My setup here is several MBPs backing up to an Apple Time Capsule. Backups are encrypted.
- I boot to recovery mode on the MBP I want to restore to (Cmd+R).
- Choose to restore from a Time Machine backup.
- Choose the Time Capsule in the list, and enter its network password. Works fine. I can now see the backups.
- Choose the particular MBP backup image I want to restore, and am prompted for its encryption password.
- Enter this, but it doesn't work. Wrong password, apparently. Tried repeatedly.
If I boot the MBP normally I can see in Keychain Access that the password I'm typing is 100% correct. No doubt about it.
I made sure to set the keyboard language correctly in recovery mode (it defaults to US English but I'm British). Still locked out.
I can browse the backup just fine when macOS is booted. I doubt the backup is corrupted but, like I say, in recovery mode I'm not even getting far enough to find out. The password for the encrypted backup image just isn't being accepted.
I've had this happen too in the past when I was utterly sure I had the right password, and I ended-up just abandoning the backup and starting with a fresh install. I can't do that here.
Anybody got a clue as to how I can access this backup? Why do I have a feeling I'm encountering one of those serious bugs that Apple knows about but brushes under the carpet?
Best Answer
An update for people in 2019. We had the same problem, luckily we could still access the keychain and check. In our case the password was truncated to 28 characters from the 32 we had written.