Backup failing without any errors in sys prefrerences time machine

Question

What happens: Time Machine scans, prepares, but does not actually back up. It does not report any errors through System Preferences > Time Machine.
I've used Disk Utility to verify both my local disk and my time machine disk (external USB drive).
I've done a full reset of Time Machine ("A4").
Here's the relevant log:
Nov 26 03:07:31 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Starting standard backup
Nov 26 03:07:31 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Nov 26 03:07:32 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Nov 26 03:07:32 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
Nov 26 03:10:18 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexSDB in dbflushdatastore:/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99/st ore.db : dbsyncdatastore: !WARNING! prior write-errors invalidate sync.
Nov 26 03:10:18 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:preSync error:22 0
Nov 26 03:10:18 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexSDB in dbflushdatastore:/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99/st ore.db : dbsyncdatastore: !WARNING! prior write-errors invalidate sync.
Nov 26 03:10:18 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:preSync error:22 0
Nov 26 03:11:00 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Error: Flushing index to disk returned an error: 0
Nov 26 03:11:00 computerName com.apple.backupd[522]: Backup canceled.
Thanks for any pointers you can provide.
- Evan

Answer 1

evan_j wrote:
Hi Pondini!
Thanks for your help.
I added the entire Time Machine disk to the spotlight privacy exception, waited for a bit, and removed it. From this line, I assume that it triggered the re-indexing of the drive:
Nov 27 10:26:58 computerName mds[34]: (Normal) DiskStore: Creating index for /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Yup.
I think one of the issues was that I had the power settings to shut down disks.
That shouldn't be a problem, as they should "spin up" when necessary. Some external HDs respond to that setting, some don't -- they have their own settings. But unchecking the option sometimes fixes the problem, so at least you know what it is.
Nov 27 05:57:05 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexSDB in dbflushdatastore:/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99/st ore.db : dbsyncdatastore: !WARNING! prior write-errors invalidate sync.
Nov 27 05:57:05 computerName mds[34]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/039F4DE9-98EB-4474-A60B-665902E6BC99)(E rror) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:preSync error:22 0
. . . {that pair of lines repeats ~ 6 times} . . .
Nov 27 06:15:16 computerName mDNSResponder[35]: PenaltyTimeForServer: PenaltyTime negative -180458, (server penaltyTime -1014959037, timenow -1014778579) resetting the penalty
It repeats the 1st and 2nd lines every ~ 6 minutes, then the PenaltyTimeForServer, then the cycle starts again.
Any ideas?
The UUID mismatch message sent by backupd in your first post is because TM hasn't completed a backup, and isn't sure what's changed on your system and needs to be saved. So it does a "deep traversal," comparing your system to the backups (that's the "scanning" in the messages). That has to be repeated every time, until a backup is completed. On subsequent backups, it can use a log of changes that OSX keeps, and will be much quicker.
It sounds like something is corrupted, somewhere. Exclude your TM drive from Spotlight again,but leave it excluded. Verify your internal HD and Repair the TM drive again. (Unfortunately, those will find directory errors and the like, but not necessarily problems within files.)
Then try another backup.
How old is your external HD? Are you just starting with TM or that disk, or have you been backing-up successfully for a while?
Are you running any kind of Sync application? A couple of the messages mention some sort of sync, but I don't know enough about Spotlight to know whether that's relevant.
Are you running Windows via Parallels, VmWare, or the like?