
Time Machine in macOS 10.15.3 is very slow on first full backup - miles
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/02/12/time-machine-in-catalina-10-15-3-has-serious-bugs/
======
frereubu
The article is mostly about the fact that the first backup is slow. That was
my experience too, but I wouldn't call that a "serious bug" in the context of
backups. I'd call silently corrupted backups a serious bug. There's this
paragraph:

"Several users have reported to me that they too have experienced serious
problems with Time Machine in 10.15.3, both in making first full backups _and
in trying to restore from existing backups_. At least one of these has been
reported to Apple as a bug in Time Machine, and has apparently joined several
previous reports of the same problem." (My emphasis)

Clearly there are people who have what I'd call serious bugs, including people
in the comments here. But it doesn't seem to me like anyone has proved that
there are replicable serious bugs with Time Machine - although of course just
because it's unproved doesn't mean it's not the case, and two backup methods
are clearly better than one.

I've never had an issue with Time Machine (touch wood) and have found the
ability to easily revert to previous versions a godsend sometimes.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I've been using Time Machine backups for years (company policy) via an
external USB drive, and now that it's full and I only tend to remember it once
every couple of months, a backup takes a full workday or more to run.

At the same time I've got Arq Backup running to back up my code folder (not
everything in there is on accessible git remotes for me), but it's very heavy
as well given the number of small files (code + git files). But at least it
doesn't end up months out of date I guess.

Does anyone have a good backup solution for one's code folder? Large amount of
small files (probably tens or hundreds of thousands. It's got a load of
node_module folders as well I'm sure)

~~~
happywolf
My code folder is a sym link to a folder in my iCloud drive. The beauty is all
my code will be sync'ed to cloud automatically, and the bonus is I can see
this folder in every machine that syncs with the same Apple account. I believe
this approach works with any cloud drive like DropBox, Google Drive, One
Drive, etc.

~~~
Someone
It also means that you can destroy your ‘backup’ easily, and get your
erroneous change synced to every machine that syncs with the same Apple
account, destroying most copies of the affected file(s).

Unlike Dropbox, iCloud Sync doesn’t version files, so that’s not easily
corrected, even if you spot the problem early.

------
m3nu
That's not news. I stopped using Time Machine, when it couldn't transfer my
backup to a new Macbook. Rsync worked better. If you look at the actual
backup, they use hard links to make snapshots. Not great for many small files
or small changes to large files.

Since then I wrote a simple frontend for Borg Backup for macOS, called
Vorta[1]. Use it for local and remote backups[2]. Fast and works on any file
system.

1: [https://vorta.borgbase.com](https://vorta.borgbase.com)

~~~
72deluxe
It strikes me as odd that APFS doesn't support hard links any more despite
being the "new" filesystem, yet the entire macOS backup system relies on the
old deprecated HFS+ filesystem for Time Machine disk format, since it uses
hard links....

Seems a backwards, muddled, confused step (as does Catalina itself!).

~~~
oefrha
The issue at question is hard links _for directories_ , not just hard links.
Hard links aren’t going anywhere, whereas hard links for directories was a
dangerous feature to begin with (I won’t expand on that but you can easily
find explanations) and basically only there for Time Machine.

APFS has native support for COW and snapshots which is way better than the
directory hard links hack. They’re just slow to port Time Machine to APFS
targets.

~~~
72deluxe
Thanks for the explanation! I had glossed over the hard links "for
directories" only bit. Thanks.

------
verytrivial
The author keeps saying serious bugs and a thing as being infeasible when they
actually mean they don't like the first back-up taking eight hours when they
paid so much for their storage devices.

I have never waited for the first backup in Time Machine because it always
happens when I am asleep. They probably take several hours. Nothing to see
here, esp. since Time Machine is a totally end-user low-touch, simplistic
service that, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the last truly well-
engineered bits of user experience to come out of Apple. Who ever said it was
_fast_?

~~~
chadcmulligan
Time machine is wonderful in my opinion - I've been using it a bit lately to
restore files here and there, there's nothing like it on any other platform
afaik.

Pick a file, hit enter time machine, wait a bit (I still have a time capsule,
that I'll miss dearly if it goes), scroll through the history, and restore
your file, its so easy.

It is the most advanced backup system I've ever used.

