Time Machine - Abnormal Look on MBPro?

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Hi All - I've been reading David Pogue's new 'missing manual' book on Yosemite - was on the Time Machine chapter today and plugged in my Seagate external HD doing my TM backups for nearly 2 years to my MBPro (specs in the sidebar) just to follow along w/ his text.

So opened up TM to discover an abnormal interface - first two screen captures below show show different issues (after several closings and re-openings), i.e. '?' marks in the right upper corners of the Finder windows and missing top menu bars.

I looked at the backup folders on the drive via Finder and the half dozen perused from different times seemed to be intact, so my files are likely there; also opened 'Disk Utility' and the Seagate drive verified OK; logged out and in - no difference; rebooted - third screen capture still shows a problem.

Seems to be a software issue w/ TM - could get a new external HD but not sure that would make a difference - would appreciate comments & suggestions - thanks. Dave :)
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Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 4.13.05 PM.png
 
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MacInWin

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In Finder, not in TM, what's in the upper right corner, next to the search bar? Anything there?

EDIT: That ? is not on my TM screen, and is generally used to mark a link to something that cannot be found.
 
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In Finder, not in TM, what's in the upper right corner, next to the search bar? Anything there?

EDIT: That ? is not on my TM screen, and is generally used to mark a link to something that cannot be found.

Hi Jake - thanks for responding - I looked @ TM in my iMac and also seems to work normally (i.e. no '?' nor blank Finder pages).

SO, as you suggested I opened Finder on my MBPro and indeed the '?' mark is there (****, I've used that SO much but never looked in that corner!) - when I clicked on the question mark, it indeed stated an item could not be found - see two screen captures below - the link is from nearly a year ago and have no idea what it may be?

BUT, you seem to be on a possible solution - will await some further suggestions - guess that I need to eliminate an 'orphan' link? Thanks again - Dave :)
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Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 8.05.05 PM.png

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MacInWin

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Try right-click on the Toolbar (that's the line with the ?) and then "Customize Toolbar" and look for something you might have put there, or select where it says "Icon only" and change that to "Icon and Text" to see if the name of what's missing will appear.
 
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Try right-click on the Toolbar (that's the line with the ?) and then "Customize Toolbar" and look for something you might have put there, or select where it says "Icon only" and change that to "Icon and Text" to see if the name of what's missing will appear.

Hi again Jake - thanks for your further advice - went into the 'Customize Toolbar' and looked but see nothing obvious - below another 'screen shot' of the open menu options.

The 'png graphic' is dated 3/29/13 which is likely the day I set up TM on this laptop - my 'first' BU is the next day - I feel that you're onto the problem but just not sure which *.png image is being discussed? Maybe the image below will help? Thanks again - Dave :)
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Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 9.31.10 PM.png
 

bobtomay

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At some point you put the link to an image on the Finder toolbar and that image has either been moved or deleted.

Open Finder, right click on the toolbar and select 'Customize toolbar'.
Drag it off the toolbar and release it on the desktop.
 
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At some point you put the link to an image on the Finder toolbar and that image has either been moved or deleted.

Open Finder, right click on the toolbar and select 'Customize toolbar'.
Drag it off the toolbar and release it on the desktop.

Hi Bobtomay - thanks for 'chiming in' - not sure if you saw the updated image in my last post w/ the 'customize toolbar' opened - all of the icons seem to be part of the program, so not sure which one to drag out? Plus, as I stated the reference date is when I setup TM on this laptop so not sure that I would have done much if anything w/ Finder at that time? Dave :)
 
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Just a quick addition - in the 'Customize Toolbar' menu, I dragged the 'default' toolbar to the top and the '?' disappeared - I also deleted the first BU (Mar 30, 2013 hoping that might have an effect?) - SO, the '?' mark is gone from the Finder window (first screenshot below) and when I open TM, the question marks have disappeared from the multiple Finder windows - interestingly, when I go back to my now most recent BU (4/9/13), there are multiple blank pages behind (second screen shot) - not sure what that means? Dave :)
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Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 11.04.02 PM.png

Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 11.03.01 PM.png
 

bobtomay

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By dragging the default toolbar up there, it auto removes everything not part of the default.

Next time you see that, you would drag the item in question (in your case the question mark) and drag that off the toolbar - without the need for resetting it back to default.

You can test it out - take a screen shot - drag it to the Finder toolbar - delete the screen shot and empty the trash - go back to finder and click on it - it will turn into a ? because it can no longer be found - you can then open the Customize Toolbar and drag only the ? off the toolbar onto the desktop - it will go up in a puff of smoke similar to the way it does when you drag items off the Dock.

As to the icons not appearing on the rest of the pages in TM, I think that is just one of those unexplainable (for us peons) intermittent computer glitches with TM
 
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MacInWin

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I have noted that the "Finder" in the TM display seems to be actually just Finder, so removing the ? Icon in Finder probably got rid of it in TM, too.

Great idea to drag the default up, but as bobtomay says, pretty much anything on the tool bar can be dragged off and made to go poof.

I, also, have seen the multiple blank pages behind the oldest backup. No idea why anybody at Apple thought that was a good idea, but that's how TM woks.
 
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Thanks Guys for all of your great comments and help - I think my TM is now back to normal but will still explore the program just to learn more of its features. Dave :)
 

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I was just in my TM backup and it had like every 4th page blank.
 
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OI just thought I'd mention it and I didn't see it mentioned, but normally to remove an odd item from a Finder window like the "?" item, one normally has to press the command key and then click and drag the item off the window.

It think the latest OS X removed the "poof" cloud. Too much action for Jony. ;)
 
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MacInWin

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I was just in my TM backup and it had like every 4th page blank.
I think (just think, do not know) that the cause of that is that TM now has to reindex the backups when it opens, at least thats how it looks to me. My oldest pages don't populate unless I open TM and wait a while. Maybe the same is going on with yours?
 

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I was doing a bunch of experimenting last night in it - which I had never really done before because I only use TM as a duplicate backup system to SuperDuper!. I have, at this point, never had to restore something that I have previously deleted.

I am taking a wild guess based on what mine looks like here - the tabs that are blank at the top on mine vary depending on the particular folder I have selected. Based on looking at the ones where I still have hourly backups available and knowing my habits in the early morning hours, it appears the blank tabs may be those where a backup started and while the backup was ongoing, the machine was put to sleep. In my case, I have backups that are only minutes apart - can only guess due to closing the lid while I went to get another cup of coffee or the boys room. So, I'm getting the blank page in a folder for a particular backup for folders that did not get backed up at that time but the blank folder indicates that there are at least some folders that did complete prior to my closing the lid. It looks like the Applications folder may be one of the first folders that is backed up when TM starts because that page/folder is viewable in all of the instances where the page is blank in other folders.

Looking at much older folders - say a year+ ago - perhaps those are backups where a portion of the backup has been deleted by TM - either due to space on the external drive or the individual folder is same as other later backups and no reason to duplicate the database?
 
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