HT3275 Why does Time Machine backup fail when an external drive is included in backup?

Time Machine will not perform a backup when I have an external drive (formatted Mac OS Extended - Journaled) included in the backup. My understanding is that it should. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.

timtom122353 wrote:
"The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk."
Ah, not one of Apple's more informative messages.
There's a problem with a file on that disk. See #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.

Similar Messages

Why does Time Machine Hang OSX when a USB drive does not respond?

I use USB drives to store photo data. When I back up the drives using Time Machine to a Time Capsule, If I have added a large amount of data to the USB drive, the backup will consistently fail with the drive hung. I can see the drive in finder, but I cannot see the directory structure. Often OSX hangs too and I cannot even get to finder, just the whirling colored wheel. Sometimes the system has entered sleep mode and it will not wake up. I if I am using the monitor, I can open the MAC Book Pro cover and the screen there shows alternately, a blue screen and the screen wallpaper, flipping back and forth but otherwise unresponsive. If I turn the USB drive off the OS recovers and Time Machine completes, usually indicating a backup failure (but not always). The drive is always very hot under these circumstances, indicating that the system is issuing repetitive operations to the drive. I should emphasize that I am not writing to the USB drives during backup, Time Machine is just reading the drive. So several questions:
1) How in the world can a non system drive hang the Operating System? This is a big no-no for a supposedly multi-tasking Operating System.
2) I use Aperture 2.1 to store data on the USB drives with no problems (at least so far). Why would Time Machine drive the USB drive so hard that it fails? I had the same problem using a USB drive with iTunes. It completely fried the drive by writing to it too intensively during one of the frequent software updates. Is there no throttle mechanism in OSX that limits the disc activity so that the throttle mechanism is not the failure of the drive itself?
3) Does Apple have a list of USB drives that it has validated to be able to work with it's system reliably?

Are the USB drives powered from the computer or do they have their own power supplies.
There is a limit to how much power can be drawn from each USB port and also a total limit. If you exceed this, unexpected things can happen.

HT3275 Why does Time Machine say it's unable to back up because the disk is full -- even tho it's supposed to delete the oldest backups when that happens?

I'm running OS 10.6.8 on an imac from around 2011. I back up with Time Machine to an external hard drive that has about 500 GB. Until now, I've had no problemsm, or at least that's what I thought. But today I'm getting a message every hour saying "Time machine is unable to back up because the disk is full." It IS full, but Time Machine is supposed to delete the oldest backups when that happens, and keep deleting them in order.
Anyway, when I opened up my backup disk I discovered backups from February and most of March, nothing in April and nothing in May.
I'm a little freaked.
Does anybody know why that would happen and what to do about it?
Thanks in advance.

Hello, I don't use TM, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imagine something not being covered there.

Why does time machine back up when no new files have been added?

I run time machine manually and even after having just back up, it says it is backing up 50mb of something. Nothing has been added or taken away. It just keeps adding and using up disk space.

System files are constantly changing, TM backs the whole machine up not just the files you are working on,
And 55mb is small change

Does Time Machine work with a partitioned external drive?

I just bought my first Mac this weekend (yay!) and would like to use the external Maxtor drive I used for backups with our Windows machines with Time Machine. The problem is we still have two Windows machines that were using this drive as a backup and I would like to continue to do so. Can I put two partitions on the drive, one for Mac and one NTFS for the Windows machines, hook the drive up to my iMac with the Firewire and have Time Machine use the Mac partition while I share the Windows partition for use by the Windows machines? Any insight would be appreciated.
Thanks,
HD

Never mind. I found a post from April 8th where a similar question was asked and it appears as though the answer is yes.
Thanks all

Why does Time Machine disappear?

Why does Time Machine disappear each restart?

Suggest that you power cycle the entire network, as things are likely out of sequence
Power every device off on the network, order is not important
Wait a few moments, then start the modem first and let it run by itself for 2-3 minutes
Start the Time Capsule the same way
Start each network device one at a time about a minute apart
Check for proper operation

When using Time Machine to back up to external drive, does Time Machine back up content in your Trash folder?

When using Time Machine to back up to external drive, does Time Machine back up content in your Trash folder?

Go to System Preferences (under the Apple menu) > Time Machine and click the Options button. Click the "+" button in the lower left. In the resulting dialog, check the Show invisible items checkbox. Go to your home folder and look for Trash. Click the Exclude button in the lower right.

