Problem with Time Machine Backup or Maybe Not Time Machine

The problem manifests after a Time Machine backup.
I have an iMac 24-inch, Early 2008. iMac 8,1
Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM.
Last week I purchased two 4-Terabyte G-technology G-Drives. Each drive is equip with FireWire 800 and USB 3.0/2.0. In general use they seem to work fine on the iMac.
I designated one drive as a Time Machine Volume. This is where the problem happens.
Time Machine will do the initial backup just fine. Then it runs once per hour with no problem. Intermittently however, Time Machine will fail and report :
“Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “hard disk name”.
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.”
Interestingly enough if I try to open a folder on the Time Machine volume using the Finder I get:
“The operation can’t be completed. An unexpected error occurred (error code -50).
If I try to eject the volume I get the irksome “Cannot eject volume because it’s currently in use by one or more programs.”
To resolve this I’ve tried everything, from the banal verifying permissions, to swapping the two G-Drives around, swapping out all the cables, etc.. When the error occurs I go into the shell and check with lsof and always find no software apparently holding or using that volume.
Very frustrating
I can force eject the volume, then remount the volume and things are back to normal. Same with restarting.
This happened under OS X Mountain Lion and is now happening under a clean install of Mavericks.
I thought that even though I don’t see any MDS related processes using the drive, it might be spotlight, so I told spotlight not to index the volume. Problem still happens.
I’ve found that one person had almost this exact same problem at:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4756742
His solution turned out to be replacing the G-Drive with another brand new G-Drive.
Unfortunately, I cannot return the drives to the Apple store because the boxes were tossed out. I also don’t relish trying to explain that the drives work just fine until some glitch that occurs either just before or just after a Time Machine backup.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

You can also contact G-Drive while the drives are under warranty (one year I believe).
I have the same problem using Time Machine with the 2T G-Drive and my MacBook Pro. G-Tech emailed me a Firmware Update Utility app and, when that didn't solve the error message problem, they sent me a replacement drive and new cables, twice. The problem persisted; I get one or two backups each day and then the error message. I also can't copy anything to the drive and have to force eject it, so G-Tech suggested I see how well it worked with the USB cable.
Time Machine works flawlessly with the USB cable and the G-Drive, so G-Tech suggested it is a problem with my Firewire 800 port. I worked with Apple Care over the phone, doing all the tests suggested in Eric's post - testing with Disk Utility, Time Machines interface with my User Accounts, the Operating System, then resetting Time Machine, etc. and then I took it to the Genius Bar so they could run the tests themselves. All looked like it should be fine (but they were using a 1T G-Drive and all testing was done within 30 minutes)...when I got home, after two good backups, I got the error message again.
Apple Care finally suggested I make a Genius Bar appointment and sit at the store working with my MacBook, the G-Drive and Time Machine running until I got the error message, to prove the only thing left that could possibly be the cause of the problem, is the port. I did this last Wednesday.
It is 9 days later and I got my computer back this afternoon...the logic board was replaced because the Firewire 800 port is attached to it...I got my first Time Machine back up at 5:34pm...and the error message again at 7:34pm.
The only solution, it seems, is to use the USB cable instead of Firewire. USB and Thunderbolt seem to be the direction Apple is taking, which is why so many people have been posting about this problem, here and elsewhere, with no real solutions from Apple. See this article: http://www.infoworld.com/t/mac-laptop/how-cope-the-end-of-firewire-205957
I hope the USB works for you too.

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Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

Can i restore from a time machine backup that is not the latest one?

I am trying to restore from a May 7th time machine backup. At that time my username was michaelhood. I had a system crash and when my computer was returned to me I inadvertently set it up under a different username, thinking I would do the restore later. Between May 13 and today, Time machine did backups under the name mhoo4494. Changing the name didn't let me access my May 7 backup, nor did creating a different user account. I have erased the hard drive and am reinstalling from the Install CD. I have set up a third user name. I now want to restore my data from the Time Machine May 7 backup. How do I do that? Migration assistant saw two users -- mhoo and mhoo4494 (michaelhood was not an option). I selected them both, but got no data for either -- no docs, no music, no pictures. This procedure should not be this hard~!!

