Hung on "Finishing Backup"

Had to restart with TC backup that's worked for months. Deleted preference, erased TC disk, restarted a full backup of 120GB that wirelessly took three days. Now it's stuck on "Finishing Backup" for the last 8 hours. Does finishing really take that long? Never has before.

I posted this on another thread earlier...
A word of warning:
I too have this same problem, the Time Machine is showing "preparing Backup" for more than 24 hours.
I have tried all the solutions I could find on the 'net, and none have worked, so I took it all in to the Apple store in Sydney.
After 1 hour of them playing around they decided I had a corrupt "in progress" file on the Time Capsule preventing the backup from progressing beyond the preparation stage.
So what was the solution to my problem? I was told I had to either:
* delete all the backup data on the TC and format it, thus permanently losing all historical backup data
or
* take it away, copy all the data to another 500+gb hard drive, format the Time Capsule and copy all the data back again.
Apparently Apple have "no liability" as it is a corrupted file, which "could have been caused by anything - installing or uninstalling software, or just a random glitch".
So it seems that because their Time Machine software can apparently cause a backup file to be easily and randomly corrupted by day to day usage, I now have to either lose all my backup data, or fork out hundreds of dollars for a new hard drive to copy all the backup data to, before copying it back again - minus the offending file.
I am NOT IMPRESSED that Apple can seemingly wash their hands of the failings of their software and hardware combination, causing me to be out of pocket.
If anyone here believes what I was told is wrong, I would be grateful for your advice, otherwise it looks like I'm going to have to spend out more cash to solve this problem...

Similar Messages

"Finishing Backup" for more than 24 hours. Took 3 day to get there

Something's obviously not right with my Time Capsule.
The 200GB backup took 3 days (over WiFi... I know... I know... should've done by Ethernet but I was already halfway through when I considered that option).
Now for more than 24 hours it has been "Finishing Backup". I have the latest time capsule updates.
Anyone knows a solution for this?
Thank you in advance

I saw something similar when I hooked up the Time Capsule to be the main internet router (dropping the internet connection and generally poor performance). I have a couple of the older Airport Extremes (Fast Ethernet) so I took one of the older Extremes and set it up as the main router (connected to cable modem) and just hung the TC off of that one via ethernet. Things seem must better now. I'm seeing backup speeds now in the 5-8 MB/s with my MacBook Pro connected directly to the TC via ethernet. Only trouble is I've not gotten a successful backup yet in multiple attempts over the last 5 days. Gets several GB into it and errors out saying it couldn't copy files to the backup volume. My wife's 20" iMac completed it's backup successfully on the very first try, over wireless no less (802.11n). I'm just about ready to chuck this thing.
-Terry

Takes a very long time "Finishing Backup"

I ran TimeMachine for a few weeks backing up to a USB drive connected to another iMac on my network and never saw this until I installed Time Capsule yesterday.
It will stop at "finishing backup..." for a long time, like 15-30 minutes.
Anybody else seeing this?

I experienced this as well... in fact, it said "finishing backup" for 4 hours. Finally, I determined that iPhoto was hung and required a force quite. Once I did that, it finished up pretty quickly.

Time Machine Backup stuck on Finishing Backup

Hello
I am backing up my macbook (on snowleopard) for the first time using Time Machine and the WD My Book for Mac external hard drive. The dialogue box shows that Time Machine has finished backing up 370KB of 370KB, but it is stuck on "Finishing backup". I've left it running overnight, but it is still stuck on this message. If I open Time Machine (to the star wars-looking section), it appears that the back up was successful (but of course I've only checked random files - not every single file). I can still use some applications on the macbook, but some things, like Safari, Mail and Preview are frozen.
I've searched this forum and looked at http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html but have not been able to find a solution to this issue.
Please can anyone assist?
Many thanks in advance!

Thanks so much for your prompt response!
I ran Repair Disk on the TM volume - there were no problems.
I then ran Verify Disk on the source volume and got the following message: "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk." I've proceeded to insert the installation disc, but was not sure where to go from here. I've tried to follow the instructions on this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13107919&#13107919 however, the options that come up are not as per the instructions on the thread. Specifically, after inserting the disc and pressing 'Continue', the only option it gives me is to re-install the OS in its entirety. It does not give me the option, as anticipated in that thread, to select a language nor does any menu bar appear allowing me to select Disk Utility etc etc.
Do I need to shut down the macbook and insert the installation disc only after it has rebooted? (Apologies in advance if this is an obvious question. I am hesitant to reboot unless this is what I am supposed to do as it often leads to all sorts of other issues).
Many thanks!

