Sparse bundle stops my back up.

This post was originally made in my earlier question. As no reply as yet I am re starting in hope for an answer. Apologies if this gpes against forum protocol.
I had my TC connected using Powerline for ethernet to TC. There were 4 queries highlighted by a red 4 in Airport Utility but options to ignore where there and selected.
Green light on TC and backup started. Not for long, however, as my original reported problem re Sparse Bundle Error 1 has delayed the backup. Referring back to Mr Pondini instructions I got as far as restarting my Mac after which the connection was broken although green light still showed on TC. My back up disc no longer shows in disc utility.
Trying to reconnect has been unsiccessful so far.
From my searches internet wide it seems that far more computer literate people than myself have problems with TC/Sparse bundle. Trying to understand and follow suggestions is very difficult if not impossible for me.
I have paid Apple a not small amount to buy Time Capsule to use with Time Machine with my new iMac and at this moment it is frustratinglly lying idle.
I would very much appreciate guidance in simple language as to how to connect up to use as back up only. I have only one computer and a wireless printer on my 'network'
Many thanks

You can plug the TC into your computer direct by ethernet without internet connection.. I presume you get internet via wifi..
The trick to do this is to ensure your main router and the TC are on different ethernet subnets.. ie airport has IP of 192.168.1.x and reset the TC back to defaults.. 10.0.1.1 will all work fine.
Next trick is to ensure the airport has higher priority in the network list than ethernet.. Or manually set the IP for ethernet .. so put IP as 10.0.1.10 and subnet 255.255.255.0
No router (gateway) no dns.. these are not necessary.
Now plug the TC into the computer and hold the reset for about 10sec.. when the TC comes up redo the setup. If you are running lion make sure you download the 5.6 utility as the version 6 included in lion is next to useless.
You can turn off wireless and set internet to ethernet.. and connection sharing to bridge.. set an IP manually perhaps to stop it complaining. The default ip 10.0.1.1 will be fine.
Taking firmware back to 7.5.2 can also be helpful if you keep running into problems but you will need to reconnect the TC back to the internet connection to download the firmware.

Similar Messages

Loaded Mountain Lion and time capsule no longer works, airport utility can't be configured, back ups have stopped, sparse bundle in use errors occur, what a mess!!!!

Should Airport Utility now be defunct for my time capsule because I have upgraded OS to Mountain Lion? I have tried every fix I can think of but AU will not set up. I'm also getting repeated time machine back up failures and now I have a new "sparsebundleinuse" error which is totally useless to me, I have no idea what a sparse bundle is, I have no idea what it's suddenly being used by and there's no information to say what to do about it. Apple is killing me here!!!

I've tried to but on the install for Airport Utility 6, after the download I get through the introduction then the license then I get "airport utility can't be installed on this disk. The version of Mac OS X on this volume is not supported" and that's it, no more options!?

Why is the sparse bundle so much smaller than the backed up computer...can I be confident all files are backed up?

Hey gang,
iphoto folder became big so I have moved it to an external drive. I made sure the external disk is not excluded from timemachine backup in tm preferences. Backup seemed to take forever (it actually said "preparing for backup" the whole time with a spinning progress bar) ie 24 hours and still the same pogress bar.
i stopped the process as i had no confidence anything was actually happening
When i open up time machine, an earlier version of my imac is there, but the external drive is kind of greyed and i cannot access it.
When I check the sparse bundle size, it is under 200 gb, when my imac is around 600 gb, 900 with the external drive.
Why is the sparse bundle so small relative to the imac? are there hidden data files outside of the sparse bundle? when checking the preferences, it states total included is 921 gb...yet that is not reflected in the sparse bundle size.
I want to be sure iphoto is actually backed up before deleting it from my imac.
thanks anyone!

