issue with TimeMachine recovery

[getUpQ-nap]

Hi everyone,
I have QNAP TS412 for many years. I have a macbook pro early 2015 computer and I sync automatically everyday my timeMachine backups to QNAP via wifi.
I don't have a limit set for the time machine backup and it grew to ~2.5 TB
I have 1 TB disk in my macbook pro. During recent update my disk in my mac died, lost partitions, etc. and I need to recover from my TimeMachine Backup which is on QNAP. The issue is that, when I enter the recovery mode while holding CMD + R during boot, and then I try to recover and click the TimeMachine source on QNAP, it prompts me to enter login credentials, but after entering the correct credentials, it seems to be loading for a minute (cursor spinning) and then it stops and nothing happens, and I can click on "connect" button again.
So I am unable to perform recovery from QNAP.

My suspision is that the QNAP is too old and slow and the backup is too big, so it cannot handle it properly and MacOS recovery just somehow silently gives up.
I went to my local store and bought 4TB SATA HDD to copy my TMachine folder to this drive via eSATA. So then I can connect this drive directly to my Mac and recover from there. Would this work?
The file copy is slow as hell, it will take days to fully copy 2.5 TB (I hoped eSATA would work faster than usb 2.0)

Do you please have any other suggestions on how to make this work so that tomorrow I can start my workday?

I was thinking about moving my RAID 5 array to a desktop computer, to get better speed. But I am too afraid to try this, to not lose my data.
I was also thinking about buying a new model of QNAP which has thunderbolt port and connect the macbook directly to this QNAP. But I am not sure if the new QNAP would recognise my RAID.

I am looking forward on your tips, and suggestions. Thank you!

[dolbyman]

moving the array to a computer wouldn't work...(unless you have a linux environment.. at least its an old cat1 device without lvm)

migrating to a new qnap would leave your volume in legacy (as its migrated from old cat1) ..with tons of missing features

and as always...have external nas backups at all time...even without trying above shenanigans

cant help with time machine stuff...I got no apple products

[getUpQ-nap]

I just tried to recover using my other macbook pro, directly from macOS by using Migration Assistent. Similar behavior. Found the time machine on QNAP, asked for credentials, but after entering credentials, nothing, like it didn't happen...

My suspicion for the root cause is that the QNAP is unable to read content in this directory /TMBackup/MaBbook Pro.backupbundle/bands
because there are too many files. If I tried to list files in terminal, it gets stuck. If I try it via web UI in FileStation, it gives an error "Unknown Error".

Therefore I think that when MacOS tries to read this folder content, QNAP hangs up, and MacOS has an unhandled exception and fails silently.
Maybe I could somehow purge the backup to be max 1TB, but I am scared.

[dolbyman]

tried it via wired connection?

[getUpQ-nap]

migrating to a new qnap would leave your volume in legacy (as its migrated from old cat1) ..with tons of missing features

but I would be able to read the data fast, right?
I could just retrieve all I need and then reformat the RAID.

So could I move my array to QNAP TVS-472XT-PT-4G ?

Thanks for reply

[dolbyman]

should be compatible ...yes

https://www.qnap.com/en/nas-migration/

[getUpQ-nap]

yes, I tried it via wired connection, same result - I think 256 MB RAM and that crappy ARM processor can't handle the content of this folder.
Right now I am waiting until the TMBackup folder copies via eSATA to my external disk. If this won't work I will need to find some local store ASAP to buy this new qnap with thunderbolt support.
I am still open for any other suggestions from the community.
Thank you.

[getUpQ-nap]

ok so yesterday it finished copying... the time machine backup was not detected from the external drive.
I had run this command:

Code: Select all

hdiutil attach /Volumes/extHDD/MacBook Pro.backupbundle

this mounts the backupbundle as an image and then MacOS recovery is able to detect it as a source.

Unfortunately my TM backups were missing my last days of work, so I tried something different to recover my files.
Was trying to use first aid, diskutil verifyDisk, diskUtil repairDisk, mount... none of these worked. So I installed MacOS on an external hdd, loaded it, bought "iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac" software for 100 eur and this software was really able to recover data from my APFS encrypted partition to an external drive.
So finally I used Time Machine to recover to latest day of my backup.
And then copied the necessary recovered files files by iBoysoft to my system.
I have sold my QNAP TS412 and going to upgrade my Turris Omnia router case for NAS case. And will make NAS out of my router.

