Backup failed because it misreads 'Total size'

Backup works fine for Home Folder, etc, but when it come to iLife it fails because it reads the 'total size' as 46.77GB and sees only 27GB on the external hard drive (LaCie). In fact, iLife's real size is 6.5GB. The iMovie folder is not included as per preferences. That has 112GB. Still Backup keeps reading 46.7GB for 6.5GB. What's what? Any ideas? Thanks. Christopher
G5, Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
You are liable to get a much faster, more comprehensive response if you post your query in the Backup discussion area, here…
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=956
…instead of here in the iSync discussion area.

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Backup failed because the network destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!

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Check this Web page for advice that might help with that problem.

BackUp failed because can't activate volume image

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Exactly the same problem here with my PowerBook5,8. No problem with my AirBook1,1.
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HT3275 I get the message that backup failed because the volume is already in use. Any ideas?

My Time Machine for my iMac has suddenly developed a problem: on repeated attempts to do a backup, it returns the message that the backup failed because the volume is already in use. The solution to the problem may well be simple and obvious, but it'll be a revelation to me and any help will be gratelfully received.

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http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
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Replace your router the issue is your router isn't maintaining connectivity

Time Machine: backups failing because "connection failed"

I have a 500GB external HD connected to my Airport Extreme base station base station via USB, and I use it for wireless Time Machine backups for my iMac and my MBA.
(Yes, I know this setup isn't officially supported. But, it's been working well for a couple years now.)
But over the last few months, backups keep failing because the HD keeps getting disconnected. If I go to find the drive in the finder, it appears, but when I click it, it says "connection failed".
I've found that if I reset the AEX (via airport utility) that allows it to connect, but, never long enough for a full backup to happen.
And, several times recently I've gotten some message about how the backup needs to be verified or something like that- the bottom line is always that the old backups are lost and I need to start all over with the initial backup that takes days. But of course I can never finish it, because it always drops the connection.
At first I thought the problem was only with the iMac backups, which would lead me to believe the drive/router/etc isn't the problem and that it's something on the iMac, but then I had the problem with the MBA too, so I'm guessing it has to be something with the AEX base station (firmware maybe?), or the HD itself...
Is my HD dying? I've run disk utility on it and it checks out OK. Not sure how else to troubleshoot that.
I used to have tons of problems with my internet dropping out when backups were running, but an airport firmware update eventually solved that, and things had been running fine...
I'm running Lion and all the latest software/firmware updates.
Ive found tons of threads about this problem, but they're all at least a year old, and none had a solution...
Does anyone have any thoughts??
Thanks!!

Alexroet wrote:
And, several times recently I've gotten some message about how the backup needs to be verified or something like that- the bottom line is always that the old backups are lost and I need to start all over with the initial backup that takes days.
That's not one of Apple's clearest messages -- it means the backups are corrupted beyond OSX's ability to repair them. See #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Is my HD dying?
Possibly.
But more likely is the usual cause -- network or power problems that the Airport can't deal with well enough to prevent corruption.
Part of the reason you're seeing problems now may be more networks, cordless phones, microwaves, etc., in your area causing more network problems. Another part may be that it's only in the last 18 months or so that Time Machine started running the periodic checks to find the problem. You may have had trouble earlier but didn't know it.
Bottom line, you need to find a reliable way to back up.
In your case, it's actually easy: Delete the sparse bundle containing the iMac's backups, and start backing-up to it directly. Then back the MBA up to the same drive (preferably to a separate partition) via your network. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #22 for setup instructions. Also see #33 there.

Time Machine backup fails because "volume could not be found".

I just had my logic board replaced in my Macbook Pro and went to do a backup (yeah, I didn't do this right before it crashed) and now Time Machine backup fails with the message "volume could not be found" Under Time Machine/Choose Disk, it appears that the drive is the one selected. The computer "sees" the drive and I can read files on it. The only other thing that has happened in the meantime is that a friend helped pull a file off the hard drive that I needed for a project. No apparent issues there. Any suggestions?