marten berkman wrote:
I am wondering whether the "processing" progress bar was due to the time capsule freeing up space for the additional data on the new external drive. When I cancelled it, available space on the tc incresed from 200 to 500 gb.
Yes, quite possibly. Especially on Leopard and Snow Leopard, that process on network backups is excruciatingly repetitive and slow. It's improved greatly in Lion and later, but still isn't exactly quick.
The backup complete, i checked the contents of the backed up version of the external drive, and the iphoto folder was the same size as original, so I have confidence that iphoto is backed up. Now I could delete the iphoto from the imac, freeing up tons of space.
Yay!
Still curious why the imac sparsebundle is only 160gb, while my macbook pro sparsebundle is about 700 gb...as though they are inversely named from the computers they back up.
Oh, I didn't realize you had two Macs backing-up to the TC. Which one is the external HD connected to?
Unless you've specifically excluded things, after the initial backup, the sparse bundle should be nearly the size of the data it's backing-up (TM does exclude some things like system work files, most caches and logs, and trash, so the backups are a few GBs smaller). As you do more backups, of course, it will grow.
So please clarify how much data is on each drive, Mac, and sparse bundle.
Also, the 2tb time capsule has 258 gb of 1.8 tb available....am I to suppose that there is hidden backup data not in the sparse bundles?
Sparse bundles are odd critters. They don't automatically shrink when things are deleted from them. Instead, the vacated space is used for new files until it's full, then it begins to grow again. Time Machine will "compact" them when necessary, to reclaim the empty space, but doesn't take the time to do it unless it's out of room.
You can do that manually if you want, per the pink box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time Capsule won't back up due to "sparse bundle" how do I fix this?

I recently updated to IOS6 now my time machine will not back up... due to some "sparse bundle" issue. Can anyone help me fix this?

I do not see how the two are related..
iOS does not use a sparsebundle. That is used by Time Machine in a Mac.
Reboot the TC .. does the issue go away.
I have heard there are some wireless issues with the new iOS release.. perhaps check in the iphone area.

How to stop Time Machine from trying to resize a sparse bundle

With 10.8, I'm backing up wirelessly from my MacBook Pro to a sparse bundle on a Drobo connected to a Mac mini on the same network. I used Drobo's Time Tamer to create the sparse bundle. The sparsebundle is a set size and cannot be resized (this is intentional to avoid filling the Drobo which is mostly used to store non-backed up non-critical data.
Every step of the backup process works, but Time Machine spends a good 20-30 minutes during each backup "resizing" the disk image. It doesn't actually suceed in resizing the disk image, but it displays "Looking for Backup Disk" in the Time Machine menu while Console reveals that it's resizing the disk image ("Resizing backup disk image from 17.59 TB to 17.59 TB"). It doesn't cause any errors, but it does turn the backup time from a few minutes
Does anyone know of a workaround to disable this resizing step or to make it fail quickly and proceed with the rest of the backup normally?
I wasn't using Time Machine before upgrading to 10.8 from 10.7, so I don't know if this is a new issue with Mountain Lion. I suspect that this would happen in earlier OS versions too.

I'm experiencing it on a Synology NAS. Time Machine always starts by "Resizing backup disk image from 1.07 TB to 1.07 TB." In the status bar, it just displays "looking for backup disk."
I don't have any solutions yet. Would definitely be interested to hear. I think it might have to do with the fact that I increased the user's disk quota (on the NAS) after doing the initial time machine backup. While Time Machine correctly identified the extra space as available, it somehow can't get over the fact that it changed once.
Things I have done:
Manually ran hdiutil resize -size 1000g *.sparseimage. This did change the reported disk size in the disk's Info.plist, but the next backup still did the resize step.

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop: Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle is already in use. Anyone know how to fix it?

I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop:
' Time machine could not complete the backup. The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle' is already in use. "
Anyone know how to fix it?

Reboot the TC.. Sometimes you need to reboot the whole network.
This is what comes of Lion and then made worse in Mountain Lion of Apple not spending enough time to fix the bugs.
Read C12 in pondini.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
C17 can be related I think.

My time machine cannot complete my back up saying the "sparse bundle could not be accessed" error -1 Help please

My time machine cannot complete my back up. The message I receive says the "sparse bundle cannot be accessed. (error -1) Help please.

GG,
Please read over Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting guide, specifically C17.

Time couldn't back up my macbook as pro sparse bundle is already in use

My Macbook Pro will not back up to Time Capsule as it says the Pro-Sparse bundle is already in use.