Edit: I think the really great thing about time machine/capsule is I don't
know how it works, it's like a toaster, I plugged it in, clicked a couple of
things on my Mac years ago and it still works, even after 3 Macs. I remember
the days of typing tar cvf > /dev/rmt0 or some such and its a miracle in
comparison.

~~~
gumby
> I still have a time capsule, that I'll miss dearly if it goes

Many consumer NAS devices can act as time capsules so you’ll be able to
continue.

~~~
chadcmulligan
Oh yes thanks, I'm aware, but it won't be as easy as the Time Capsule I'm
sure.

~~~
gumby
In my experience you just use the config tool to tell the NAS to be a time
machine server and then point your Mac at the NAS same as you would the time
capsule. Not bad, actually!

~~~
chadcmulligan
> you just use the config tool

yah, and then I'll probably have to reformat the drives because they're ntfs
or something, oh but the drivers aren't compatible, just go and download the
latest, oh they don't work with this version of the OS, maybe try a different
distro, and so on.

Sigh, I like the apple way.

------
anonsivalley652
Sadly, there are hundreds of common bugs and annoyances that exist in all of
Apple platforms that bite people everyday but will never get fixed. Reporting
them is pointless because Apple rarely appears to stop to fix things. In the
past, reporting them might've been helpful, but these days, it's as useful as
shrieking into a hurricane.

Here's a list I started of just what I've found and could think of readily:

[https://git.io/JvCNb](https://git.io/JvCNb)

~~~
diroussel
> Dropping support for 32-bit apps was a terrible idea.

What? Never?

First of all I think old CPU instruction sets should be deprecated in finite
time. Secondly I think a decade is a reasonable time frame to do it in. It too
fast, not too slow.

I go my first 64-bit mac in 2006. Fourteen years later why should the Mac have
to support the older slower way that doesn’t release the potential of the
hardware?

I welcome a 64-bit only OS and haven’t suffered any loss from it.

~~~
cpcallen
I still use a lot of software, like Aperture, for which there is no good
replacement and no possibility of me recompiling it for 64-bit. I will
probably never upgrade my personal machine to Catalina as a consequence. When
it becomes infeasible to continue using Mojave I will probably abandon MacOS
entirely.

~~~
ElFitz
Wouldn't it work via a VM?

Aside from that, Aperture was abandoned 5 years ago. I would blame Apple for
not releasing a 64-bit version of it before dropping it, but not for dropping
32-bit altogether.

------
p2t2p
Tell me what doesn't have serious bags in modern Mac Os? Is it only me who's
constantly dealing with various lags and hangings? Is it only me who had to
force quit music app at least every 24 hours?

~~~
neuronic
Honestly not sure why this is downvoted. I run a multi-user setup and
switching between users is a giant pain. Here is one scenario that I find
really weird, at the very least since High Sierra.

Assume user MAIN and user WORK:

1) Open Macbook

2) Login prompt for MAIN shows, "Switch User" button below

3) Click "Switch User", now prompt with logins for MAIN and WORK shows

4) Click and successfully login to WORK, the desktop for WORK now shows

\--- Getting weird now

5) Get flashing image of desktop of user MAIN (?)

6) Get login prompt for user MAIN (??)

7) Click cancel, bounce back to login screen with MAIN and WORK (???)

8) Login to WORK again, good to go from here.

Switching between users on macOS is not just weird sometimes but at least it
_feels_ downright insecure when I am able to see flashing images of MAIN when
I am logged into WORK.

~~~
serverQuestion
this plus all the random 3D animation and programs bugging out/freezing after
switching between 2 active users. (looking at you firefox)

~~~
neuronic
Oh yes, do not dare to have Firefox open across users!

------
Razengan
I ditched Microsoft about 10 years ago and have been a fervent proponent of
Apple ever since, but since WWDC 2019, I cannot honestly recommend Apple to a
new user anymore.

There are just too damn many bugs.

In everything. Operating systems, software, services, built-in apps, even
their developer tools and even in their frameworks and the Swift language
itself.

I run into at least one bug literally every day. Someone could write a daily
blog about this. Core features like keyboard input, text selection, AirDrop,
photo picker, iCloud Drive etc. are erratic and unreliable. It's a death by
thousand cuts. Apple is no longer the clear best, just the least worst.

