Time Machine Back Up issue - read only?

HI There,
All of a sudden the Time machine could not complete the backup. it says
Files can't be copied on to the backup disk because it appears to be read only.
Any clue why that says that now all of a sudden?
Thanks
Carol

That means your backups are corrupt.
Try Repairing them (not permissions), per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
If Disk Utility can't repair them, or the +*Repair Disk+* button is grayed-out (meaning OSX has already decided it can't fix them), you're out of options. All you can do is delete the sparse bundle via the Finder, or erase the disk. Use +*Airport Utility.+* Select +*Base Station > Manual Set-Up+* from the Menubar, then Disks in the tool Bar, then Erase.

Similar Messages

SSD/HDD Time Machine Back Up Issue

I am having an issue with my 2010 13" MacBook Pro.
A few months ago I removed the optical drive, replaced it with the existing HDD, and then replaced the HDD with an SSD.
The SSD runs my OS (Mountain Lion 10.8.4) and Applications, while the HDD is where I store my Home Folder.
I did a Time Machine Back Up in March using a SeaGate external hard drive, with no issues.
Last week I updated the Time Machine Back Up using the same external hard drive, but this time something has gone wrong.
I am unable to move files within my system without Finder prompting me for a password.
I am unable to write to any external USB as I do not have 'permission to perform some actions'.
I am unable to connect to external servers via VPNs.
Finder does not open a new window when slected, I am forced to press 'Comman+N' every time.
Numerous other issues.
I have read that it's an issue to do with ACL's, but since my Home Folder is not on my Startup Disk, there is no way for me to do this.
I am the only account on the computer, and both drives have 'Read & Write' permissions.
Does anyone know how to fix this issue?
Please feel free to ask for more details.
Thanks.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then copy it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
Launch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Triple-click the line of text below on this page to select it:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}' | open -f -a TextEdit
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Then click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V). A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. If the command produced no output, the window will be empty. Post the contents of the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window), if any — the text, please, not a screenshot. You can then close the TextEdit window. The title of the window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that. No typing is involved in this step.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
{ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|org\.(amav|apac|cups|isc|ntp|postf|x)/{print $3}'; sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook 2> /dev/null; } | open -f -a TextEdit
This time you'll be prompted for your login password, which you do have to type. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. Type it carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. Heed that warning, but don't post it. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
Note: If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before taking this step. If that’s not possible, skip to the next step.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}' | open -f -a TextEdit
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/{la,mach}* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts .la* 2> /dev/null | open -f -a TextEdit
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' | open -f -a TextEdit
Remember, steps 1-5 are all copy-and-paste — no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.

Time machine failure hard drive read only

Hi
I have a seagate 4tb hard drive backing up my 4tb of internal hard drives on my 2008 mac pro. It has worked perfectly for a couple of months.
A couple of weeks ago, for no reason whatsoever that I can discern, the time machine back up failed and the message is that it is read only and I should repair or erase the disk using disk utility. As the back up is over usb 2 only and takes about two days I dont want to do this particularly as I don't see how this will convert the disk back into a read and write disk.
The info on the disk, which I can't seem to change is
you can only read
system read and write
wheel (whatever that is) read and write
and everyone read only
I have tried just moving a file on to it but it is rejected as read only. I can't see any write protect button on the drive itself.
Could you please advise as to whether this is a known macos issue or is this a drive fault. It is strange that I can't seem to alter the permissions in get info.
Any help appreciated
thank you

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for details.

Time Machine back up issue

Heya Guys!
Not sure this is in the right place so please move it if needed.
Ok, so I have an external hard drive, and I am trying to back up my mac through Time Machine. My issue is that it gets to a certain point where it will say 'The backup was not performed because an error ocurred while copying files to the backup disc. The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk'.
I repair the disc, and I thought I'd figured it out it, but now every single time it tells me to repair the disc. I have bought a brand new hard drive to do this with and it had the same thing.
Also it will get to saying that it has only 148 mb to go, will do it really quick then will go on to back up more data that wasn't there before in the bar, and then will say as above about disc repair.
I have no idea if it is actually backing up, as when I look into my hard drive, the .(file format) is .inprogress and the time machine sign always ends up saying back up failed.
I haven't a clue how to resolve this, so any help would be wonderful. Even if someone could just reassure me that yes it has backed up properly, that would be brilliant.
The hard drive I am using for this is a Seagate GoFlex 500GB and I did buy a Seagate External 1TB that I partitioned so I could use it on a Mac to use it with originally, but reverted back to my GoFlex.
Thanks,
Simon

I've just run Carbon Copy Cloner to back it up too and that has revealed where the problems are. Most of these I already have on my External Hard Drive safe but not the others, and since it is my first ever back up I don't want to delete something off my Hard Drive that I can't get back on it somehow. The problem areas are below:
ATIRadeonX2000GLDriver (located in system/library/extensions/atiradeonx2000gldriver.bundle/contents/macos)
Media Toolbox (located in system/library/privateframeworks/avfoundationcf.framework/support/mediatoolbox/ framework/versions/A/mediatoolbox)
Core AUC (located in system/library/privateframeworks/coreauc.framework/versions/A/coreauc)
I was also told that one of my files needs to be repaired as it failed to open, but I have no idea how to do it. It is located here: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework/Versions/A/Resources/runner
I'm guessing these are what is causing my issues, but I'm not exactly computer savvy when it comes to these sorts of things, so I don't know whether deleting them is a good idea, especially when I'm not sure if they are on a disc somewhere or not.
Thanks for the help so far guys! :-)
Simon

Time machine back up issue continues with Mavericks

I keep getting the errors "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”. "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder." anytime Time Machine tries to backup after it goes into Energy Saver mode. I have had this issue since Lion and hoped either Mountian Lion of Mavericks would correct this issue.
I am using a USB 2.0 external HD attached directly to my Mac Mini via USB 3.0. If I restrt my Mac, Time Machine has no issues as long as it doesn't go to Sleep. If it tries to backup after sleep, I get the message.
Any ideas?