Restart your MacBook Pro and the Time Capsule. In most of the cases, this should solve that problem.
See > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

Two Machines backing up to one sparse bundle

My wife recently migrated from a MacBook to a MacBook Pro. She was using TM to backup to Time Capsule. We set up a new user account on the old MacBook for my daughter and changed the computer name in sharing preferences on BOTH machines to initiate brand new backups for each. MacBook Pro was initially backed up to a new volume, but then switched back to backing up to the original sparse bundle. The MacBook is also backing up to the same bundle although both machines have different names. What's going on and how do I fix it? My gut tells me to start over by restarting TC and deleting old sparse bundles before backing up each machine. Any suggestions?

TM does not go by computer names when you are doing TM backups. it tags the sparse bundle with the MAC address of the computer which is a unique identifier. but in Snow leopard TM also lets you continue using an old sparse bundle when you use Migration Assistant to migrate to a new one. I guess that's what happened to you. I think the only way out at this point is to delete the sparse bundle where both computers are backing up now. you can simply trash it and empty trash or you can wipe the TC drive as you were intending this will of course delete it too. I would also reset TM preferences on both computers. after deleting the sparse bundle delete the file /library/preferences/com.apple.timemachine.plist. then go to TM system preferences and set up TM. do it on both computers.

TC Sparse Bundle Image Stopped working

My TC MBP 13" Time Machine no longer works on my MBP 13. I am sure that the reason is the following action I did the other day.
1. I purchased an IMAC and migrated all the data from my MBP 13 inch over to it using the TM backup as the source.
I still use my MPB 13" for most of my work and as my main computer. The IMAC was more purchased for the family.
I believe this action cancelled out the ability to continue using it.
The image above shows that the MBP BCC 13" is now a sparsebundle and not included as a folder Backup.backupdb
I did try the ALT browse but it won't open on either computer.
I researched Pondini's suggestions - but nothing works. Am I now stuck having this sparsebundle without the ability to load it up?
Thanks for any help and have a great new year...
Skip

Larry Nolan wrote:
Apple's knowledge base article HT1198 (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198) on sharing iphoto libraries among multiple users on the same Macintosh describes using a _sparse disk image_ in the /users/Shared/ directory. For a Mac that uses a *Time Capsule* for Time Machine backups won't this require the entire iPhoto library to be backed up anytime a picture is added or modified?
Would using a _sparse bundle disk image_ instead work better?
yes, it would work much better because a sparse bundle is split in a number of small bands (8MB each) and only the changed bands would be backed up afresh after changes to the iphoto library are made.
Also, HT1198 doesn't say anything about "Partitions" parameter setting in Disk Utility when creating a blank sparse image or sparse bundle disk image. Does it matter what setting is selected if the image is being kept on the Mac internal disk drive?
no, it doesn't matter.
another option to share the iphoto library which is not mentioned in that KB article is to put it in a folder in /Users/Shared/ and put inherited ACLs on that folder. see this link for details
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8863687&#8863687

Time capsule will not back up/sparse bundle is already in use?

Time capsule will not back up/sparse bundle is already in use?

Thank you. After reading more, I turned off time capsule in system preferences, shut down computer, unpluged and pluged back in time capsule. Turned computer back on and the problem went away and time capsule successfully backed up.
There is an old rule in boht PC and MAC world, try reboot first, ask later. I often forget it.
Thanks again.
Quarto

HT3275 trying to back up on time machine and get error message saying ... sparse bundle is already in use -can't complete backup

sparse bundle already in use-can't complete backup

On your iMac....
Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon, then click Edit in the small window that appears
Click on the Base Station menu at the upper most top of the screen up where the File, Help, etc menus reside
Click on Restart
Wait a few minutes and try another backup

TC sparse bundle corrupts at a drop of a hat

Every few weeks or so, my TC backup gets stuck at "preparing backup."
The only solution I have found has been to erase the sparse bundle, and start the backup from scratch. I lose ALL of my previous backups every few weeks--and so, this seems to defeat the entire purpose of Time Machine!
Not to mention, I have to have a heart attack every time this happens, because as the new backup is going, I have no safety net for my very precious data... my entire career!!
Does anyone else have this problem? Did you find any good way to revive the sparse bundle?? To make Time Machine and Time Capsule more stable???

