Time Machine Freezes Computer

My computer consistently locks up when Time Machine is running in background. At least I think it's Time Machine. Start using it as soon as I upgraded to Leopard. I am very tired of restarting everytime I return to my computer after being away an hour or two.

having similar issues, but seems like indexing is to blaim for the backup not completing:
i checked the particular file its been crashing over and really is a very simple text file.
bizarre that such a fundamental app like spotlight ( mds ) is failing over trivial data and messing up a backup. who cares whether a file can be indexed or not, i want it backed up...
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Indexing a file failed. Returned -1134 for: /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/easy-install.pth, /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/brutus/2008-07-16-175657.inProgress/FD070 BFF-FD08-414F-9D7E-FE55E4D5A837/OSX/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/easy-instal l.pth
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Stopping backup.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Copied 310 files (48 KB) from volume OSX.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Copy stage failed with error:11

Similar Messages

Time Machine "freezes" and I am NOT running anti-virus software

I am incredibly frustrasted and disappointed as a first-time Apple user (brand new iMac (Intel-based) with an external LaCie 500 GB external hard disk). The problem is Time Machine. It backs up on schedule, but when I enter Time Machine, I cannot navigate at all. The background screen (outer space) moves, the cursor moves, but I cannot click on anything. I have to "force quit". So I guess I have things backed up, but can't do anything with them.
I am NOT running antivirus software. I had Intego loaded on the computer, but removed it completely after reading on Apple blogs that this could interfere with Time Machine. I have reformatted the external hard disk. Still, Time Machine freezes. Apple has put out a couple of patches, I understand, but that was months ago and all of my software is up to date.
I have called Apple support TWICE and they act as if I am from the moon -- how dare I question that the Time Machine does not work properly?
Does anyone out there know how to fix this? I am ready to return this computer to the Apple store, which cheerfully sold me on the idea of an external hard disk as a back-up.

Hello Zurichmike (lovely country):
Welcome to Apple discussions.
There are several things you could try. Easy ones first:
Erase and reformat your external HD.
Run repair disk from your software install DVD (on your internal HD).
Go to Macintosh HD>library>preferences. Trash the TM preference file (com.apple.timemachine.plist) and restart. The TM preferences will need to be changed as they are now default values.
Barry

Time Machine Freezes and Corrupts Disk

Hello,
I have been attempting to set up one of my external hard drives for use in Time Machine, but every time I click "Erase" when Time Machine asks me to, Time Machine freezes, and my Hard Drive gets corrupt. After force quitting Time Machine and mounting my drive again, it says "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." I have had to go back to a PC on numerous occasions and format the disk as FAT32, and then come back and try it again. I have attempted to erase the disk through Disk Utility, but the same error occurs.
I am attempting to do this with a 100GB Store-It drive by Hitatchi. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions as to how I can solve this issue.
Thanks,
Thomas

I had the same problem with a new 120GB WD external 2.5" HDD. It seems to perform the initial backup then gets frozen at the very end of the first actualization, CPU running at 100%. Doesn't mount any more, DU shows it but declares it as non-repairable because of different issues: index faulty, B-tree header faulty etc. The same on another Mac. Re-formatting leads to the same results.
What to do?
Berndt

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme.
Sorry, but no.
Time Machine will backup your Mac, but not the hard drive attached to the AirPort Extreme.
Time Machine will back up a hard drive only if it is attached directly to your Mac via USB or FireWire.

Trying to back up to external hard drive (iomega). Instructions say to erase hard drive. Won't entirely erase. Can't enter iomega in Time Machine. Computer is minimac, operating system is OSx 10.6.8.

Trying to back up to external hard drive (iomega). Instructions say to erase hard drive. Won't entirely erase. Can't enter iomega in Time Machine. Computer is minimac, operating system is OSx 10.6.8.

All you need to upgrade the iBook for Tiger is another 128 MBs of RAM. It has both Firewire and USB ports. You do want to upgrade it for what you plan to do. The problem you may continue to have, however, may be due to the fact that the age of the computer is such the disk controller does not support hard drive volumes larger than 128 GBs, which is probably the reason the drive won't mount.
The reason you get DU errors is likely because the drive was formatted using the Intel Tiger version of DU, while you were using the Jaguar version. That's a definite no-no.

