This is a minor issue but I would like to resolve it, if possible.

My Time Machine drive icon is generic (yellow in color, not green with the TM logo). TM backups occur normally and all is well in that regard. If I go to Finder > Preferences > General and toggle External Disks off and on (under Show These Items On The Desktop), the TM drive shows as it should (green, TM logo). Scheduled TM backups preserve the correct icon. After a restart, it reverts to the generic icon.

As I said, this is a minor (very minor) issue. Any thoughts?

I get the same phenomenon restarting, but when it finishes the start-up the TM icon becomes the standard green with TM logo (as apparently the last step in the start-up process).
It would seem that your set-up isn't running to 'completion' upon restart but fixes itself once scheduled backups resume.

What happens if instead of restart you shut down for 5-10 minutes and then start up?
Before you try that, try force quitting (relaunching) Finder (via the Command-Option-Escape window).
One of those suggestions might fix the problem but won't explain it.

Restarting and cold boot give the same result (no TM icon). Right now, I had toggled the TM icon on, via Finder preferences. For kicks, I quit and relaunched Finder and the icon remained correct. I'll try that the next time that I restart but I don't imagine that it will work.

EDIT: Which OS are you using? In another forum, someone using 10.11 (as am I) gets the same thing. Is it a bug in El Capitan?

It seems to be a known issue:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7290713

No permanent fix found (yet) - seems to be a Finder issue. Annoying, but not not critical. Jon, perhaps filing a bug report, as one of the posters in the Apple discussion thread has done might spur Apple on to fix it. I still haven't installed El Capitan so can't speak from personal experience, but I'll check on this once I do get around to updating all my Macs.

Thanks, Paddy. The issue is not exactly earth-shaking. By the way, your link leads to a dead end.

I'm still using Lion (10.7.5) and don't intend to upgrade until dragged kicking and screaming into that not-so-good night.

Jon, I've tried that link in my post from several browsers and it works just fine. Not sure why it's not working for you. (??)

Here it is again - though as I noted, there is no real permanent fix, just a couple of bandaids until Apple does something about it.

Link to Apple Discussion

I'll confirm that your link wasn't working earlier, but it's back in business now.

The UBB software truncates long URLs, employing ellipses. If the poster uses the "instant UBB" link tags, the displayed URL is truncated but the target of the hyperlink remains the full URL.

I think you typed the URL directly into your post; apparently the truncating in that case occurs prior to the automatic creation of the hyperlink. So prior to my edit, the URL in your original post was missing some characters from the middle. I'd have to call that a bug.

The link works for me now. The fix suggested, namely giving me read/write privileges, is already in place. This problem does not even qualify as a problem, merely a minor annoyance. So long as TM is working properly, I won't fuss over the icon.

How very nice to "see" you again, Paddy. 'Tis a delightful way to start the year...

Nice to see you, too, Harv! I should come here more often...lots of people here I've "known" online for a very long time!

BTW - I just copied and pasted that link that was not working at one point. Will try to remember to use the UBB link insertion in future to avoid any issues.

Ever since I started using Yosemite (and now in El Cap), my Time Machine drive icon has been the generic yellow instead of the appropriate green icon. Toggling External Disks off/on from Finder > Preferences > General restores the icon but, upon restarting, it reverts. I read What happens when your Time Machine drive icon changes and that fix seems to work.

Apparently, this is a common issue, although it doesn't affect the actual performance of Time Machine.

I just set it to something custom. I actually took the green icon and turned the hue so the drive is red instead of green. It seems to hold its custom icon.

You can still do that if you prefer green. If you ever see it green, or can get it from another drive elsewhere, just copy it and paste it. Even if it's using the default, get info, copy, and immediately paste. It'll set that as its custom icon and the system will stop trying to (and occasionally failing to) override it, and will always display the custom icon you've set.

My situation is a bit different and weirder. I had the green TM icon in Yosemite, but it reverted to the generic yellow when I went to El Capitan. When I do a "Get Info…" on the drive icon, the green (not yellow) icon shows in the top part of the info window. The fix mentioned above did correct things even though I was dragging "green onto green".

I had the same thing. All that matters is that it works!

on the rare instance it doesn't work, take my Stupid Fix one step farther. Select the icon as set, press the DELETE key (to reset it from default, TO default) then copy and paste as above. (I've had to do that a few times)

(deleting the icon may fix the problem of it showing the default drive type instead of the green TM icon)

Try this. It worked for me. My icon is now green and it looks like I have the same imac as you do. Pam

In the Finder:
> Select the orange TM icon, and then press command-i to display the drive's Get Info window.
> Select "Go" from the Menu Bar
> Choose "Go to Folder..."
> Enter: /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources
         Press "Go"
A new FInder window will appear. In that new window:
> Search for "GenericTimeMachineDiskIcon.icns"
> Press Option, and drag the file's little green icon onto the small icon at the top left of the TM's drive's "Get Info" window.

The tip is the comment by David Brick in reply to this article's suggestion which doesn't work.

http://www.macworld.com/article/3033807/...on-changes.html