I love the 16" MBP though, and restoring it to the exact state as my previous
15" MBP from a Time Machine backup was smooth and effortless. But when I tried
to backup the new system, it seemed to ignore the existing backup I had just
restored from, proceeding to write 300+ GB all over again and not showing the
older snapshots in the UI.

------
Angostura
Sadly Catalina is the _first_ incarnation of OS X/MacOS that I haven't
upgraded to within the first couple of weeks of it coming out. I really feel
like I'm missing few benefits by not upgrading and quite a few problems.

~~~
wadkar
I have found that upgrading to macOS current - 1 with latest update applied
works well. For example I decided to update to Mojave last month, and enjoyed
my High Sierra until 2019.

Having said that, I am probably not going to upgrade to catalina anytime soon
(at least not until Catalina+1 macOS gets first major patch release).

Why? Well my reasoning is that lots of stuff magically isn’t going to
recompile itself from 32bit to 64bit. I can probably help with that while
being on Mojave.

~~~
anonsivalley652
Same. You lose every cool program that happened to go unmaintained, and iTunes
evaporates. If I do upgrade, I'm thinking about a Mojave VM for maintaining
32-bit support. The problem is I feel like Apple is throwing buckets of
features into macOS without ever fixing anything and occasionally randomly
breaking stuff that worked, so that the net result is always worse than
before.

------
wirrbel
I have been using time-machine for more than 10 years I think now on my third
laptop.

Every time at some point it starts clearing out a corrupted backup history due
to some issues its found with its own backup. Frankly, I don't trust it
anymore, I just set it up for convenience and every other week I start a
restic backup ([https://restic.net/](https://restic.net/)).

I'd say Time Machine seems like one of these programs neglected by a vendor.

------
oherrala
I have been back-and-forth between Time Machine and switching to something
else. I'm still using TM, but what alternatives do I have? Any
recommendations?

~~~
chubs
Arq + B2 is fantastic for me!

~~~
danieldk
I have been using Arq for years. Locally over SSH to our NAS, remotely with B2
as well. I have done many restores over those years, both when installing a
new machine or when I lost some file. It's really awesome, especially because
it's decoupled from any storage vendor. You just buy a license and choose
where you want to store backups.

On Linux I use restic, which is also great, but on macOS Arq is just more
seamless.

~~~
nicolaslem
I use restic on my Debian laptop and I think that it misses a GUI to be
perfect.

I am fine with using the CLI for setup but unless I closely monitor systemd
timers, backups could be failing silently and I would not notice.

~~~
danieldk
Indeed! I also have a setup where the secrets come from the _pass_ password
manager, which I use with a hardware OpenPGP token. So, I get these global PIN
dialogs once gpg-agent expires the PIN, which is quite annoying :(. Not sure
though how to solve this nicely without making the secrets to visible to the
rest of the system.

------
8fingerlouie
Time Machine has been broken for years.

Backing up to local storage, or through ethernet has worked, but when backing
up via WiFi it routinely comes up with the "Time Machine needs to recreate
your backup" message.

Furthermore Time Machine insisted (probably still does) on using the
deprecated AFP protocol that even Apple no longer maintains.

A backup that cannot be trusted is not a backup, so years ago i switched to
Arq Backup ([https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)) instead.
While not as "polished" as Time Machine (Restore functionality could _really_
use some work) it actually works, and in all my years of using it, i have
never experienced a failed repository.

~~~
Asmod4n
It only works with SMB in actual versions of macOS. But it insist of using
AFP+ as its Filesystem.

~~~
salsadip
> But it insist of using AFP+ as its Filesystem.