Hi uclamikey90,
It is possible, using Migration Assistant, to restore the contents of your hard drive selectively. See this article -
Mac OS X v10.6: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from a Time Machine backup - Apple Support
In particular -
To migrate data from a Time Machine backup
In Finder, press Command-Shift-U.
Double-click Migration Assistant.
Click "Continue" and enter an administrator name and password when prompted.
Select the "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" option, then click "Continue".
Select your Time Machine backup disk or Time Capsule (enter the user name and or password if prompted), then click "Continue".
Select the Time Machine backup you would like to restore (such the most current one you just made), then click "Continue".
Select Items to Migrate, then click "Continue". Note: The "Continue" button will be dimmed until the "Calculating…" stage is complete.
A user account sheet may appear if you have a user name on your Mac that is the same user name in your Time Machine backup. You will have to give the username in your Time Machine backup a new username to avoid conflicts. Note: This will create a new user account on your Mac to hold the data from the Time Machine backup. After migration, you can use the /Users/Shared folder to transfer data files the accounts.
Migration Assistant will begin the process of transferring the items you selected to migrate. When it is finished, click "Quit" to exit.
When you reach step 7, deselect items that you do not wish to migrate. Videos, photos and music are likely candidates for this as they take up a lot of disk space. You can later put items on an external hard drive.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

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I've got a similar problem. iTunes v10.2 worked fine, but when I tried to update it to 10.5 I got a 'Bonjour' error. I eventually solved that but I still couldn't upgrade to 10.5, so I deleted every single Apple, Quicktime, iTunes, etc file on my PC using Revo Unistaller (because the normal Windows Add/Delete programs wouldn't work) but now, when I install the latest iTunes version from scratch (on XP SP3), it says: "the installer encountered errors before it could be configured.... your system has not been modified"
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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You have got the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive. This is the folder used by Time Machine to save backups to, and the OS X Mavericks installer thought that your hard drive is being used to store Time Machine backups
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Time machine backups wont move to time capsule

i have two mac minis, one is the mid 2010 model and the the other one is a 2006 model. i have successfuly used superduper to finally move my 500 gigs
of time machine backups to the new time capsule. but the older 2006 model has me lost. i am tempted to go to the applestore to make them copy it
if i follow the directions including resetting time machine the best i can get is a pop up box every hour that says the identity of the time capsule cannot
be verified. this does not show up on the 2010 mini
when i tell it to pick the drive theres 2 other drives that i dont even have! those are "HOME" and "NET" on "localhost" i have no idea where its getting
those drive paths. maybe its my readynas , when i go to /Volumes, there is no home or net folders
another problem i have with time machine is for some strange reason there is a range of backups in an old sparse bundle file and i would like to move all the backups for this computer into one main directory, instead of having to browse old time machines. but when i try to copy from one sprarse bundle to another i get an error saying that the backup files cannot be modified

rigormortis wrote:
if i follow the directions including resetting time machine the best i can get is a pop up box every hour that says the identity of the time capsule cannot
be verified.
Is that the message in #C15 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting? If so, are you selecting Use This Disk? If not, exactly what does it say (or post a screenshot).
another problem i have with time machine is for some strange reason there is a range of backups in an old sparse bundle file and i would like to move all the backups for this computer into one main directory, instead of having to browse old time machines. but when i try to copy from one sprarse bundle to another i get an error saying that the backup files cannot be modified
That's correct; you cannot merge one set of backups into another. A set of TM backups has a complex structure, with things all linked together; you cannot alter it. See How Time Machine works its Magic for an explanation.