HT201250 Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is found. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. I'm on the latest version of Snow Leopard. Thank you!

Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button. No drive is listed. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past. Any suggestions

Does the disk appear in Disk Utility?

I am trying to move previous Time Machine back ups off an external drive to my new Time Capsule. How do I do that?

I have my previous time machine back ups on an external drive and I want to move those to my new 2tb Time Capsule. How can I make this happen?

You probably cannot do it..
The backup is very different from a local drive to a network drive.
Look through the Pondini KB.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
You can move the backup from a local to another local disk or network to another network.. but there are issues even doing that.
IMHO.. don't... just start a new backup and keep what you already have saved up.. if you don't need it in 6months time.. or a year.. then you can wipe it.

Can I use Time Machine to archive like an external drive?

I've backed up my computer to Time Machine and everything from my computer is there, but I have a new project which needs me to archive 21 pieces of artowrk that have multiple photo images for aech, and they are large size originals. Can I upload these files to a folder in Time Machine or directly on my external drive, so I don't have to have all of these files taking up space on my main computer?

You can, but it is not recommended.
Apparently you cannot partition an existing Time Capsule volume if that is what you are using.
Excerpt from ASC contributor Pondini's Time Machine FAQ:
3. Can I use my TM disk for other stuff?
Yes. Time Machine will not delete anything you put there.
But it's much, much better to partition an external drive into 2 (or more) parts, also called volumes. Assign one to Time Machine, for its exclusive use for backups; use the other partition(s) however you want.
(Unfortunately, though, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal disk. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for some alternatives)

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up? I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac. I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk. I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
(110504)

Since installing Lion why does Time Machine shows backup was delayed?

Ever since we stalled Lion after we backup with Time Machine the display quickly changes to the alert symbol that backup was delayed how can I change this. I have backed up four times.

It's a 'new feature' .. check out this post here https://discussions.apple.com/message/16148789#16148789 .. if you don't agree with this new feature, please join us in raising it as a bug for Apple to fix.

Why does Time Machine not work over wifi but only via ethernet cable ?

Hi everyone,
It's been some time I have this problem now.
The first time I backed up my mac within Time Capsule with time machine, I chose to use the ethernet cable because the gigabit connection is much faster than the wifi for the first back up, but now, any time I want to update this back up, I need to connect the cable, cause "Time Machine can not connect to the Drive I picked" over wifi.
This is so annoying. Does anyone have a similar issue ?
Any solution ?
When I got this "error" I can use Utility Airport and get full access to the drive, even in finder. The only thing that doesn't work is TimeMachine connecting to the drive, even if it is detected by TimeMachine itself.
Thanks.
Riccardo

Typical Yosemite.
I suggest a full reconfigure of the TC.
Follow this list..
No files are deleted on the TC doing this although you might have to repoint your laptop to the backup.
Note.. even if TM does connect it will say it is going to do a new backup.. it is only when it starts that it discovers the backup exists and increments it.
Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.
Factory reset universal
Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.
N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.
Setup the TC again.
Then redo the setup from the computer with Yosemite.
1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.
eg TCgen5 for basestation and and TCwifi wireless name.
If the issue is wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round. ie plan on a first and second round of changes to fix this.. hopefully.. I will point out other steps that can be round2.
2. Use all passwords that also comply with 1. but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.
3. If the TC is main router you can skip this point. This is only an issue when the TC is bridged.
Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when Yosemite cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking.
4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.
5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.
In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,
Type in SMB://192.168.0.254 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).
You can use name.. SMB://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.
However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.
6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only. Do the same for ethernet if you use it.
There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.
You might need to do some more work on the computer itself. eg Reset the PRAM.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.
Tell us how you go.
Someone posted a solution.. See this thread.
Macbook can't find Time Capsule anymore
Start from the bottom and work up.. I have a list of good network practice changes but I have avoided Yosemites bug heaven.
Yosemite has serious DNS bug in the networking application.. here is the lets say more arcane method of fixing it by doing a network transplant from mavericks.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/01/why-dns-in-os-x-10-10-is-broken-and-what-yo u-can-do-to-fix-it/

Why does Time Machine forget "everything" after Mountain Lion update?

