Time Machine Backups of pvm file

I wondered if my issues with 9 were related to upgrading, so I did a clean install onto a system that had never had Parallels, and created a brand-new VM to test with. No luck!

 

I recently upgraded to v.9 and tried this without success. Terminal appears to have successfully executed the command: "sudo tmutil removeexclusion -p "/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm"" but after unchecking the "Do Not Backup Virtual Machine" box in Parallels preferences, shutting down Windows and Parallels and restarting both, the "Do Not Backup Virtual Machine" box remains checked.

Any further suggestions?

 

That's odd. Go to /Library/Preferenes and look for com.apple.TimeMachine.plist. Hit spacebar to quick-look it (if you have xCode or BBedit installed, you can just open it in one of those). Look for a key called "IncludeByPath". This lists all fixed path inclusions (which should be created when you use removeexclusion -p).

Basically. look for something like this (should be near the bottom of the plist

<key>IncludeByPath</key>
<array>
<string>/Volumes/Additional Data/Parallels VMs External/Mac OS X Lion.pvm</string>

Are you seeing an entry like this in your plist?

 

Nope. I found the plist <key>IncludeByPath</key>
<array>

but all the items follow the format: "<string>/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm/ {various strings of numbers/letters}.mem</string>"

 

So it looks like instead of adding that path, it added all the contents of that directory separately. Not sure why it would do that. You're sure you entered it EXACTLY as follows?

sudo tmutil removeexclusion -p "/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm"

 

I'm 99% sure I entered it that way, and I went into Terminal again and re-executed the command EXACTLY as suggested. Still no entry "<string>/Volumes/Additional Data/Parallels VMs External/Mac OS X Lion.pvm</string>"

I do note that in the plist under <key>ExcludeByPath</key>
<array>

are various entries similar to the ones under <key>IncludeByPath</key>
<array>

which follow the format: "<string>/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm/ {various strings of numbers/letters}.mem</string>"

Not sure what that means.

BTW, I really appreciate your time trying to work this out.

 

Gordon,

Not sure what is going on, but the "Do Not Backup Virtual Machine" box is now remaining unchecked, even after shutdown and startup of the VM and Parallels, and the .pvm file is appearing in my Time Machine backup, even though I'm still not seeing the string:

<key>IncludeByPath</key>
<array>
<string>/Volumes/Additional Data/Parallels VMs External/Mac OS X Lion.pvm</string>

In any event, I guess thanks is in order!

 

Hm, well, if all the individual components inside the package are included by path, then they should get backed up. That said, the components in a .pvm package aren't necessarily static, so I'd be worried about backing up a corrupt copy of the VM if you weren't including the entire directory.

I have no idea why running that command is having a different effect on your system. Are you running 10.8? That's my system, so it's possible it works differently on earlier versions.

In any case, you could always manually add the path to the plist. You could do this by converting it to xml (see http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050430105126392) and using something like nano, or if you're less comfortable with the command line, you could just grab the free TextWrangler (http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/) which can both open binary plists, and edit files as root. Just make sure Time Machine is turned off, open the plist file, and under <key>IncludeByPath</key> , delete any existing entries that refer to your VM (i.e., that have the path to the VM in them), but don't delete anything else. Then, add a line that says
<string>/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm</string>
(Assuming that's the path to the VM you want to back up)

The end result would like like this:

<key>IncludeByPath</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/David/Documents/Parallels/Windows XP Professional.pvm</string>

Save the file, turn on Time Machine, and it should work.

 

Very weird that the same command didn't work for you. Are you maybe running an OS earlier than 10.8? It's possible the behavior changes.

The contents of a Parallels .pvm package aren't always static, and it sounds like you currently just have each individual component included separately, so I'd be a bit worried about things not getting backed up if some of the names change…

 

Hi folks,

Has there been any progress with this bug yet? The last post was over four months ago. I have the same issue. Is there anyone from Parallels auditing this forum post? I only see a few users conversing.

If I wanted to make a once off backup of my pvm just to have a copy then could I simply copy the pvm file to a folder that is backed up in TM and then run a TM backup. Not ideal but straight forward.

Cheers,
darmbk.

 

One of the many updates to Parallels 9 that has come out over the last few months fixed this issue for me. The state of the check box is remembered now. Not sure exactly which update it was.

 

Marvellous. I have the most up to date version. Thanks anyway Gordon.

 

Unfortunately, the Parallels backup option might be bugged. Try manual backup with Time Machine excluding the VM folder.