Lion + Macbook Pro 17 + Time Machine = Freeze

I recently upgraded to OS X Lion on my mid-2009 MBP 17" and I am also getting complete system lockups - the mouse moves, but no keyboard, no clicks, no window movements, and all menu bar items stop updating, including the system clock. Power cycle is the only solution. This is happening often while a Time Machine update is running on my external drive (after it's been running for several minutes). I believe it has also occured with video playback (as others have reported), but not often. I'm not sure if it is related to waking from hibernate/sleep; e.g., last night's big 60GB Time Machine backup ran ok (took several hours), but this morning, after waking the machine and working for a while, it kicked off again and froze at the 90MB mark (of 270MB) right after I clicked on the menu bar icon to view progress. I had an xterm window and Firefox open, plus a few utilties like Adium. No video playing anywhere.
Any others?
Other notes: 8GB ram; no "Automatic Graphics Switching" option on Preferences pane, probably b/c this is a 2009 MBP(?).

I see nobody is reacting to your problem.
I have (almost) the same problem, but with 10.7.5.
Not only Time Machine freezes up (over WiFi and USB-connected), but also my Music downloads (everything else works fine) to my iPhone 5 (with iTunes 11.1) and also Spotlight (indexing for minutes and then freezes).
All these 3 actions (which usually take longer than anything else) freeze up after 3 to 15 minutes. Never the same, always different durations. Very annoying.
On the other hand: ever since I disabled Spotlight, my MacBook Pro A1286 is as fast as when I bought it in 2009.
This all happened suddenly, out of the blue. No added software, hardware. No changes in prefs.
I had my hardware checked. I have done a memtest. All the tricks in the book. To no avail.
Aopple techs tell me to wait till Maverick......some solution ;-)

TechTool Pro copying large "deleted" files when I Time Machine my computer

I have TechTool Pro 5 loaded on my MacBook Pro. I've noticed when I Time Machine the computer, about 4 gig is always (or seems to be) copied over to the time machine drive in files named "Trash Deletes". It puts them in my Application Support folder in my library.
Is this TechTool backing up my emptying the trash - if so, it sure is taking up a lot of space o the time machine drive? Hopefully, I'm wrong here. I use "Timetracker" to see what files are being backed up thru Time Machine.
Anyone else out there notice this?
Thanks,
Larry

Although I own an older version of TT Pro I do not have it installed. I do not remember exactly what they install that is running in the background. What you might do, if it isn't in the documentation, is download Easy Find - CNet Downloads or MacUpdate - and use it to search for "techtool" or "micromat" which should find the item or items. However, I'm almost sure you could disable it in TT Pro's control panel for what to install.

Time Machine freezes during back up to Passport Ext drive

Time Machine freezes during first back up to My Passport Ext drive. It is a 1TB, and seems to keep stopping at 6 to 10GB stage so never actually backs up. I have excluded files to limit first backup to about 40GB.

you sure this is a Mac Pro and not a MacBook Pro first. Most every report of issues with bus powered like Passport are best solved using a drive case with its own power instead.

Time machine freezes during back-up.

Time machine freezes during back-up. Have to unplug HD before I can regain controll over Time Machine In System Preferences. Tried loading folders the old fachion way—sometimes freezes during that also.
At first I thought I had a bad exteral HD, but I am on my fourth and still the same problem. My first Time Machine HD (THAT WORKED) now has the same problem.
I have been working with someone with apple support for weeks. We just replaced the interal HD, and still have the same problem. My iMac is only five months old
Any ideas ? ? ? .

you sure this is a Mac Pro and not a MacBook Pro first. Most every report of issues with bus powered like Passport are best solved using a drive case with its own power instead.

Everytime I start time machine, my computer backs up +/- 250MB, then freezes. Tried it with 3 different external drives, all stop at about the same point (they all work fine on other macs). Any suggestions?

