Time machine error - backup fails due to sparsebundle already in use

Since upgrading, Time machine reports backup error:
TIme Machine Error
The backup disk image ...sparsebundle is already in use.
Any thoughts?

Thanks russ. After the initial upgrade to Mt Lion, no backups have been made. Every attempt reports the sparsebundle error. I recently updated to 10.8.1 and a whole new set of problems have shown up which is having me question the wisdom of continuing to invest in Apple product.
I have decided to pack it in with regard to the timecapsule product, as it is just too unreliable, and certainly not worth the continued time and effort it has been taking to try and get it to work. I have instead gone with an online backup service, Crashplan. I have the backup service I am seeing and I am no longer frittering away valuable time on something that ought to just work.
Problem solved.

Similar Messages

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  • I've recently received an error message from Time Machine that my Macbook Pro's sparsebundle is in use.  What is this and what can I do about it?

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    I had a similar problem and I solved it as follows -
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  • Time Machine Error, backup disk couldn't be mount

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    I had the same problem and found out how to fix it
    You can check the whole process here in a post I wrote for the Hardmac blog (it's rather long...):
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  • Time Machine Error, Backup to large - 496 avail and only 79 needs backed up

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    ChunTzu wrote:
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  • Time Machine Error: Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted

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  • Time Machine error- backup directory

    Yet another person with the same error: Time Machine backup has been working just fine for about 2 months to a Time Capsule. Suddenly, all I get is "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory." No matter what I do, I get the same thing. I've done many of the things listed in other postings:
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  • Time Machine. Backup failed with error code: 21

    Hi,
    I recently upgraded to Leopard 10.5.4 mainly for the time machine backup. I'm using a DNS-323 in a RAID1 configuration as the TM backup drive. Also I have the DNS-323 connected to my Airport Extreme through the ethernet to give NAS ability to my home network.
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    James,
    It would appear this error lies in the way TM is trying to mount the volume, specifically that Volume_1, the DNS-323 volume name, is not owned by TM. TM then tries to create a new volume, Volume11 and stick the sparebundle on it.
    Is there a way of making TM "own" the volume, Volume_1?
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    *Mount Point Conflict (TMDisk-1)*
    NOTE: the following distinguishes “network drive” (the physical hard disk) from “disk image” (the sparsebundle file TM uses to backup to).
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    Nevertheless, as I have observed, this doesn't seem to prevent backups from taking place successfully, at least on the Time Capsule. And according to your Console logs it appears that your volume is being ‘remounted’ successfully.
    *”The Backup Disk Image Could Not Be Mounted”*
    The real issue is Time Machines' failure to mount the disk image (sparsebundle) contained on your network drive.
    +Failed to mount disk image /Volume/Volume1_1/MacBook001b6334c307.sparebundle+
    +Backup failed with error: 21+
    More often than not this is due to having the Time Machine backup disk image (sparsebundle) mounted on your desktop during a backup attempt.
    Eject the backup disk image (sparsebundle) by either clicking the little Eject icon to the right of the disk image in the Finders’ Sidebar, or Ctrl-Click the drive icon on the desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu. Now try backing up again or launching Time Machine to view previous backups.
    For more information, see an article on this here:
    [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1715977]
    Alternatively, a backup disk image can fail to mount if there is a problem with your computer name.
    *Proper Computer Name* #
    Make sure your computer has a proper name. Go to System Preferences --> Sharing. Time Machine needs to differentiate your computer from others on your network (i.e. "Bills MacBook" or "Office iMac"). If the "Computer Name" field is blank, create a name. Realize that if this step is necessary, you will likely have to start the Time Machine backup process over again and do another full initial backup.
    According to THIS article [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1760], Time Machine may experience problems if your computer name includes certain characters. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from the following set.
    (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)
    Once a change in the computer name occurs, you should stop and restart Sharing on the affected computer. Uncheck and then recheck Sharing in the Services list on the left.
    Let me know if any of this helps.
    Cheers!

