Stuck on calculating changes - Waiting for index to be ready

Question

I've got a Time Machine which had my disk properly backed up (~500 Gigs). Then, I used Entourage Time Machine to save my email database to a set of local XML files (tens of thousands of new files). Since then, it's stuck on Calculating Changes; I tried stopping it, removing the .plist file, stopping/restarting the service, etc. I restarted it again and now it's once again on Calculating Changes for 12 hours now. Time Machine Buddy says "Waiting for index to be ready". Could it possibly really be doing what it needs to do or is it stuck somehow and is there anything else I can do??
thanks in advance,
Mike

Answer 1

Michael Levin wrote:
Then verify your internal HD and repair your backups, per #A5 in Troubleshooting.
did that - repaired the disk, no problems found.
Uh, you need to check your internal, too, if you didn't. It's probably ok, but it's best to be sure. Then Restart your Mac.
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
A few of those may not be a problem, especially after a failed backup. The backups have to be indexed for TM to work right.
why isn't the index ready - could it have anything to do with Spotlight (which is also going like mad, but at least now gives a time estimate) - is that the index it's talking about??
Perhaps. Both Spotlight and Time Machine use the mds process to index.
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Ok, so I disabled Spotlight, deleted all the .Spotlight files on all volumes, and restarted Time Machine having excluded the Entourage database and 56 Gigs worth of .xml files of individual messages.
56 GB? Holy moley!
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Main Internal Drive (Leopard)
Forcing deep traversal on source: "Main Internal Drive (Leopard)" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 22E61BEA-43E3-3C1C-985D-4589FACE5629 eventDBUUID: D2A7E78E-C39A-46A3-B273-CCEE5048369C), {1, 1, 1, 0}
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|require scan|
Normal after a failed backup; Time Machine's not sure what was where when the "lights went out," so has to compare everything on your system to the backups to figure out what needs to be backed-up.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 24.38 GB requested (including padding), 983.14 GB available
The deep traversal completed. It found about 20 GB to back up (plus 20% for workspace -- the "padding" in the message).
Error: Flushing index to disk returned an error: 0
That's another problem writing the index to the TM drive.
Try a +*Repair Disk+* on it again, and make sure all connections are snug and secure, and try the backup again.
If this continues, it's beginning to look like a problem with the disk or connections. Try different ports, cables, and combinations of the two -- cables do deteriorate, and a plug that works fine in one port may not make good contact in another one.