Time Machine backup hangs on 'Finishing Backup'

Hi there, hopefully someone can help me with this.
I have a Mac Mini which is running Mavericks and has the server app installed. I have file storage connected via ISCSI, which is then backed up by time machine to a NAS box.
My problem is, every time the backup runs it doesn't finish. It will backup the data and say "Finishing Backup" but it just hangs on this message forever. If I hit the X then it stops the backup. I know the backup had some success because you can go back and restore data from it. However, as soon as the next backup starts it will do the same thing.
I'm backing up a large amount of data (6TB+!), however, it has done the initial "big backup" and only performing incrementals now.
Has anyone else come across this? I used to use Backup Exec when I was using a Leopard server but it was unreliable and OSX support from Backup Exec is almost non-existent.
Obviously time machine is not the best backup product for a server so if anyone else knows of a suitable replacement then I can try that.
Many thanks.

Hi there, hopefully someone can help me with this.
I have a Mac Mini which is running Mavericks and has the server app installed. I have file storage connected via ISCSI, which is then backed up by time machine to a NAS box.
My problem is, every time the backup runs it doesn't finish. It will backup the data and say "Finishing Backup" but it just hangs on this message forever. If I hit the X then it stops the backup. I know the backup had some success because you can go back and restore data from it. However, as soon as the next backup starts it will do the same thing.
I'm backing up a large amount of data (6TB+!), however, it has done the initial "big backup" and only performing incrementals now.
Has anyone else come across this? I used to use Backup Exec when I was using a Leopard server but it was unreliable and OSX support from Backup Exec is almost non-existent.
Obviously time machine is not the best backup product for a server so if anyone else knows of a suitable replacement then I can try that.
Many thanks.

Finishing Backup takes too much time.

Finishing backup takes too much time in my system , sometimes 30 minutes even 1 hour! and sometimes right after finishing backup(before the icon in the menu bar stops) it starts to take another backup( and usually 10MB or something small !) or the estimation is wrong .
Sometimes I see my system that is taking backups hours and hours(just with small stops!)
and the speed rate I of data transfer is reduced, while I set it to be on maximum speed in Time Capsule.

And the log with Time-stamps from Console
4/6/09 2:31:24 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Starting standard backup
4/6/09 2:31:34 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Sina's%20Time%20Capsule
4/6/09 2:31:34 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/Sina's Time Capsule
4/6/09 2:31:39 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Disk image /Volumes/Sina's Time Capsule/Sina’s MacBook_0017f2347181.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Sina’s MacBook
4/6/09 2:31:39 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Sina’s MacBook/Backups.backupdb
4/6/09 2:39:45 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] No pre-backup thinning needed: 862.6 MB requested (including padding), 205.56 GB available
4/6/09 2:46:52 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
4/6/09 2:48:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 2:48:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 2:48:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 2:50:06 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 2:50:06 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 2:57:21 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
4/6/09 3:03:57 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 3:03:58 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 3:03:58 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
4/6/09 3:12:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Copied 29426 files (162.6 MB) from volume Macintosh Disk.
4/6/09 3:17:36 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] No pre-backup thinning needed: 678.9 MB requested (including padding), 205.56 GB available
4/6/09 3:37:18 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
4/6/09 3:37:57 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Copied 2362 files (100.3 MB) from volume Macintosh Disk.
4/6/09 3:42:00 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2141] Starting post-backup thinning

Finishing backup taking slightly too long!

Hi;
Have had no issues with backups until today. The backups started at 7am, its now 12pm and its "stuck" on finishing Backup. Not sure if its normal. I downloaded the time machine widget, and this was the output:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/DroboSyn/Backups.backupdb
Error: (-1426) Applying backup protections to /Volumes/DroboSyn/Backups.backupdb/JohnGhadimi‚Äôs iMac/2009-10-08-070143.inProgress/982E310D-E9A8-4FE0-8549-E3E2311E5FEC
No pre-backup thinning needed: 979.0 MB requested (including padding), 1019.78 GB available
SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x5a9fa0, p = 0x5a9fcb, pEnd = 0x5a9fed)
SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x5adc40, p = 0x5adc6b, pEnd = 0x5adc8d)
Copied 85301 files (115.1 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Error: (-1426) Applying backup protections to /Volumes/DroboSyn/Backups.backupdb/JohnGhadimi‚Äôs iMac/2009-10-08-070143.inProgress/AE5D9A72-2B44-4767-8D8B-E21EF1C54FDF
No pre-backup thinning needed: 610.2 MB requested (including padding), 904.39 GB available
Copied 876 files (204.6 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Possible unresolved transaction race -108/(Backups.backupdb/JohnGhadimi’s iMac/2009-10-08-070143.inProgress/982E310D-E9A8-4FE0-8549-E3E2311E5FEC/Macintos h HD/usr/lib/nroffxj221.dir/.^Hc2phj2215m.so.3,(null))
Is there something I need to fix? Appreciate the info.
J.