  • Time Machine initial backup fails OS 10.5 with no reason but 'bus error'

    I ran into an error on the last system update and had to go back to Leopard 10.5 just to see my stuff. I managed to move my home directory into the newly installed system and all my files are intact. Now I'm trying to get a Time Machine backup before I proceed (my initial mistake was not keeping up with them in the first place).
    I had some trouble early on and at one point decided to reformat the external drive (a Fantom Drives GreenDrive, usb, 500Gb). I formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as recommended, no partitions, and then tried my first initial Time Machine backup.
    It predictably spent a long time 'preparing...' and I followed along in the system log. Eventually, the copying began but early on (within the first 45 min) the backup failed with almost no indications in the log as to why. I've pasted the system log below.
    One thought I had was that it was weird that there was an automatic request for backup at 12:36:54. I also included the CrashReport, but I can't make any sense out of it.
    any ideas?
    System log:
    6/23/10 11:57:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] Backup requested by user
    6/23/10 11:57:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] Starting standard backup
    6/23/10 11:57:30 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] Backing up to: /Volumes/Deep Green/Backups.backupdb
    6/24/10 12:15:13 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] No pre-backup thinning needed: 173.94 GB requested (including padding), 453.71 GB available
    6/24/10 12:15:13 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] MDBackupBegin() returned result (910) > 0, waiting
    6/24/10 12:36:54 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1190] Backup requested by automatic scheduler
    6/24/10 12:42:17 AM ReportCrash[1431] Formulating crash report for process backupd[1190]
    6/24/10 12:42:18 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd[1190]) Exited abnormally: Bus error
    6/24/10 12:42:24 AM ReportCrash[1431] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/backupd2010-06-24-004204dylan-boyds-macbook.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
    CrashReport:
    Process: backupd [1190]
    Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd
    Identifier: backupd
    4 backupd 0x00007525 0x1000 + 25893
    5 backupd 0x00002332 0x1000 + 4914
    8 backupd 0x00015028 0x1000 + 81960
    9 backupd 0x0000ea64 0x1000 + 55908
    10 backupd 0x00008bfe 0x1000 + 31742
    11 backupd 0x00004c10 0x1000 + 15376
    12 backupd 0x000057b8 0x1000 + 18360
    0x1000 - 0x3dffb backupd ??? (???) <f50411bdb241b61699aa81b2f3dfb7d1> /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd

    I should have added that I've been through about half a dozen sites (including sanctioned apple sites) and their recommendations for getting Time Machine to work properly. I did format the drive once (with extended journaled format and GUID partition scheme, but I didn't zero it out. I'm trying that now and I'll try TM again in about 4 hours.
    This morning I tried turning Time Machine's automatic backups off (moved the slider to off in the preferences pane) and manually started a backup (right-clicking the TM icon in the dock and selecting "Backup Now"). It ran further along than before, but stopped again. This time, it gave an error, and I've pasted the log below. I looked but didn't find much helpful on "error 11."
    system log:
    Jun 24 09:14:08 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Backup requested by user
    Jun 24 09:14:08 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Starting standard backup
    Jun 24 09:14:08 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Deep Green/Backups.backupdb
    Jun 24 09:14:08 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
    Jun 24 09:14:08 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|
    Jun 24 09:47:13 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 175.31 GB requested (including padding), 453.11 GB available
    Jun 24 10:13:46 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2010-06-22_2236/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Po intOfInterest.db to (null)
    Jun 24 10:13:46 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2010-06-22_2236/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Po intOfInterest.db to /Volumes/Deep Green/Backups.backupdb/Dylan Boyd’s MacBook/2010-06-23-231048.inProgress/E3294B86-62B0-4ABF-9B2B-F5D46B82736D/Macin tosh HD/Previous Systems.localized/2010-06-22_2236/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources
    Jun 24 10:13:46 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Stopping backup.
    Jun 24 10:13:46 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2010-06-22_2236/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources/Po intOfInterest.db to /Volumes/Deep Green/Backups.backupdb/Dylan Boyd’s MacBook/2010-06-23-231048.inProgress/E3294B86-62B0-4ABF-9B2B-F5D46B82736D/Macin tosh HD/Previous Systems.localized/2010-06-22_2236/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Resources
    Jun 24 10:13:57 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Copied 13360 files (1.5 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
    Jun 24 10:13:57 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Copy stage failed with error:11
    Jun 24 10:14:03 dylan-boyds-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[444]: Backup failed with error: 11

  • HELP- what does this mean- time machine error- backup disk image "/Volumes/time Capsule/ cheryl lynott's MacBook.sparsebundle" is already in use?

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