(Assuming you mean APFS) Not true. I have Openmediavault running on my
raspberry pi 4 and the two drives i use for dual-backup are both ext4. (can
really recommend RPI4+OMV for time machine btw)

~~~
ValentineC
> _I have Openmediavault running on my raspberry pi 4 and the two drives i use
> for dual-backup are both ext4._

I suspect that's because the Time Machine solutions for NASes create a sparse
bundle that has a HFS+ (or APFS, I'm not up-to-date) partition within.

------
Fnoord
Time Machine seems like ripe for some kind of overhaul.

"The first backup is slow" is not a new bug in 10.15.3. I had that issue in at
least 10.14 as well, and who knows which other versions. Time Machine GUI is
great; but for backups off the device you need NetAtalk (which has been
reverse engineered though). The TM GUI would've been great with ZFS back in
the days, if that deal went through. It did not. APFS does not support
deduplication.

There's a bunch of Time Machine GUI FOSS applications which are inspired by
Time Machine GUI, for Linux. Not sure which one works best, or if they work on
macOS.

------
appstorelottery
Last night Time Machine returned error 45 for me backing up to NAS. Google
sent me down the rabbit hole - a bunch of people are having the same issue
with Catalina. Here's the kicker, time machine isn't officially supported on
NAS - although Apple support will help apparently. I ended up having to delete
the backup and restart; I wasn't bothered because I have a second backup on a
local USB drive. Having said this, I do think I need to switch to Carbon Copy
Cloner (but I've been saying this for years now)...

------
kareemm
Catalina + Time Machine may have bricked my mac.

Painfully I just ran into a serious restore bug with Catalina. I did a clean
install of Catalina and migrated from a Time Machine backup using Migration
Assistant. The migration hung (no progress after 3h) so I hit the cancel
button.

Big mistake.

I’m now unable to log in to my box. Migration assistant migrated some of my
data over since my profile picture changed from a stock Catalina tennis ball
photo to the custom one I used on Mojave. I would have expected cancelling to
not move ANY data over. Guessing the partial copy somehow messed up my ability
to log in.

Ever worse: I wasn’t using iCloud to reset my password. And the recovery code
I threw in 1Password just... isn’t in 1P any longer. When Catalina provides
the recovery code it never said that this was the on my way to reset your
password if you lose your login pass (or if it locks you out).

I can’t even do another clean install because Catalina asks you for your
account password in Recovery mode.

So: can’t login because Catalina messed up a migration, and I’m not using
iCloud and don’t have the recovery code.

The solution from Apple support is to take my machine into the Genius Bar.

I’m hating some Catalina product manager (because I cant reset my password)
and dev team (because of the migration bug that corrupted my login password)
right now.

------
jevgeni
Catalina bricked my iMac, so I'm not surprised. Thinking of salvaging what I
can and getting a beefy Lenovo after like 20 years of using a Mac.

~~~
tannhaeuser
While ThinkPads are great machines (I just bought a cheaper one), I'd consider
Dell XPSs as well, for the much better trackpads alone. Only two or three
years ago, the displays on ThinkPads were absolute jokes. A traditional
ThinkPad is a somewhat "masculine" and bulky thing, and the trackpad button
layout really gets in the way of a fluid workflow for me. I bought mine
because my XPS was dying (the XPSs' weak point is the battery, with high
failure rates), but I'm planning to buy a new XPS later this year anyway.

------
golergka
As does all software made by Apple.

I was a fervent fan of apple around 2010, with Snow Leopard and iPhone 4. It
really "just worked".

Now it just doesn't.

------
godman_8
I believe these problems started with Catalina in general. I figured it was
just me and disabled time machine and switched over to restic.

I made full switch over to macOS for my workstations (including laptops) as of
2018 and while it has been better, I've slowly watched macOS degrade. Multiple
monitor support has gotten worse, displays over thunderbolt 3 have gotten
worse, Time Machine is now unusable, wallpapers reset on reboot. Disk Utility
while not as bad some previous versions is still bug-laden. There are also
plenty of other issues I can't immediately recall.

I switched to macOS because POSIX on Windows at the time was bad and Linux
desktop is still a buggy affair. However I might hit a breaking point soon if
Apple can't fix things. Linux Desktop is worse, but not by much.

~~~
swiley
> Linux desktop is still a buggy affair.

Even gnome isn’t as bad as OS X IMO. If you use a decent DE like fvwm or xfce
it’s much better.

The problem everyone has is that their favorite mac software doesn’t have a
Linux port and a lot of the alternatives are less sexy (and sometimes way
worse.)

~~~
danieldk
_Even gnome isn’t as bad as OS X IMO._

It's many times worse, and I say this as a daily GNOME user. Well, perhaps not
in terms of bugs ;). Qualms compared to macOS:

\- They removed menus (with discoverable shortcuts) and replaced them by
stupid hamburger menus that miss a lot of the prior functionality. (If menus
bother you, just move them into the system tray.)

\- They removed system tray icons. There are extensions, but they only work
for a subset of the applications that I use and quite badly.

\- Keyboard shortcuts are inconsistent between applications.