After updating to Mountain Lion (from Snow Leopard), I fired up my trusty external hard drive which contains my Time Machine backups (and nothing else) - of course I had run a backup right before upgrading to be sure. Two things are deeply disturbing: 1) The drive keeps on "rattling" as if a process is constantly reading or writing to it - even with Time Machine "OFF". Why? I (tried to) explicitly disable(d) Spotlight searching that drive, and nothing else should be accessing it! (I wish there was a way to simply turn Spotlight OFF for a while - I suspect it of a lot of crashes I experience).
Anyway, even more disturbing: Opening the System Preference Panel and sliding Time Machine to "On", it claims there is NO backup at all! Oldest backup: "NONE". Latest backup: "NONE". This is B.S.! BTW, opening the "Time Machine" app proper shows all the recent backups, so they are still there. So why doesn't the Time Machine Preference Panel not recognize them? Under these circumstances, is it safe to enable backups??? I am very afraid that if I let Time Machine proceed, it will try to create a full new backup, perhaps overriding all the snapshots from the past that are still stored on that disk. For one, even at 1 TB, my disk is not big enough to take another full backup on top of what's already stored on there. Any advice (other than "buy another hard disk just to be safe")?
O.k., I admit, so far I'm more upset with Mountain Lion than impressed.

Dear Pondini,
I am grateful for your advice and encouraging words, but I am (and remain) at my wit's ends as far as Time Machine is concerned. While I'm sure 99.99% of Mac users have no problem, there must be SOMETHING idiosyncratic about my own setup that has consistently crashed TM in the past, and now (after upgrading to Mountain Lion), it simply refuses to work EVER. Mind you, I'm NOT a "hacker" who installs non-standard software or likes to poke around in the Kernel.
Below is a shortened version of the Console output during my latest attempt - after 3 tries (after running disk utility to repair my permissions and check the hard drive), it never makes it beyond about 4 Gb before crashing. (And, what's worse, if I don't immediately react, TM very often crashes the whole computer to the point where NOTHING works anymore - requiring a restart. Even with Mountain Lion).
Thanks for any offer of help from anyone... SK
THIS WAS RIGHT BEFORE I TRIED TO START THE BACKUP
7/30/12 12:42:46.697 PM WindowServer[73]: [cps/setfront] Failed setting the front application to Finder, psn 0x0-0xc00c, securitySessionID=0x186a4, err=-13066 _
7/30/12 12:46:53.815 PM UserEventAgent[180]: com.apple.TMLaunchAgent disabled
NONE OF THE ABOVE WAS IN RESPONSE TO ANYTHING I DID! BUT MAYBE A CLUE?
ANYWAY, HERE GOES (with many repetitive lines removed - indicated by gaps):
7/30/12 12:48:52.885 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Starting manual backup
7/30/12 12:48:53.475 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Backing up to: /Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb
7/30/12 12:48:55.101 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
7/30/12 12:48:55.799 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
7/30/12 12:49:20.607 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[156]: (com.apple.KerberosHelper.LKDCHelper[212]) Exited with code: 1
7/30/12 12:54:19.579 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Finished scan
7/30/12 12:59:57.836 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Found 470214 files (18.15 GB) needing backup
7/30/12 12:59:58.422 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: 24.03 GB required (including padding), 312.52 GB available
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x5
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: write_journal_header: error writing the journal header!
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:28.693 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “Credits.rtf” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7f8b749355c0 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn%E2%80%99s%20Mac Book%20Pro/2012-07-26-114729/Macintosh%20HD/Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Re sources/zh_TW.lproj/Credits.rtf, NSFilePath=/Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn’s MacBook Pro/2012-07-26-114729/Macintosh HD/Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Resources/zh_TW.lproj/Credits.rtf, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8b7493fff0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Input/output error"}
7/30/12 1:05:28.694 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (-50) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Resources/zh_TW.lproj/Credits.rtf to /Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn’s MacBook Pro/2012-07-30-124855.inProgress/A9556B25-47FE-4D1F-A2C9-BF18EEF78898/Macintosh HD/Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Resources/zh_TW.lproj
7/30/12 1:05:28.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:30.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:30.341 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.341 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (-50) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/version.plist to /Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn’s MacBook Pro/2012-07-30-124855.inProgress/A9556B25-47FE-4D1F-A2C9-BF18EEF78898/Macintosh HD/Applications/Preview.app/Contents
7/30/12 1:05:30.341 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.341 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (-50) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/XPCServices to /Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn’s MacBook Pro/2012-07-30-124855.inProgress/A9556B25-47FE-4D1F-A2C9-BF18EEF78898/Macintosh HD/Applications/Preview.app/Contents
7/30/12 1:05:30.381 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Stopping backup.
7/30/12 1:05:30.381 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.381 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/XPCServices/com.apple.Preview.TrustedBookmar ksService.xpc/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources to (null)
7/30/12 1:05:30.385 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.386 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.386 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Copied 96604 files (2.26 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
7/30/12 1:05:30.386 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.387 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Copy stage failed with error:11
7/30/12 1:05:30.389 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Invalid argument
7/30/12 1:05:30.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:30.464 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (5) getxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotState path:/Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn‚Äôs MacBook Pro/2011-06-14-140802
7/30/12 1:05:30.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:31.178 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (5) getxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.SnapshotState path:/Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn‚Äôs MacBook Pro/2012-07-26-114729
7/30/12 1:05:31.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
7/30/12 1:05:31.248 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/TimeShare/Backups.backupdb/kuhn‚Äôs MacBook Pro size:37
7/30/12 1:05:41.526 PM com.apple.backupd[320]: Backup failed with error: 11
7/30/12 1:09:42.396 PM mtmfs[37]: filesystem unmount attempted from stopFS
7/30/12 1:09:42.557 PM mtmfs[37]: unmount failed for /Volumes/MobileBackups
NOTE THE FAILURE TO UNMOUNT
7/30/12 1:10:02.499 PM fseventsd[48]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/TimeShare/.fseventsd/636573369d318daf (Invalid argument). mount point /Volumes/TimeShare/.fseventsd
7/30/12 1:10:04.000 PM kernel[0]: disk1s2: I/O error.
HERE I USED "FORCE EJECT"
7/30/12 1:10:04.799 PM fseventsd[48]: disk logger: failed to open output file /Volumes/TimeShare/.fseventsd/636573369d318daf (Invalid argument). mount point /Volumes/TimeShare/.fseventsd
7/30/12 1:10:05.000 PM kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s2: close: journal 0xffffff8042d1bcc0, is invalid. aborting outstanding transactions

