Backup failed with error: 11 -Error: (-41) SrcErr:NO Copying

Question

Like many of you, I was unlucky to get the famous TimeMachine error message: "The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk". I started to get as much help as I could from Google and all your forum posts.
Until recently I could not get an easy answer and it seemed that various people had success by:
- renaming their machine to remove say extraneous characters (such as apostrophe)
- delete the last "in progress" backup
- reset the TM
- etc.
I did all of that plus reformatting my new WD HDD but nothing changed. After 2 days of frustration with this piece of software (Time Machine), the good news for me is that I can consistently reproduce the error as well succeed in performing a backup. The solution for me seems to make sure that I +*do not have a source directory structure deeper than 15 levels*+. As soon as I have a file that is 16 levels deep from the root of the HDD that I try to backup, I get this error:
+*Error: (-41) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/<HDD to Backup>/<Deep Directory Structure>... to*+
+*/Volumes/<Your TM Drive>/Backups.backupdb/<Your Machine>/<Timestamp>.inProgress/<AutoGenerated-GUID>/<HDD to Backup>/<Deep Directory Structure>...*+
+*Copy stage failed with error:11*+
+*Backup failed with error: 11*+
The Console app shows the system log with the path to the file that failed during backup. I tried to make the pathname shorter than 255 characters to make sure this is not an 8bit limitation of some string length in the code. Even if I have a path shorter than 255 characters, TM fails with the above error when the source files are at least 16 levels deep in the directory structure.
What is most frustrating about this is not the careless and uninformative error message or this apparently non-sense limitation of 15 levels - it might be something historical in Apple's code - but the lack of documentation. In the absence of proper logging and error handling in this piece of code, wouldn't be nice to have some explanation from Apple with regards to what this error #11 means or perhaps what caused this "Error (-41) SrcErr:NO Copying"? I guess most of us would be just fine to know that as per release notes, Apple has this limitation of 15 levels for the source directory structure.

Answer 1

solongpc wrote:
Regardless if this is a general problem or not, does anyone know of any documentation/release notes for common/generic TM error codes? That would be helpful.
Yeah, many of us would love it! But no such thing exists, at least not that us mere mortals can find.
There might be another variable that I don't understand right now but at least it is consistent.
Could it be something funky in the name of one of the folders? Or could the folder object itself be corrupt? Or have some odd extended attribute?
All I can suggest is calling AppleCare, and/or reporting it as a bug:
*_Submitting a +Bug Report+ to Apple._*
|
This requires a membership in the +Apple Developer Connection,+ but you can get one for free.
Register here: http://developer.apple.com/programs/start/register/create.php
Once you receive the confirmation, go to: https://bugreport.apple.com and login.
Click +New Problem+ at the top.
Click Help at the top, and/or any of the items underlined in blue for more information.
Provide as much specific detail as possible, and attach a log, screenshot, etc., as appropriate in the lower section.
When done, click Submit at the bottom.