\- Inconsistent ways to make applications full-screen.

\- Removed desktop icons (I use the desktop as a short-term cache of stuff
that I want to be able to open quickly).

\- A lot of things are not configure through the settings applications. Some
additional things can be configured through gnome-tweaks.

\- Much worse noise cancellation than macOS.

\- Video playback is not hardware accelerated in web browsers (not GNOME's
fault).

\- The GNOME applications are much less usable. E.g. most (all?) types of
remote calendars can not be added to Gnome Calendar. You have to go through
some archaic (compared to macOS) setup in Evolution (in my case I had to add
multiple calendars from one account one by one). Evince misses a lot of basic
operations that Preview support (such as reordering pages in a PDF.

I use GNOME because it is the only traditional desktop environment that has
great Wayland and HiDPI support. Linux is great, but the Linux desktop is a
tire fire compared to macOS.

~~~
harry8
Strong disagree there. When forced to use Apple or Microsoft desktop
environments i find they are a "tire fire" compared to stock gnome. Really.
Not in the same ballpark of usability, polish, aesthetics, quality control.

Does it work the way you're used to? For me, yes. I'm used to it and used to a
workflow using it. If you're used to something else, then no, you're not. The
end.

~~~
danieldk
_Not in the same ballpark of usability, polish, aesthetics, quality control._

We must be living in different universes ;). I cannot comment on Microsoft
Windows, since I have never really used it.

 _I 'm used to it and used to a workflow using it. If you're used to something
else, then no, you're not._

For reference: I have used macOS since 2007 and GNOME since before 1.0.0. Mid
2000s GNOME 2 was really awesome. Sure, it had its problems, but from the
perspective of usability and completeness it was awesome. For years Sun
Microsystems poured money into GNOME 2 usability studies and improvements,
because it was supposed to replace CDE on Solaris.

Edit: should add that I am waiting until KDE on Wayland is well supported on
NixOS. I have recently tried KDE on X.org a bit and it seems like it would be
a leap forward for me.

~~~
harry8
If you use gnome3, learn how. Learn the workflows. Find some youtube demos or
something. It is different to what you are used to. I find it very much faster
and more efficient to the point that I don't think about it. You basically
never touch the mouse, so yeah, it's different.

I used gnome 2 for many years. It's great. Loved it. No desire to go back at
all. Did not find Sun moving the main menu item to the bottom left and calling
it start a breakthrough in usability at all. I use osx semi-regularly. Not a
pleasant change when I do. I use windows almost never and when I do my god the
awful.

Try and use any desktop the same way you would use something different and it
will be inferior to something different. Good luck.

------
ptu
Since no-one's mentioned it yet, I've experienced super slow initial backups
too, but found disabling the built in throttling sped things up so that it
actually completes more quickly: sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

It seems to reset itself automatically.

------
gonational
I would love to be able to configure time machine to only back up a list of
directories.

I keep my files organized in specific directories in my homedir, “dev”, and
“personal”. I would like those to be backed up and nothing else.

My guess is that something like this would be much less prone to bugs and much
quicker to run.

I realize some people have a perfect and/or high complex setup that they want
to be able to come back to if their system fails, but my experience over the
last 10 years has taught me that restoring from a time machine back up is
extremely rare.

I would rather just make sure my important files are backed up (at the click
of a button, or automatically) and I can easily rebuild my system by
reinstalling things from scratch.

~~~
Ididntdothis
You can exclude stuff from time machine. I am able to reduce backup size that
way. I would also prefer being able to add folders though.i would also like to
be able to add folders to the iCloud Drive too instead of syncing only one big
folder.

------
dewey
I use TimeMachine, Carbon Copy Cloner and Arq at the same time for different
use cases. TimeMachine is good enough for quick file recovery or to restore a
new laptop.

Does anyone know the name of that app in the blog post, looks like some kind
of TM health checker?

~~~
possibleworlds
It’s by the writer, check his downloads page for The Time Machine Mechanic.
Whilst you are there check out some of his other apps. Personal fave is
Podofyllin, a brilliant little pdf viewer.

~~~
dewey
Thanks, now I just need to find something like this for Photos.app. It's
always hard to know what's going on in these apps as every a bit more detailed
information is hidden from the user.