You might try going to /Library/Preferences, then drag the file com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to the Desktop. Reboot your Mac, then try declaring the backup disk for Time Machine. It might help if you mount the backup disk first.
Are you using Time Machine to write its backups to the disk of a Time Capsule? If not, since this discussion section is for Apple's Time Capsule AirPort base station, a discussion involving Time Machine should be held on the discussion section for whatever version of OSX that you're using.

Time capsule backups fail because disks aren't recognised - how to fix?

Hi, all... I have a 500GB TC with a 2TB Western Digital drive attached, which I use for backing up three computers. My desktop iMac is connected to the TC by Ethernet cable, my laptop and my wife's laptop connect over wifi. The desktop and my wife's laptop back up to the WD drive. My laptop backs up to the TC internal drive.
Every few days (max, min is something like 1 day), I notice that the backups are all failing at the "Looking for backup disk" stage. That's both the iMac connected by Ethernet and the laptops on WiFi. The WiFi _signal_ is fine -- my laptops can see the network, browse to other destinations, download files at a good speed. The TC has a green light, and Airport Utility doesn't detect any issues.
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I can resolve the issue by pulling the plug on the TC and re-powering it, and then doing the same with the WD disk. If I do that, both disks appear in the finder (with no need to "connect" to them) and backups proceed normally.
Backups can go on normally for anywhere between 8 hours and four days, but then I have to repeat the whole rigmarole to get them started again.
I'm beginning to suspect something to do with two backup processes over Ethernet and Wifi to two different backup disks "colliding" somehow and locking out the disks. I say this, because if I'm away for a week with my laptop, and my laptop does no backups to the TC in that week, then when I get back, the iMac is still backing up fine, even though five days is a long time compared to how often it seems to fail when all three machines are at home and backing up.
I don't want to have to keep pulling the plug, so does anyone have any ideas?
Many thanks!
bestest,
M.

Still not resolved this. However, I'm now absolutely SURE that it's something to do with colliding back-ups locking the TC up somehow.
I was at home for 3 weeks over Christmas, without using my work laptop. All through that time, the iMac continued backing up to the WD with no problems. Since then, though, I've been using my work laptop at home all day for a couple of weeks, and pretty much every afternoon, mid afternoon, the iMac alerts me that the backups could not be completed because the backup could not be found.
The TC shows up in the Finder sidebar still, and if I run Airport Utility I can access it and administer it. Once again, if you click on the TC in the Sidebar, it just says "Connecting" and shows no disks. However (and this is a new discovery), if I use the Airport Utility to "Disconnect All Users" from both the TCs internal disk and the WD external disk, the TC disk reappears in the Finder. The WD disk can only be made to reappear by power cycling it. But once that's done, backup can begin again as normal.
I therefore don't have to power cycle the TC to get the disks back.
So, it seems that something is happening that means that when two "users" are connected to the disks, having attepted a backup, they are locked, and can't be connected to.
Throughout all this, though, the laptop has continued to back-up normally to the TC internal drive, so IT can still see and connect to that drive. It's just the iMac that is somehow locked out of the TC and its external WD backup drive.
I do wish somebody would fix this!!!!
bestest,
M.

HT3275 I am getting a message that the backup failed because the "sparsebundle is already in use." My husband and I both have MacBooks that back up to one time machine. It is also our wifi router. I do not understand this message

I am getting the message that "the backup disk image '/volumes//data/ ---'s MacBook pro.sparsebundle" is already in use. ---"s is my administrator designation. I don't know what this means or what I should do. My husband and I both use the same time machine with our MacBooks. It is our router for our home network although for the most part our computers are separate. We share an email site, and some files. I am concerned that we are not backed up securely

Most common message in history of the TC.. something has failed to unmount.. Lion and esp. Mountain Lion are affected.
Simple way.. reboot the TC to lose the connections..
Might take a network reboot.
That means restart the whole network from off.. start in order, modem.. router/TC.. clients. 2min gap between them.
But from 5.6 utility you can disconnnect all users.
Read C12 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Recovering Mac HD via Time Machine Backup fails because "Restore system from backup" doesn't show in Utilities Menu of original install. DVD

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Differential backup failed because old backup does not exist