theping,
Next time, before you wipe your drive again, let's try to determine WHY it "Preparing...".
It may be for a genuinely good reason. How long is 'too long' to wait for Time Machine to finish "Preparing..."? Some times, "Preparing..." is required to perform the normal housekeeping that Time Machine does periodically. Other times, it really is "stuck" and never proceeds after more than 24 hours.
Let's find out what's going on next time.
*_How Do I See Time Machine Console Logs?_*
Before attempting another backup, go into Applications --> Utilities --> and launch Console.
Under “LOG FILES” on the left select "system.log".
In the search field in the upper right, type in backupd. This is the process Time Machine uses to perform backups. By searching just for this process we'll isolate only Time Machine activities.
With the Console open, attempt another backup and note the time it starts and the time it stops. Often, the activities reported will identify the very file or event that caused the attempt to choke.
You can copy and paste the events for this backup attempt from the log into a post here and we may be able to tell you exactly what is happening.
Once you determine which file or event it is, you can decide whether to move, delete, or modify certain things and then attempt another backup.
Next, consider some the reasons why TM might be stuck "Preparing..." with the following:
*_Time Machine May Report "Preparing..." For a Long Time_*
Consider these factors regarding an extended period of "Preparing...". Consider each topic separately and do not attempt to act on all of them at once.
*Recent Crash or Other Major System Event* (Deep Traversal)
The reasons for this process are described in an article by George Schreyer. “During the preparation step it checks the FSEvents log for consistency. If it determines that something isn't quite right it has to rescan the whole disk. This can take quite awhile. A full rescan is always triggered by a crash, an unplanned shut down event or by booting from some other bootable disk between backups…. After a crash, Time Machine must scan the whole disk to determine what it has to do because it cannot trust the information that it left behind. Connected via an Ethernet connection, this phase would typically take 20 minutes on an older PowerBook. Being connected wirelessly stretches this phase out to over 3 hours.” [http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html]
According to the following KB article it can sometimes take a very long time if Time Machine begins this “deep traversal” and has to compare data inventories. This may apply to your situation, particularly if many Gigs of data are involved. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1516) Additionally, if Time Machine has not been able to perform its’ hourly backups for 24 hours or more, then it will perform a “deep traversal” once backups are renewed. This is the case for users who only backup once a week or so.
*Anti-Virus Software*
Running anti-virus software can interfere with the backup process. Either disable it altogether, or try the suggestion outlined here, “If you use third-party anti-virus scanning software and have issues, make sure your Time Machine back up folder (Backups.backupdb on the Time Machine disk) is excluded from virus scanning.” (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1516)
*Software Updates* #
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your Macs directories. Time Machine will backup every file that has changed since the installation.
If you take a look at the Console logs Time Machine may be reporting that your backups need "deep traversal". That's fine. Time Machine knows what is wrong and how to fix it. If you have a great deal of data, it may take quite awhile.
After an OS update (like 10.5.5) Time Machine realizes the system no longer matches what it looked like during the previous backup. So it has determined that it's earlier catalogue of what-should-be-where is 'untrustable'. So it is going to go item-by-item comparing the before and after of your system. If you have just performed an OS Update then Time Machine knows what it's doing - let it do it!
*Spotlight Keeps Indexing Backup Drive* #
It may be that Time Machine can’t proceed or complete a backup due to a Spotlight indexing error. During this period, take a look at the Spotlight icon in the upper right corner of your screen. Is there a tiny dot pulsating in the center of the spyglass? Click on the icon. Is there a progress bar displayed? Generally, Spotlight indexing is a good thing. If it has only been a couple of hours then let the process contiune.
However, at times it may hang and never progress after many hours, preventing further backups from taking place.
Go to System Prefs --> Spotlight --> Privacy Tab.
Drag your Time Machine disk into the window. It should now be among the items to exclude from indexing.
Now quit System Prefs.
Reboot your Mac.
Reopen System Prefs and remove ("-") the Time Machine disk from the window.
Now initiate a backup.
This should clear out Spotlights cache. Naturally, Spotlight should begin indexing again (maybe even for a few hours depending on how much data there is), but it should eventually stop.
*Reboot Time Capsule* #
If, though, none of the options above have helped and it has been 12 hours or more of “Preparing…”, then the Time Capsule may need to be restarted.
Stop the backup from the Time Machine menu. (Give if a few minutes while it says “Stopping backup…”)
When the Time Machine icon stops spinning, unplug the TC from the wall outlet.
Wait 10-15 seconds.
Re-plug it in again.
After it has restarted (30-60 seconds), attempt another backup.
Time Machine will report “Preparing…” again, but it shouldn’t be lasting more than a couple of hours.
Let us know if any of the suggestions above helped in your case.
Cheers!

