I have a Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro before I installed 2013 and lost 2012. Does anyone know if a Time Machine backup actually saves the / directories? If so, how can I navigate to /usr/discreet in the TM backup using the finder window? The only way I know how to get to those directories is using a Terminal shell window. There are one or two projects I’d like to recover, if I could.

Cheers, Mike

Sorry Julio. I’m old and a little bit dense, and only just computer literate enough to be dangerous. I’m not quite sure what you mean. When I open Time Machine, it appears as a Finder window. I don’t know how to get to /usr without a terminal, which as far as I know I can’t use inside Time Machine.

Cheers, Mike

I figured it out. Guess I’m not as old as I thought.

Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike.

This is a bit after the fact, but pressing Command+Shift+G in Finder allows you to type the directory path where you want to go.
Looks like you’ve already figured that out, but I’m posting it just in case anyone else has the same question.

Now, as far as restoring /usr/discreet… how did that go? Were you able to recover you previous settings, projects, etc?

Regards,
Robert.

_____________________________________________________
Robert Adam
Autodesk Media & Entertainment Support

Hi Robert. I didn’t know about Command+Shift+G, so thanks for that. I just used Terminal to navigate right into the TM backup, which I guess I should have thought of earlier. Fairly simple, really. I moved the /project and /clip files for the project I wanted to recover to a folder on my desktop. I probably won’t try to move the files into the current /usr/discreet location because there is the old project.db file, too, which I think I’ll have to copy over, so that the project will appear in the list when I launch Smoke. I’ll archive all my existing jobs and clear the deck so that I don’t fu** up my current ongoing projects. The old clip folders still exist on my Volume drive, so I hope the recovery of this project will work, as it was a very difficult shot. Thanks for the help.

Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike.

Good thing you’re archiving. You’re treading on pretty thin ice trying to manually copy over /usr/discreet subdirectories :)
But if you still want to go ahead with that for testing’s sake, make sure you also make a copy of your current /usr/discreet/sw subdirectory and then bring the older version of that directory back from Time Machine as well. It contains the very important SW database which holds all the references to the media frames on your storage. Dont’ forget to uninstall Smoke 2013 and stop all services in the Service Monitor before you overwrite folders under /usr/discreet.

I hope you haven’t changed the storage folder path between the time you made the TM backup and now. And I hope that the framestore ID is still the same (should be the same if you haven’t redefined your storage).

I’m curious to see how this turns out. It’s something we strongly recommend against.

Robert.

_____________________________________________________
Robert Adam
Autodesk Media & Entertainment Support

Find your timecapsule disk in the shared devices on a Finder window. Access it and mount your computers backup (disk image). Once the image is mounted you can navigate to the /usr folder and get the files you need.

Smoke 2013 SP2
Mac Pro 3.1
OS X 10.8.3
20 GB RAM
GeForce GTX 670 (4 GB)
8 TB RAID 0 (SoftRaid)
24 inch LED Cinema Display (hires)
Panasonic 50PF30u Plasma Display (broadcast)

Hi Mike.

I’ve forwarded your Action question to the action experts in R&D.
I’ll let you know as soon as they tell me whether it’s feasible to restore those files or not.

Cheers,
Robert.

_____________________________________________________
Robert Adam
Autodesk Media & Entertainment Support

You should be able to load the action setup by just navigating to it in the load action dialog, will throw up a few errors but will open.

All's well that ends. That's why its called finishing.