Hi,
We scheduled the backups of TFS through the TFS Administration console.
* Full each sunday at 18:00
* Differnetial each evening at 22:00
* Transactional each hour
* rentention time 8 days
The differential back-ups of Monday (20-4) and Thuesday (21-4) did go well. But for some reason the differential of Wednesday and Thursday didn't work out.
Start of log file of 21-4:
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Requested Backup Job: Differential
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Jobs Requested: Differential. Completed:None. To Run:Differential.
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] RunDifferentialBackupJob
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Scanning configuration for new DBs
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] BackupSettings changed ? False
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Starting differential backups
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Database Tfs_Configuration parent is 9859022596859328236
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Starting Differential Backup server:RDSQL11\TFS database:Tfs_Configuration filename:\\RDSQL11\Backup$\Tfs_Configuration_9859024468858452975D.bak
[21-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] BACKUP DATABASE [Tfs_Configuration] TO DISK = N'\\RDSQL11\Backup$\Tfs_Configuration_9859024468858452975D.bak' WITH DIFFERENTIAL, NOFORMAT, NOINIT, NOSKIP, REWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10
[21-4-2015 20:00:01] [Info] Backup Complete for database Tfs_Configuration
On 22-4 the log looks like this:
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Requested Backup Job: Differential
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] -------------------------------------------------------------------
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Jobs Requested: Differential. Completed:None. To Run:Differential.
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] RunDifferentialBackupJob
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Scanning configuration for new DBs
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] BackupSettings changed ? False
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Starting differential backups
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Database Tfs_Configuration parent is 9859022596859328236
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] Starting Differential Backup server:RDSQL11\TFS database:Tfs_Configuration filename:\\RDSQL11\Backup$\Tfs_Configuration_9859025332862172100D.bak
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Info] BACKUP DATABASE [Tfs_Configuration] TO DISK = N'\\RDSQL11\Backup$\Tfs_Configuration_9859025332862172100D.bak' WITH DIFFERENTIAL, NOFORMAT, NOINIT, NOSKIP, REWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10
[22-4-2015 20:00:00] [Error]
Exception Message: Cannot perform a differential backup for database "Tfs_Configuration", because a current database backup does not exist. Perform a full database backup by reissuing BACKUP DATABASE, omitting the WITH DIFFERENTIAL option.
BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally. (type SqlException)
SQL Exception Class: 16
SQL Exception Number: 3035
SQL Exception Procedure:
SQL Exception Line Number: 1
SQL Exception Server: RDSQL11\TFS
SQL Exception State: 1
SQL Error(s):
SQL Error[1]: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlError: BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally.
    Class: 16
    Number: 3013
    Server: RDSQL11\TFS
    Source: .Net SqlClient Data Provider
    State: 1
    Procedure:
    Line Number: 1
Exception Data Dictionary:
HelpLink.ProdName = Microsoft SQL Server
HelpLink.EvtSrc = MSSQLServer
HelpLink.EvtID = 3035
HelpLink.BaseHelpUrl = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink
HelpLink.LinkId = 20476
So this is the same parent and the the file is still present on disk.
Can someone point in a direction to solve this issue?
Thanks!!

Hi RemkoP,
Based on your description, you can check whether you have a full backup file in your backup folder. Differential backups are backups of the changes that have occured since your last full database backup. If there no full backups, then we cannot perform a
differential backup.
You might do a full backup for the database, then do the differential backup. If you have any other concerns, please elaobrate more details about your scenario and reproduce steps.
Best regards,

My backup failed because of folder problem

backup up failed due to backup folder problem I cannot find and reset

Hey Barbara Rohrer,
Thanks for the question. I understand you are having issues backing up to your Time Machine. The following articles are relevant to your issue:
OS X Mountain Lion: If a Time Machine backup is interrupted
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11174
OS X Mountain Lion: If Time Machine doesn’t back up certain files
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11170
Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1550
Thanks,
Matt M.

Backup failed because backup disk image is already in use

I am getting this errror message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/2TB Time Capsule/sparse bundle" is already in use.
What does this mean? How can I fix it?
TIA!