I'd suggest cancelling the backup if it's still running, turning off TM and selecting the "none" drive, and doing a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your TM partition, via Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities).
If that doesn't help, it's a bit of a long shot, but this may have to do with your Computer Name having unusual characters (‚Äôs ) in it's name.
Then change the computer name via System Preferences > Sharing. I'm not sure, but I think you also have to click the Edit... button and change to Local Host name, too. Avoid punctuation and spaces, too.
Then re-select your TM drive and try another backup. It will probably do a "deep traversal" (lengthy "Preparing" phase, and there's a chance it will then do a new, full backup.

TM Stuck on Finishing Backup

When backing up with TM, it seems like it backs up the files just fine, but it always stays on "Finishing Backup" for long periods of time, and it doesnt seem like the backup is truly finished.
Is anyone able to help me?

It's probably deleting "expired" backups. That shouldn't take more than a few minutes in most cases, but if you're backing-up over a network, it can take a while.
See #A1 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for a handy widget that will display the backup messages from your logs. Use it to look at the messages for one of the backups in question. If you see anything suspicious there, copy and post all the messages here.

IMAC stalls when performing a backup (finishing backup)

I have a new IMAC 24" and a time capsule. I've tried for the past two weeks to do a backup using Time Machine. My first wireless attempt failed. then i tried connect TC with an ethernet cable. I erased the TC, set ethernet connection on the Airport utility, restarted time machine. It took almost 48 hours and it still was not done. I had a "finishing backup" message for almost 30 hours. So, i somewhat managed to stop the backup, i ran disk utility to verify/repair the sparsebundle. No problem emerged. I couldn't repair permissions as it was not highlighted. I tried to start again time machine and it's been stuck again for a few hours with the same "finishing backup" message. I've read other discussion and tried to follow suggestions, but the problem is not solved. any help?

i have htis as well. 4s ios7.
i noticed it started after i begain playing clash of clans which is a memory intense game.
icloud will ask for pwd at night which is when i plug in.
it seems to still run backups as it ran last night.
however twice now when I have it plugged in during the day and enter my icloud password i'll lose all my contacts. have to power off/power on and they eventually sync back.
really annoying.
i'll try quitting high mem apps before plugging in.. maybe that will help

Paging Pondini: "Finishing Backup" in Time Machine Never Finishes

I begin to question the reliability of this Time Machine stuff. I've been trying to get initial backup for my TM with my new NAS (iomega ix2-200 Cloud Edition) this past week. I can't get over it, it's ridiculous.
Around 7 attempts using wifi had all failed. Today I tried using ethernet (I know, I should've tried it earlier), and although it is significantly faster, this is all I got until now:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://******@192.168.1.18/Backups
Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/Backups-1 using URL: afp://******@192.168.1.18/Backups
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Backups-1/****** MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
6.53 GB required (including padding), 1.33 TB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 377.5 MB of 4.9 GB, 743476 of 919412 items
Copied 894411 files (3.1 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/Backups-1
Disk image already attached: /Volumes/Backups-1/****** MacBook Pro.sparsebundle, DIHLDiskImageAttach returned: 35
Disk image /Volumes/Backups-1/****** MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
It seems like it doesn't actually start new backup, and the size of the sparsebundle is now reaching 120GBs.
However, the process seemed to be halted in "finishing backup".
I'm paging Pondini because I know he's the most resourceful person about TM out there, but other contributions will be much appreciated.
Thanks for the help, guys.

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

The light on my time capsule keeps blinking yellow. ! mark in toolbar time capsule and it says it was unable to finish backup because back up disk couldn't be found but it also says last back up was successful.

The light on my time capsule keeps blinking yellow. ! mark in toolbar time capsule and it says it was unable to finish backup because back up disk couldn't be found but it also says last back up was successful.