The drives I have are Seagate 1TB GoFlex portable drives (one has UBS 3.0, the other USB 2.0), and a WesternDigital 1TB passport (USB 3.0). I originally tried to backup with Time Machine using the Seagate USB 3.0, and when that didnt work, Seagate suggested maybe since my operating system is a little older, that I try with a USB 2.0, so they sent me another NEW external hard drive, with the USB 2.0. Had the same issue. Frustrated and convinced that Seagate just sucked, I went and bought the 1TB WesternDigital passport (USB 3.0). Have the exact same issue again. Every drive was new, and formatted for mac. When I started time machine it started to back up my files, but froze after copying give or take 250 MB (usually 252.5MB, to be exact). I went and tried the drive on several other macs, and none of them presented any problems. I also tried dragging individual files, but it still freezes on pretty much anything bigger than +/- 100MB. Disk Utility says that all the drives are fine. Obviously this is a problem with my computer, and not the 3 brand new external drives. I thought about upgrading to OSX 10.6, but don't know if this'll help or not (plus, I'd really prefer to have all the files backed up on a drive before doing that, just in case). I dont know what else to do.. called apple, but I'm not about to pay them $50 to have them MAYBE give me a solution (done that twice now for previous unrelated issues, and each time they just told me to take it to a computer repair place.) Just seeing if anyone out there has a solution before I cave and take it back to the certified computer guys for them to figure it out.. Also, I live in Montana and theres no apple store anywhere close (not suprising), so taking it to an Apple Store is just not an option.
Side note: Seagate tech support is awesome; they tried everything to solve the problem, and they even bent their rules a little to send me a new drive, even though it wasn't a malfunction issue with their drive. Really helpful, friendly people, which is much more than I can say for Apple at this point...

this is what you need to do to exclude everything apart from desktop.
on time machine preferences, click on Options
click plus sign, on the new window, click macintosh HD
do a Control + A then deselect users then click okay
go to options again, plus sign, go to users, control +A then deselect your user account
go to options again, plus sign, go to your user account, control + A, deselect desktop
start the back up.

Time Machine freezes up my computer

I disconnected Time Machine from my computer. It slows my computer down every hour when it does the backup and I get up in the morning and find that during the night my computer froze. It is sooo frozen I have to manually turn the computer off and restart it. Has anyone else had this problem?? I did get the Time Machine program that overrides the hourly backups and sets it to my liking. That didn't work. It ran hourly anyway. I wish Apple would recreate it so we can control how often it backs up the computer. What have you done if you have had this problem?? Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

patandfritz96 wrote:
I disconnected Time Machine from my computer. It slows my computer down every hour when it does the backup and I get up in the morning and find that during the night my computer froze.
It sounds like it's just backing-up too much data. Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to a recent problem backups, copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
You might want to download the TimeTracker app, from www.charlessoft.com.
It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.). Take a look at the actual files/folders it's saving, to see if there's something you don't expect.
Post the results here along with the TM Buddy messages, and perhaps we can find a clue.

Time machine freezing mac since mavericks update

Time machine is freezing up my mac since I updated to Mavericks. I was having issues with it so I just decided to reformat my time machine external drive. I can back up manually when I tell it to, but when left alone to do automatic back ups, I will come back to my mac and it is unresponsive, I see the time machine drive light flickering, and when I turn off that drive, the computer starts responding again.

Interesting. I now have my external TM HD connected directly to my iMac through USB 2. All seems to be working properly now. Had the computer set to wake up last night at 12 and it did do a back up then. Also when I logged on and woke it from sleep this this AM it went into a back up. Could it still potentially be the HD or FW 800 cable? When I connected the FW 800 directly to the mac, it didn't improve anything, but that was one of the same cables I was using before. If I use FW I do have to daisy chain the drive to my other external iPhoto drive due to having only 1 FW 800 port on my mac.

Time machine freezing after fresh re-install because of recovered corrupt files

Hi,
I have a Mid 2009 15" MBP running 10.8.2. Recently, my HDD crashed. And my time machine backup on an external HDD failed to mount (perhaps the backup was also corrupt?). I made an image using Disk Drill just in case and got a new HDD from Apple Support. They put in a new HDD and "recovered" my data. Now, the comp was behaving very very funny, freezing suddenly a few minutes after boot, requiring a hard shud-down and frequent kernel panics. So, I copied some of the important data in my Users folder and did a fresh install of ML on the new HDD. I also got a new external HDD and formatted it propoerly and copied back the files onto the fresh install of ML. At this point, I realised that there were certainly some files there that were corrupt(?) because, the copying back caused hanging a couple of times. Anyway, now the comp works just fine, but as soon as I begin a time machine backup, it completely freezes (just like before requiring a hard shut down), after less than a GB backing up. Please help me.