A sparse image or sparse bundle question in relation to a NAS

Hi all,
I want to create a sparse image or bundle on my Synology DS713+ NAS to store my iPhoto and Aperture libraries.
The reason for a sparse image or bundle lies in the fact that both iPhoto and Aperture very much like a solid Mac Journal formatted drive to operate on.
Because I use an iMac and a MacBookPro I want these libraries available for both computers, and while they reside on a NAS they are 'automatically' backed up, and acessible to both computers.
I've tried storing the iPhoto library on the NAS directly (not Mac formatted but some Linux format, nót FAT32 anyway), but this was performing very poor (copying the library took hours and hours), and I've read on many NAS and Synology forums that this is not the way to go. The best solution I've read from these forums is to create a Sparse Image or Bundle on the NAS to benefit fully form an iPhoto or Aperture Library.
Now I have created a Sparse Image, and mounted it, and moving (copying) an iPhoto Library to it is done in a snap (amazing).
But having the Sparse Image mounted on my iMac, I cannot acess it on my MacBookPro unless I first umount it on the iMac, and then mount it on the MacBook.
Is there a way that such a Sparse Image can be mounted on more than one computer at the same time. In my case, mounted on both the iMac and the MacBook?
Or must it specifically be a Sparse Bundle to accomplish this, or maybe some Terminal wizzardry to get this done?

I'm a little confused here, but what you did answer did help quite a bit. Thanks for that. Anyway, I'm having problems adding to the array. It keeps telling me 'cannot find symbol - method add (double). I'm assuming that this method should be defined in the AuditRecord class, which has been given to me but there seems to exist no method in that class called 'add'. I suppose I could make one, but my professor said that we shouldn't be modifying the AuditRecord class at all, which leads me to believe I'm on the wrong track again. Anyway, here's my updated code in the hopes that it's a simple mistake that I'm making once again:
public class AuditTrail
    private ArrayList<AuditRecord> auditTrail;
    //ArrayList<AuditRecord> auditTrail = new ArrayList<AuditRecord>();
    //private double amount;
public AuditTrail()
   auditTrail = new ArrayList<AuditRecord>();
* Add a record
public boolean add(double amount)
       if (amount > 0)
       //create auditrecord and add to audit trail (array list)
       AuditRecord auditTrail = new AuditRecord(amount);
       //auditTrail.AuditRecord(amount);
       auditTrail.add(amount);
       System.out.println("Amount of "+amount+" added.");
       return true;// similar behavior to a collection
    else
        System.out.println("Invalid deposit amount.");
        return false;
}

Safari won't open. Firefox disappeared, only question mark. Mail doesn't have content. Time Machine won't turn on because sparse bundle is in use. Please help.

I had this issue about a month in a half ago and it was fixed by a local technician. I no longer have access to him and I really need some help. The issues are as follows:
Safari will not open.
Firefox disappeared. No icon, just a question mark in it's place.
When I open mail it shows I have new messages but the content is blank.
Time Machine cannot turn on because sparse bundle is in use.
New files that were made are no longer available. It's almost as if the computer jumped back in time.
The Mac Mini is running Mavericks 10.9.5

I'll assume that you have some way of connecting to this website from the affected machine. If not, ask for other instructions.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try to launch Safari. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Sparse bundle stops my back up.

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for