------
zeeZ
Having to manage Macs in an AD environment is such a pain. I'm still awaiting
the day I can back them up with Veeam, just like everything else.

------
4seen
Time Machine works fine here on 10.15.2, I am serving it from a Time Capsule.
I replaced the Time Capsule harddrive with a 8TB version. Even wireless
backups work like a charm. I do not use the wireless network from the Time
Capsule, but a Linksys Velop network.

It was impossible for me host the backups reliably from a Linux computer
though.

------
LunaSea
A big issue that bit me in the ass with Time Machine was that it doesn't
backup partitions outside of the main one.

I had to discover this after wiping my disk and losing three years of personal
projects / test / scripts in the process.

Was my own fault for not checking but still ... fun times.

------
trollied
I just let Time Machine do its thing in the background, but I also rsync to a
2nd backup disk just in case... Oh, and all the important things are also
backed up to cloud storage.

------
firloop
I’ve had issues with Time Machine in the past but have been pretty happy to
date with Arq and Backblaze B2. Eventually want to configure it to use a local
NAS as well.

~~~
cerberusss
Yup, I came here to second Arq as well. I back up to a local Windows PC which
happens to be always on. Nowadays, it's very easy to enable SSH on Windows,
create an account for backups, and then point Arq to that.

The only thing that got me, is that if you configure Arq to use SSH on
Windows, you have to enter disk volumes as path.

For example, if you want your backups to appear on Windows in
D:\BigDisk\Backups then configure Arq to back up to /D/BigDisk/Backups. That's
not an Arq thing, that's how the OpenSSH server interprets paths on Windows.

------
ksec
Really wish Apple still offered Time Capsule, even if it is without AirPort
Function.

Along with iOS Time Capsule. Instead they keep pushing their "Cloud" Solution.

------
papito
A lot of people here talk about backing up their code. I did that too. In
2003. Anyone hear of Github? It's unlimited private repos.

~~~
wutwutwutwut
.. and then you lose your 2FA-info or are blocked because Iran.

~~~
papito
You need to lose your 2FA device, like your phone, the recovery codes
(normally in a password manager), AND the local copy of your code at the same
time.

~~~
wutwutwutwut
Reality may be a bit more complex.

\- You may not have all your source code repos synced locally. Maybe you think
you do but forgot one.

\- You may keep your phone in your computer bag and lose both at once (both
your 2fa and your code).

\- You may drop your phone in the ground and fail to get access to your
password manager.

.. etc.

Having a backup strategy which involves you not breaking a piece of glass (aka
phone) you play with while sitting on the toilet is a bit risky.

------
fo0blo0
mac os is the new windows 10

------
bibobap
Why use time machine over rsync?

------
sdan
A bit unrelated to this post, but Time Machine really sucks.

How can I get all the photos I’ve ever had on my laptop without going through
each revision? I wish TM worked like rsync and some added metadata files for
functionality. I’m literally having to zip each and every previous version
which takes days and unzip those files on a hard drive to eventually have a
replica of my current macOS filesystem with all the files I’ve had in the past
conglomerated there

~~~
anonsivalley652
Sounds like you need a digital asset management platform or use git because
that sounds like a overly-complicated, time-wasting workflow.

------
jonplackett
I really don’t trust this kind of ‘trust us we’re doing it in the background.
Don’t worry about it’ type software anymore, without sufficient indicators of
progress.

I do love Backblaze though. It’s like time machine in the cloud.

ANTI-DISCLAIMER: I don’t work there and deliberately not posting any referral
code type stuff

~~~
wadkar
I like TM because it is more than a traditional rsync style backup.

It appears to back up the state of machine and has allowed me to recover
access to old google accounts by formatting the MBP and restoring it to 3yr
old TM backup point.

Can backblaze let me restore my MBP to its state (including firefox/chrome
logins, keyring/keychain passwords) as it was on Feb 12, 2018?

~~~
anonsivalley652
Yes they can, if they backup everything (apart from the system) while running
as a privileged user and files are quiesced too.

Everything is a file in macOS.

There's no magic, nothing hidden and nothing special about TM.

~~~
wadkar
Who's they? Is it some configuration that I can handle at my end as an
administrator? Or is this some possibility that we aren't sure can be
actualized?

Also how do I restore that backup to a blank MBP/disk so that I get the same
state of affairs as I had on Feb 12th 2018?