Hi jon88906,
If you are seeing a flashing amber light on your Time Capsule, you may find the following articles helpful:
AirPort base stations: About AirPort base station status lights (LED)
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4600
Wi-Fi base station: Understanding and resolving a blinking amber status light
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1589
If you are still seeing an alert message about Time Machine being unable to find your backup disk, then this article may be useful as well:
OS X Mavericks: If Time Machine can’t find your backup disk
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14170
Regards,
- Brenden

Time capsule (finishing backup)

hi
how long does it take to finish the first backup on time machine
as i took more than 10 hours and it still says finishing backup
and thanks

Yeah, I thought subsequent back ups would be faster....but...not exactly true.
With my MacBook Air, the initial backup was done via ethernet. Subsequent ones are through Wifi. For several days, subsequent backups were quite fast. I don't update huge amounts of data on my computer on a daily basis!!! Now, the subsequent backup is taking a tremendous amount of time. The computer has been at the "Finishing backup" stage for over 10 hours now. The last time Time Machine made a successful backup was 18 hours ago at 1:36pm YESTERDAY. Since backups are supposed to occur every hour, this current backup that is running probably started around 2:36pm, which makes it over 17 hours ago that this backup has started.
What is going on?

Time Capsule is stuck at "finishing backup",

I have been backing up wirelessly for roughly around 18 hours for about 30 gb worth of data. However, the backup does not finish but just stays stuck at "finishing backup". I've waited around 24 hours and the backup still says "finishing backup". So i click stop backing up. However, when i check my latest backup in time machine, it seems that the backup has completed. I try backing up again and its still stuck at "finishing backup", but when i click stop backup, the backup seems to be completed. My questions is why is this happening. Why does time machine say that is finishing backup when it has actually finished.

Tribalz1, After reading more through the forum, it seems many problems have been caused by the Airport Utility 7.4.2, and many of them being solved by downgrading to 7.4.1. That pretty much coincides with the time frame when my TC started acting up and not finishing the backup.
I downgraded to 7.4.1 and it seemed to solve the problem for now. My first backup after changing, it DID stay on "finishing" for what seems to be longer than it should, but I left it alone, came back later, and it had finished. The next backup it did, it completed it just like it should.
Its a simple non destructive fix, so I suggest you try it and see if it works as well for you, as it did for me.
Message was edited by: Kevin Williams1

Time Capsule stuck in "Finishing Backup"......what to do?

Well...I finally am about to finish my first full backup and it is now stuck in "finishing Backup" and has been for over two hours.....please help.

Ok, here's what I had to do (with the help of a networking genius friend) to make Time Machine actually finish a backup on my Time Capsule. Now it's working perfectly, and the backups are really fast:
I erased the Time Capsule to start everything from scratch. I reselected it using the Time Machine preferences.
I connected the TC DIRECTLY to my Imac using Ethernet rather than depending upon wireless (there is just too much interference in the air from other networks, my Airport Express, cordless phones - I think this was creating problems - it works much better if actually wired through Ethernet). I also gave my Imac a fixed IP address, and on the Time Capsule I changed in the Network settings the "Renew DHCP lease" tab to every 4 days, rather than every 4 hours (it's possible this was causing hiccups).
I excluded Time Capsule from Spotlight using the 'Privacy' tab in the Spotlight preferences.
I uninstalled Microsoft Entourage and transferred all my mail to Mail instead - Time Machine doesn't work too well with Microsoft applications, apparently, and wants to back up your entire email database (in my case, around 3GB) every time you send a single email. It works better with Apple software (cunning plan by Apple!)
Then I ran the initial backup again - it worked fine, and has been automatically backing up without any hitches ever since. I have it connected through Ethernet still and will leave it wired up that way. I think it was my unstable wireless network - which has an old Airport Express and an ancient Powerbook which kept not only slowing down the speed but confusing Time Machine. It seems to work much better when I have reduced the number of wireless elements in my network. Wireless networks are just not that reliable - they drop out all the time and that creates corrupted data in Time Capsule, and it then spins forever trying to work out what's wrong.....

Can't finish backup

All of a sudden I can't finish a backup due to an error message when it reaches "Profiles". If I clear out the profile it will then back up but I lose all my settings each time. I've tried DM 4.3, 4.5 and 4.6 with no luck. It is aggravating to lose all my settings. It never did this before....what is the problem?
Thanks in advance!!

I had the same problem when it came to backing up bookmarks. I deleted the bookmarks and all was well. You may just have some corrupt data in the profile log that is causing this error message. Re-installing the device software MAY fix this problem, but that's alot of work to do just for this kind of fix. I just want to be sure my contacts and schedule is backed up correctly. I can live with "fine tuning" the device after a restore. Hope this info helps you.
John
Stevie Ray! 1954-1990
** Don't forget to resolve your post with the accepted solution.

Hung on "Finishing Backup"

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