Problem with online split backup, database oracle

Hello,
we use for backup our SAP system online split backup, our database is almost 3TB big. Backup is functional but sometimes (4x-5x per month) backup fail with error bellow. If i understant this problem correctly brbackup lost connection to oracle after split disk system and cant stop backup mode in database and backup failed. How can i solve this problem? Exist some parameter for brbackup for reconnect to db when brbackup lost connection? Thanks for your help!
BR0051I BRBACKUP 7.00 (25)
BR0262I Enter database user name[/password]:
BR0055I Start of database backup: bebnhrzd.anf 2009-09-22 14.52.25
BR0484I BRBACKUP log file: /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/bebnhrzd.anf
BR0351I Restoring /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf
BR0355I from /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf ...
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.10
BR0319I Control file copy created: /oracle/BP1/sapbackup/cntrlBP1.dbf 21676032
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.13
BR0315I 'Alter database begin backup' successful
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 14.53.14
BR0295I Splitting mirror disks...
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.07.43
BR0296I Split of mirror disks successful
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301E SQL error -3135 at location BrBackAlter-3, SQL statement:
'/* BRBACKUP */ ALTER DATABASE END BACKUP'
ORA-03135: connection lost contact
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0318E 'Alter database end backup' failed
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301E SQL error -3114 at location BrBackAlter-3, SQL statement:
'/* BRBACKUP */ ALTER DATABASE END BACKUP'
ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLE
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0318E 'Alter database end backup' failed
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0301W SQL error -3114 at location BrbDbLogClose-1, SQL statement:
'UPDATE SAP_SDBAH SET RC = '0005', ENDE = '20090922161744', OBJ = ' ', LINE = '# 224     0     0     81358       7817759352        0                0 ALL          online_split    util_file        -
7.00 (25)' WHERE BEG = '20090922145225' AND FUNCT = 'anf' AND SYSID = 'BP1''
ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLE
BR0326W Update of database log header failed
BR0056I End of database backup: bebnhrzd.anf 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0280I BRBACKUP time stamp: 2009-09-22 16.17.44
BR0054I BRBACKUP terminated with errors
Backup utility finished with returncode 5
Backup FAILED

Hello,
in note 534729 is nothing about ORA-03135: connection lost contact only error ORA-03114 which refer to the note 335199 and in this note in nothing about ORA-03114 I want to say two things: this two oracle errors (ORA-03135 and ORA-03114) are not in alertSID.log on db server or in syslog on backup server. This error are only reported from brbackup which is running on backup server which is "client side". We don't have problem with connection from work processes on all instances to db server, we have only problem with brbackup which lost connection after split disk system. How i say this problem occurs only sometimes. I was tested network connection from backup server to db server via niping a this is result:
(root@hytti) #./niping -c -H kiuru -B 30000
Sat Sep 26 14:10:58 2009
connect to server o.k.
send and receive 10 messages (len 30000)
times -
avg      7305 usecs
max     46234 usecs
min      2168 usecs
bw    8020.50 kb/sec
excluding max and min:
av2      3081 usecs
bw2 19013.91 kb/sec
do you have any idea?? Thanks!

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Trying to use a new, larger external hard drive for my Time Machine backup. However, every time I start the backup, it gets started then fails. And, I can't delete the few files that did save on the external. Sort of a catch 22. Any ideas?

Is it a USB hard drive? USB hard drives have the problem of not giving full speed if they are hooked up on the same bus as keyboards and mice. Double check your profiler to make sure that is not a problem. If it is Firewire, make sure there aren't other firewire devices in use at the same time. I recommend not only keeping a Time Machine backup, but also a clone, and if you do use Time Machine, to make sure the Time Machine drive or partition is at least twice the size of the original drive.

Backup Problem with Windows Server Backup

Hello,
we have problems with Windows Server Backup Feature.
Our system is a Windows Server 2008 Standard. On the computer runs a SQL Server 2005.
Since several days no backup can be carried out. We get the error message:
- Error during a Volume Shadow Copy service operation. Detailed error: Failed to process the volume shadow copy: "0x800423F0".
- Errors in the event log: For the started backup an error occured. The volume shadow copy operation was not successful. Error code: "2155348129". Run the backup again after the problem was fixed.
We have already tried to restart the services, uninstalled the Windows Server Backup Feature and reinstalled it, also we rebootet the server several times. Unfortunately, so far without success.
What else can we do respectively where could be the problem?
Kind regards
Sven Otto
KRK ComputerSysteme GmbH (Germany)

Hi Sven,
Please check if there a system partition that is created on the server. If so, assign a drive letter on the partition to check the results.
For more detailed information, please refer to the article below:
Volume Shadow Copy Error 0x800423f0 - writer error: inconsistent snapshot
http://kb.backupassist.com/articles.php?aid=2995
Please Note: Since the website is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Best Regards,
Mandy
We
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On Mail...
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Message was edited by: varjak paw

Problem with Time Machine Backup or Maybe Not Time Machine

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