LaPastenague: Thanks for suggesting rebooting of the TimeCapsule.
Rebooting worked even in OS X 10.7.5, which produced the same sort of error ("The backup disk image '/Volumes/....sparsebundle' is already in use") that Beto3645had reported (Dec 13, 2012 4:59 AM [UTC +9]).
Apparently that problem isn't resticted to Mountain Lion:-(.

I get a message saying backup failed on my Time Machine because backup disk image is already in use. I am the only one using this machine.

My Time Capsule keeps telling me that backup failed because backup disk image is already in use. I'm the only one using this machine.

Pull the power cord from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cord back into the back of the Time Capsule
Wait a few minutes, then try a backup

Time Machine Backup Fails - backup disk is unmounted during backup

I've been having trouble on and off with Time Mahcine backups. I have an iMac running Lion, an external USB HD which is my Time Machine disk. It will run fine for a day or so and then fail with the "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder". If I run the Time Machine Buddy utility it shows the follwing error log:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Media/Backups.backupdb
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Media/Backups.backupdb/Kitchen size:37
Backup failed with error: 2
Stopping backup to allow backup destination disk to be unmounted or ejected.
Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
Any idea why the backup disk would be unmounted during the backup?

I have had a related problem.
Over the last three-four years of using TimeMachine I have had FOUR (4) disk drives fail on me. In the first instance, the power supply failed twice. Switching from connection via Firewire to USB seemed to solve that problem.
Then in May 2011 I bought TWO x Freecom HD 1 TB portable drives, I indicated to the Apple retailer, YooBee, expressly for use as TimeMachine backups.
They have both FAILED for me, as per the description below, which I have filed on the Freecom support site.
So FOUR disk drives failing over 3 to 4 years is beyond bad luck, beyond coincidence, but 'conspiracy' as Churhill might have put it. The common factor is that all four disks failed 'on watch' as being my TimeMachine drives. I am VERY ALARMED at his rate of failure, and wonder if there is a fault with TimeMachine in burning out the disks through some feature of excess use?
I note the detailed advice here is pertinent ... but I've only just found it!
Backup, restoring, formatting info: Apple Support Communities. (n.d.). Retrieved January 16, 2012, from https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
Message to Freecom Support Forum 2012-1-14, and YooBee.
I was absolutely assured by my Apple Mac (YooBee, 123 Broadway, Newmarket) store that these drives would be perfect for TimeMachine backup. But to have TWO fail within 8 months of purchase is very, very, very alarming. One failing is bad luck. Two failing is more than coincidence....
There was an alarming clicking noise from the disks.
Disks were disconncted from USB.
Message from Mac saying USB drive disconnected incorrctly. I DID NOTHING: Timemachine was just in the middle of doing a backup, perhaps. I was just working away when I noticed the tiny noise, above.
I turned of Timemachine in preferences. Physically powered down and disconnected Freecom drive. Waited. Reconnected. Unable to remount. Used Disk Utility to mount, and initiated Repair.
Message Apple disk utility
Verify and Repair volume "MELLALIEU-01-FREECOM-HDD-1TB"
Checking file system
Volume repair complete
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required
Error: disk Utility cant repair this disk. Back up as many files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed up files"
Another message
Mac OS X can't repair the disk
MELLALIEU-01-FREECOM-HDD-1TB
You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can.
Well: the Freecom is not able to be remounted, even after plugging, and replugging the USB.
This happened with TWO drives.
And despite the suggestion to backup the files NONE are accessible.
This is NOT what I expect to have happen with drives expressly purchased for use as TimeMachine backups.
I managed to reformat the one that first failed, about two months after purchase. I have not attempted to reformat the latest failure-- and loose my complete Timemachine backup. Naturally, I don't use the reformatted disk for Timemachine, but a Vault for Aperture.
Equipment specification and serial numbers:
Freecom HD Mobile Drive xxs 1 Tb x 2
model SSYAAA P/N 35154
Purchased May 2011, YOOBEE, Newmarket.
S/N 351540442100051.
S/N 351540442100021.

Backup failed because it misreads 'Total size'

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