another .001***file (someother number),,, alas, i removed the .001** file on the backup disk.. and still have the same problem, it wont let me save the new .00**file,,
any advice? sorry i am not sure if i confused u already..
March 19, 2009 at 4:22 pm
James Foster
Hi Paula, It sounds like your problem is different from mine. I had a file that already existed and changing its owner/permissions or deleting it fixed the problem. I’m not sure how the file name is created (it seems somewhat random) and I don’t think you can cause TimeMachine to use a different file name than it wants to use. If you were able to delete the existing file and it still gives an error then I’m not really able to be of much help. Sorry!
March 19, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Paula Sun
Hi, James:
turned out the file name is the mac address name, i got a new file name, is because they replaced my logic broad. i have updated the mac address in the backup disk, but still cannot write to it.. :S
March 19, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Paula Sun
thanks for your reply anyway
March 23, 2009 at 7:34 pm
John Fasano
Thanks….it worked.
I would only add that in the instructions, after you have the list of volumes, when you type “cd” then the first few letters of the backup name, you need to put a space between cd and the name; the same with the file name later.
March 27, 2009 at 10:14 am
Jon Harris
Perfect! Never used Terminal before so I proceeded very carefully, and this worked first time. I use my Mac for business so delighted to have backups restored. Bless you!
March 30, 2009 at 11:32 am
Kip Shaw
Worked like a charm. Thanks so much.
March 31, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Steve
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I greatly appreciate your generosity in posting such thorough instructions. You fix worked like a charm.
April 7, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Steve
Much easier fix:
1) Download ivisible for free
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24682/ivisible
2) Make files visible
3) Delete error message file on backup hard drive
4) Make files invisible again & your good to go
April 16, 2009 at 4:29 am
Peter
James,
Your detailed description of December 17 at 8:22am worked a treat (and a lot better and easier than the Apple Support here in France…)
Merci beaucoup !!!
Peter
April 18, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Ray Venables
This solution fixed my problem! Thank you for your help.
April 27, 2009 at 9:11 am
Steve Young
The fix worked flawlessly thanks very much for posting and maintaining this string!
April 27, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Emily
Thank you so much for this James! Our server was just upgraded to 10.5.6 today and was unable to backup at all until I ran your terminal code. Now we are back to normal. Thanks!
April 28, 2009 at 9:20 pm
cameronreilly
My sincere thanks for this solution as well! Finally managed to fix Time Machine today, hadn’t been able to backup for weeks!
July 28, 2009 at 12:25 pm
ian
Thanks so much! worked first time! Applecare was rubbish and didn’t know how to help, so finding this thread is great.
December 15, 2009 at 5:27 pm
James H
Hi James, I followed your instructions but after typing in step 9. Type “ls -alF” and press Return, i get “invalid argument” in terminal.
I’m new to Terminal and Unix so any help would be great!
thanks!
James
December 15, 2009 at 6:51 pm
James Foster
Are you at a command prompt (hit return a couple times) with a ‘$’ character? The ‘ls’ is an abbreviation for ‘list’ (containing the first and third letters). The arguments follow a space and the hyphen/minus character. Try just two arguments, ‘a’ (for all) and ‘l’ (for long). Make sure you have a space between the ‘ls’ and the ‘-al’. If this does not work, can you reply with a copy/paste of the Terminal output?
December 15, 2009 at 7:38 pm
James H
I ended up reformatting the hard drive on a PC and then back to Mac Extrended Journaled on my Mac and for some reason it seems to be working fin now?!?
Thanks for your thoughts anyway!
January 16, 2010 at 5:36 pm
William Strong
I tried to cd to my backup directory but get the message -bash: cd: Time Machine Backups/: Permission denied
I am relativly new to terminal so I don’t know what to do from here.
January 16, 2010 at 6:12 pm
James Foster
William,
Are you at step #5 of the instructions from 12/17/08 08:22? If so, could you post the result of step #4 (a listing of the /Volumes directory) and then the result of ‘whoami’? Are you the only users of your Mac? Do you have an account with Admin privileges?
— James
January 21, 2010 at 6:51 pm
William Strong
I am at step 5, the results from step 4 are:
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 136 Jan 21 17:48 .
drwxrwxr-x 54 root wheel 1904 Jan 16 14:51 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jan 21 17:07 Macintosh HD -> /
drw-rw-rw- 7 darlastrong staff 544 Oct 5 2008 Time Machine Backups
When I enter “whoami” I get my user name
I am not the only user on my account, but I am on the admin user
January 21, 2010 at 10:48 pm
James Foster
William,
In order to change directory (cd) into a location the target needs to be ‘executable.’ In your listing we can see that ‘Macintosh HD’ has permissions of ‘rwxr-xr-x’ (where ‘x’ is ‘executable’), so you can ‘cd’ to that volume. On the other hand, your ‘Time Machine Backups’ has permissions of ‘rw-rw-rw-‘ so that while it is readable and writable, it does not have execute permissions. To fix this enter the following at a terminal prompt:
sudo chmod 777 Time*
When prompted, give your password. You can then repeat the directory listing (ls) and see if the permissions have changed.
— James
January 22, 2010 at 4:30 pm
William Strong
Is Time* the name of my backups if so how exactly do I enter it when i did i got a message saying no such file or directory
January 22, 2010 at 7:45 pm
James Foster
William,
After you complete step 4, type ‘pwd’ (without the quotes) and press return. Then type ‘sudo chmod 777 Time*’ (without the quotes) and press return. If it prompts for a password, enter your password and press return. At that point repeat step 4 and continue with step 5. If you get an error, then copy everything from the Terminal starting with step 3 and post it here.
— James
January 30, 2011 at 9:29 am
Reven
James, I just restored my MacBook Pro after it crashed from a severe permissioning issue (complete reinstall off Time Capsule starting off the install CD). I am now trying to set up my TC again for back-ups: I am getting: “You do not have the necessary read, write and append privileges on the selected network backup disk.”
I do NOT get a specific file name like you do, just this generic message. When I type “ls -aiF”, I get the following:
total 16
drwx—— 7 reven staff 264 Nov 23 15:23 ./
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 136 Jan 31 00:23 ../
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 reven staff 6148 May 14 2010 .DS_Store*
drwxrwxrwt@ 3 reven staff 264 Nov 23 15:23 .TemporaryItems/
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 reven staff 0 May 11 2010 .com.apple.timemachine.supported*
drwxrwxrwx@ 7 reven staff 264 Jan 24 23:50 Reven’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle/
drwxrwxrwx 3 reven staff 264 Nov 23 15:31 Desktop/
Any thoughts on what I need to delete/change here?
January 30, 2011 at 9:45 am
James Foster
Reven, Yours does seem like a different problem from mine. I suspect that something about the restore left the permissions to the network disk confused. Since I’m using a local (external) disk for Time Machine, I don’t have any experience with Time Capsule and a network backup. You might try the suggestions at http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html (offered without any guarantees!). — James
September 10, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Joel Batts
James
My issue may be similar to Reven’s, but not sure…I followed your instructions, but for some reason there is no filename in the Terminal listing that resembles the file name that is coming up in the error dialogue. Any thoughts on what to do if the filename does not appear?
Thanks
Joel
September 10, 2011 at 9:34 pm
James Foster
Joel,
What error are you getting and when?
James