Hate to tell you this but the 2009 model MBPs were built, assembled, with a very cheaply made HDD to Logic board cable and your original drive may be fine and the cable is the thing that is failing.
I suspect this because once a drive fails it is near impossible to get any useful data off it. So if Apple was able to copy your files from the old drive to the new one that drive is probably still OK. And that you are now still having problems with the brand new drive.
No the problems you are having can not be caused by just having corrupted files store on the drive. The only files that are accessed by the operating system, while booting and running the computer, are those operating system files and whatever programs you are running. even if a program access those corrupted files it would not cause problems with the OS but may crash the program that is opening them.
As for TM not working that again is a sign that the cable is bad because TM can't copy the files to its backup over that bad cable.

Time Machine crashing computer!

I have a 24" iMac, running 10.6.4 with an issue I cannot explain.
I launch Time Machine, it begins to back up the data from my HD which now has 385GB. It gets to about 5 gigs, locks up the machine, it goes to sleep and I have to hit the space bar to wake it. I can wake the machine only three times and then it shuts the whole thing down. So I disconnected all of my cables, then hooked up the back up only instead of running it through a USB hub. No luck, same thing. I reformatted the ext hd to one partition, no luck. I changed the ext hd to a different one. Each ext hd is 1Tb in size. They are totally blank.
If I turn off time machine, computer runs fine, no freeze, no crash. So there is some issue with time machine on my machine.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me!
Jim

Hello j:
You might try trashing a preference file (com.apple.timemachine.plist) and restarting.
If the program pauses at the same point, there may be a corrupted file that is causing the problem.
Barry

Time Machine Freezes During Initial Backup

I have a 500gb external Western Digital HDD I am trying to use as my Time Machine backup drive. The computer I'm using is a 24" iMac with about 250gb of data on it. The external drive is partitioned as a GUID / Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
When I try to run the initial backup, it will randomly freeze during the process. Sometimes it gets halfway through the backup and freezes, other times, right away. Sometimes there is an error, other times there isn't.
I have tried re-partitioning the drive many times, manually starting the backup and also letting the backup start on its own. All of my applications are closed when the backup begins, but no matter what I do, I cannot get the initial backup process to complete.
Ironically, I had the same problem on ANOTHER iMac of mine, with the same model Western Digital drive. The backup would freeze randomly during the initial process but I would keep manually re-starting the backup until it magically finished the backup. Now that computer seems to be working fine.
However, I still can't get this other iMac to work. I find it strange that two separate computers with two separate 500gb Western Digital drives would have the same problem with Time Machine, unless the problem is with Time Machine itself.
Any ideas out there how to resolve this?

Bruno321 wrote:
However, I still can't get this other iMac to work. I find it strange that two separate computers with two separate 500gb Western Digital drives would have the same problem with Time Machine, unless the problem is with Time Machine itself.
Why do you assume it's TM, not WD?
There are many possibilities.
Did you completely erase the drive before formatting it? Sometimes the utilities, etc., that come on new drives can interfere with TM.
Is your iMac an Intel? If it's an older PPC, you need the Apple Partition Map, not GUID.
Is this USB or FireWire? USB is often much slower and less reliable.
If it's USB, does it have it's own power, or does it draw from your Mac? Often there's just barely enough to run a drive; if you have another USB peripheral, it can take enough power to interfere with the disk.
Does it have an automatic "spin down" feature? If so, can you disable it?
Does it have the latest updates? I thing I saw a post here recently that a WD update fixed, but I can't find it now.
Are you running any anti-virus scanning? If so, exclude your TM drive from it.
Sometimes excluding it from Spotlight as well, at least during a large initial backup, can prevent conflicts between TM and Spotlight.

Time Machine Freezes Computer

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