Why does Time Machine folder sizes exceed physical capacity?

I have a MAC G3 Server Serving multiple MACs as a Storage, Media Server, and Time Machine storage. These other external MACs are all running Version 10.8.3. Only the Storage server is running 10.5.8.
All of the extenal Macs use Time Machine to backup to the served Storage media volume called "Time Machine".
The physical size of the "Time Machine" volume is 2.0 TB.
Yet when I am on the G3 Server, and perform a "Get Info" on the "Time Machine" volume, and also the folder that contains the Server's backups, the stored capacities exceed the physical capacity of the drive to which the volume resides.
The single physical drive is 2.0 GB and only has one partition called "Time Machine". In the root directory of this volume there is the one folder called Backups.backupdb, and a .sparsebundle DMG file for each of the remote systems that are bing backed up by Time Machine.
Each of the sparsebundles are well below the dirve's physical capacity, but both the local server's backup folder (Backups.backupdb) and the G3 server's local volume "Time Machine" show a used capcity that well exceeds the physical capacity of the drive on which it resides.
For example, here is the information from "Get Info" on the Backups.backupdb folder on the "Time Machine" volume when viewed from all systems:
Kind: Folder
Size: 3,456,930,478,415 bytes (3.46 TB on disk) for 122,254 items
But the Physical Volume "Get Info" shows this:
Kind: Volume
Capacity: 2.0 TB
Available: 169.92 GB
Used: 3,456,930,478,415 bytes (3.46 TB on disk) for 122,254 items
(NOTE: this is identical to the size
My guess is that there is some sort of deduplication involved.
If so, I would like to know the type of deduplication is performed?
Is it File Level deduplication, Block Level, or Content Level?
Also, is the deduplication inhererant on the volume (File System) level, or only specifically for Time Machine, via symbolic links?
Thank you in advance.
Jeff Cameron

This is due to the way Time Machine stores files. While there is only one copy of each version of each file stored, there are multple links to that file, and each link is reported in Get Info at its restored size.
How Time Machine Works its Magic

HT3275 Why does Time Machine backup fail when an external drive is included in backup?

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