February 1, 2026
Time Machine or Time Mirage?
TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe
Mac update freezes backups; users rage while one says “you should’ve tested”
TLDR: Apple’s latest Mac update changed defaults that made some network backups quietly stop, leaving users frozen in December. Comments erupt: many blast Apple’s quality and swear off upgrades, while others say it’s your job to test restores, sharing hacks and warning Apple may just push iCloud instead.
Apple’s shiny macOS “Tahoe” just turned Time Machine into a time capsule—some users found their backups quietly stuck in December with zero warnings. A Tao of Mac post says Apple tightened its file‑sharing defaults, breaking network backups to Synology drives unless you edit a hidden config file or rejig settings. Cue the comments: outrage mode activated. pier25 calls Tahoe “a new low,” chmaynard vows to skip the upgrade, and andrewmcwatters goes full doom: Time Machine’s toast and Apple will just push you to buy more iCloud.
But there’s drama: ndegruchy claims his identical setup worked and throws shade—if you never test your restores, that’s on you. The thread splits into two camps: “Apple broke it again” vs “trust, but verify your backups.” hedgehog drops a cheeky hack to stop upgrade nags by enrolling in the previous version’s beta. Amid the fire, the fixes are… nerdy: edit a secret file, rename backup bundles, or run a dedicated Docker backup container. The meme energy is strong: “It just works” becomes “It just stops,” and Time Machine is joked as literally time‑traveling to December. If your life depends on your Mac backups, this is the comment‑section horror show you needed—and the wake‑up call you didn’t.
Key Points
- •Time Machine backups stopped silently for ~2 months on two macOS Tahoe systems backing up to a Synology NAS over SMB.
- •The issue is linked to Apple changing SMB defaults in macOS Tahoe, tightening signing requirements and breaking relaxed NAS configurations.
- •A working fix involved editing /etc/nsmb.conf with specific parameters (e.g., signing_required=yes, protocol_vers_map=6).
- •Additional steps include ensuring the Time Machine .sparsebundle name has no non-ASCII characters and adjusting Synology DSM SMB Advanced settings.
- •As a more robust alternative, the author is testing the mbentley/timemachine Docker image on a Proxmox VE server with ZFS and Samba.