Time Machine asks about my drive after every backup

[jsw]

Been using SD for a long time. I recently got a new computer and new set of backup drives. Now after every backup I'm presented with the Time Machine popup "Do you want to use BootableBackup to back up with Time Machine?". I hit cancel every morning. I've verified that Time Machine is off via System Preferences. I've turned it on and back off. I've rebooted. Why can't I get rid of this daily popup? This didn't happen with my previous setup. The most significant change is I'm now using portable drives powered by the USB connection. And they have GUID partition table.

Mac Mini
OS X 10.5.7
SD! 2.5 (v84)
Seagate FreeAgent Go (possibly ran SDDiskTool to set GUID)

thanks,
jeff

[dnanian]

Did you schedule an erase-then-copy backup, rather than a Smart Update? This is the kind of thing that TM does when a new drive appears...

[jsw]

Ah, that must be it. Smart Update is not selected. I'll post back tomorrow if that doesn't fix it.

BTW: I may have turned off Smart Update in my previous setup because when the drive was nearly full it acted as though it was copying new files before deleting old files, and therefore didn't have enough room to backup even though the src/dest drives were the same size.

thanks,
jeff

[dnanian]

Remember that if you're dealing with a scheduled copy here, you need to delete and recreate the schedule.

[jsw]

Yep, that fixed it. Thanks, Dave. Still strange that it's not possible (at least through OS X System Preferences) to totally disable Time Machine from asking about new drives.

jeff

[dnanian]

It's quite annoying. We sort of found a way to do it during development, but it was so over the top and complicated we decided it wasn't worth it...

[cookieme]

Hi

I'm experiencing this same Time Machine popup after running a "backup on mount" scheduled smart update.

It is very odd because Time Machine is OFF, all the backups from the initial one were done using SmartUpdate.

Every time I reconnect the USB drive I see the Time Machine prompt if I want to use it for Time Machine now or later. I always answer NO.

I'm not entirely sure but the following file is created on the USB drive after I select not to use the drive for TM:

.com.apple.timemachine.donotpresent

I believe that when SuperDuper does the next smart update it is removing this file and that is why I get the prompt next time around. I understand that this file is not present on my Mac's drive, so it makes sense that it gets deleted, but just as Spotlight is preserved I think that SuperDuper should do the same with TimeMachine.

Please let me know if I've got it wrong.

[dnanian]

That prompt should only come up one time, when the drive is erased, and not again. As far as I know, Time Machine keeps track of the low-level UUID of the drive.

Are you sure that you're Smart Updating the drive and not erasing it?

[cookieme]

Originally Posted by dnanian

That prompt should only come up one time, when the drive is erased, and not again. As far as I know, Time Machine keeps track of the low-level UUID of the drive.

Are you sure that you're Smart Updating the drive and not erasing it?

Yep 100% sure that I'm using Smart Update. I've even removed the TM preferences file found under /Library/Preferences and that doesn't help.

I've googled and tried to find out what's happening, but as far as I can tell it has to do with the hidden file on the external drive being deleted after every SD Smart Update.

[dnanian]

Well, weirdly, this doesn't happen to me at all... but I'll look into preserving that file in the future.

[cookieme]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Well, weirdly, this doesn't happen to me at all... but I'll look into preserving that file in the future.

Ok, perhaps we can troubleshoot further? Where is the file where TM keeps track of the UUIDs?

[dnanian]

I assume its preferences. But since none of this is documented in any way, they can change it at any time. Certainly, we did verify some time ago that the UUID was in control of this (and had confirmation of that, too). But it may have changed at some point.

[cookieme]

Originally Posted by dnanian

I assume its preferences. But since none of this is documented in any way, they can change it at any time. Certainly, we did verify some time ago that the UUID was in control of this (and had confirmation of that, too). But it may have changed at some point.

OK, I couldn't find anything in the TM preferences file that indicated that the drives UUID was stored. As I said the only thing I found related to TM and that particular drive was the file that was created on the drive when I answered the prompt. BTW the file is empty, so its presence alone disables the prompt.

Thanks for looking into this for a future release.

[dnanian]

FYI, we've had another user report this just a few minutes ago, so something has clearly changed. As I said, we'll look into preserving this file in a future version.