[sterny72]

I wanted to report that I'm getting the same behavior.

In my case, I made a brand new TM back on my MBP. Then, I want to restore it to a VMware Fusion BigSur VM running on an iMac.

It see'a the TM instance (running from Transfer information to this Mac), and when I click continue, it will sit there for 10 minutes, or more (sometimes) less, and then continue will light up again. Keep hitting continue, and it never proceeds past the screen.

Any idea on what logs or information to look at to try and troubleshoot this?

[kknd007]

ok so yesterday it finished copying... the time machine backup was not detected from the external drive.
I had run this command:

Code: Select all

hdiutil attach /Volumes/extHDD/MacBook Pro.backupbundle

this mounts the backupbundle as an image and then MacOS recovery is able to detect it as a source.

Unfortunately my TM backups were missing my last days of work, so I tried something different to recover my files.
Was trying to use first aid, diskutil verifyDisk, diskUtil repairDisk, mount... none of these worked. So I installed MacOS on an external hdd, loaded it, bought "iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac" software for 100 eur and this software was really able to recover data from my APFS encrypted partition to an external drive.
So finally I used Time Machine to recover to latest day of my backup.
And then copied the necessary recovered files files by iBoysoft to my system.
I have sold my QNAP TS412 and going to upgrade my Turris Omnia router case for NAS case. And will make NAS out of my router.

Guide to how to copy QNAP Time Machine backup to USB disk and mount as Mac recognizable local Time Machine backup. (Thus speeding up the restore as well as work around the issue where QNAP hosted Time Machine Backup's inability to be restored causing unnecessary frustration to people who assumed and trusted QNAP's Time Machine functionality.

The issue with QNAP Time Machine restore while MacBook iMac in safe mode is still present as of now. With the latest firmware and super fast CPU QNAPs.
Specifically,

• Turn off your mac and reboot, at the beginning of the reboot hold cmd+r until it boots into safe mode, or it could ask you to pick a wifi and connect, then it downloads a safe boot image and boot to that image if the Mac's hard drive is no longer accessible.

• Click on Time Machine Restore, it will find the Time Machine running on your local QNAP server, click next, then you are asked to log on to the QNAP with your QNAP credentials. Once done, the cursor changes to spin mode for some seconds and then changes back to normal cursor, then nothing happens, you can click next again and repeat the above, it just doesn't proceed to the next step.

• If you are confident you have a recent and complete Time Machine backup, you can quit the Time Machine restore window and click on Disk Utility, then you can erase the problematic builtin apple drive (provided you can still see it hence almost ruling out hardware issue), format it as standard mac os journaled and UEFI boot, then quit the disk utility window.

• Now click on reinstall mac os, this will install a new copy of the os onto your newly formatted hard drive, depends on your MacBook iMac's age it could be an old os or big sur, either way once it's installed and booted successfully, you'll need to upgrade to or stay at the current major version, the major os version must match the os when your last Time Machine backup was done. E.g. Sierra Time Machine can only be restored to Sierra, Big Sur to Big Sur.

• Once you are done the os install and/or upgrade, you can copy the Time Machine backup folder from QNAP server, this is stored in a user folder on the QNAP. You can simply copy the folder that contains your Mac's Time Machine backup from QNAP to a Mac OS Journal format external USB disk.

• Once the copy is done, connect the USB disk to the booted up Mac and run the command provided by getUpQ-nap in Mac Terminal, remember to double quote the path of the Time Machine backup folder if it contains space. e.g.

  Code: Select all

  hdiutil attach "/Volumes/extHDD/MacBook Pro.backupbundle"

  Replace the extHDD with your USB Disk's name, you can find it in Disk Utility.

• Then launch Migration Assistant from mac, when you are selecting the source, you'll see both the QNAP Time Machine backup on the network, as well as the Time Machine backup stored on the USB Disk. Pick the USB Disk Time Machine and it's a lot faster than restoring from network.

Hope this guide would help someone in the future.