Bueller? Anyone have any suggestions?

Time machine back-up issue in Mavericks

Hello,
I have a query about Time machine back up to an external drive.
Initially, I installed Mavericks and was using the back up disc and everything was running fine.
Then, I had to clean install Mavericks as I had to submit my MBP to repair at Apple store.
Following the return of the machine, I migrated the backup data to my MBP.
Since then, I ran a back up and then it took 3-4 hours where the Time Machine cleaned the old backup. and I presume that it deleted the old back up removing approx 188 GB or the partition of 350 GB. And then, I got a notification that the back up failed, and the message states that it requires minimum of 200 GB and asks me to get a drive with larger capacity.
So I am not sure what to do now. Should I just erase the back up partition? I think it is not advisable.
Please suggest a solution.
I am also confused about the larger size of the back up which requires larger drive for Time machine backup. Is that because of Mavericks?
Thanks,

Time Machine needs to perform a complete system backup after upgrading to Mavericks. Before you erase your Time Machine backup do the following.
Turn off Time Machine in Time Machine's Preferences. Eject and disconnect the backup disk, if it is locally connected (not a Time Capsule).
Select the following line (triple-click to select the entire line), then control-click, and from the contextual menu that appears, select Services > Reveal in Finder:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Drag the selected file directly to the Trash. You will need to authenticate.
This procedure will not delete your existing backups any differently than Time Machine would normally perform that task.
Reconnect your backup device, then from Time Machine's Preferences, turn on Time Machine, select your backup device, then select Back Up Now from the Time Machine icon. TM will remain in "Preparing Backup..." for a long time. When it eventually begins backing up, you may notice that the "backing up xxx of yyy" numbers will appear to change unpredictably. That's normal, and TM activity will return to normal after the initial backup of the Mavericks installation.

190 GB Time Machine Back Up...I only have a 80 GB drive with 60 GB used up?

Why in the world is Time Machine backing up 190 GB while I only have 60 GB used on a 80 GB drive?
No external drives are attached?
Sean

No I do not.
This was a one time back up is what I am saying. I do not know how it is backing up 190 GB when like I said I do not have 190 GB to back up. It means it is duplicating information some where.
Oh well maybe a update will fix some of the problems with this thing.
Sean

Time Machine reported 'volume is read only' & rolled back to old state

I've been in love with Time Machine ever since Leopard arrived. This has all come crashing down over the last few days...
Firstly I got a new 1tb drive, so I mirrored my old TM drive (using SuperDuper), and all seemed to be fine – backups were chugging along for a week or so as normal on the new, bigger drive.
A few days ago I got a time machine error stating that "The backup volume is read only". I thought this was strange as the drive was working without issue for a week. I checked permissions, format, etc and all were set correctly. I restarted and Time Machine kicked back in and all seemed to work fine other the fact that there seemed to be no backups created for 6 hours before I got the error message. Then I made a scary realisation, somehow the files on my computer had been restored to a state from 6 hours prior, all the work I'd done for the morning was gone.
I put this down to a one off glitch (stupid, stupid, stupid). I've today got the same "backup volume is read only" message again, and this time around my files have been restored to a state from 3 days ago. Fortunately this time around Time Machine has a backup of the important stuff a few hours ago.
I am now very worried about using the same disk with Time Machine. I also have no idea if Time Machine is the culprit (but logic tells me with the rolling back of files it must be). What should I do? How can I figure out what is going on?

This may fix the "read only" problem:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

Time Machine - External Hard Drive Read only error

Just recently got a Iomega 1TB MiniMax FireWire 800 USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive and used Time Machine to backup my computer. This was my first time using Time Machine and it successfully backed up 350 GBs. It continued to do backups every hour. When I turned my computer off and then turned it on the next day Time Machine wouldn't allow me to do a backup because it said the hard drive was read only. When I checked info it said it was read/write. I used disc utility to verify disc it said it could not verify disc do a disc repair. Disc repair failed and it said reformat disc. I erased the hard drive tried again and I got the same error message. The hard drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I searched this forum and the trouble shooting links and couldn't find anything on how to correct this. Any help on this problem would be appreciated.

See the following:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Also, see User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Message was edited by: Kappy

Time Machine Turns External Drive Read Only

Folks--
I went away on vacation in December 2010 and shut my mac osx 10.5.8 desktop computer off, and with it my lacie 1T external drive, partitioned into three volumes, one of which served as my Time Machine backup volume. When I returned from vacation in early January 2011, Time Machine said that the volume in question was no longer available. Somehow it had become "read only." When I tried to fix it using Disk Utility I was unable to even verify it. When I tried to copy the files from the volume to another drive so that I could reformat, I received error message 1426. I'm feeling a little stuck. It seems like the only option is to reformat the entire drive and lose all of the back ups (the other two volumes have older backups).
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

nicx wrote:
Is it really corrupted? I can still access all the data on the volume, I just can't copy it or get the volume out of the read-only status.
Yes. If OSX marked it "read-only," it's corrupted.
Time Machine backups are intricately linked together; anything corrupted means the whole set is suspect. You may be able to restore some things, you might even be able to do a full system restore from some backups; but somewhere, something is corrupted. OSX knows that, and won't let you resume backing-up to corrupted backups, or copy them (even if you could copy them, the copy would be corrupted, too).

Time Machine Sparsebundle is suddently Read Only

I've got four macs at home all running 10.5.2. One is set up as a server, with a lot of USB drives on it as backup media. The other machines are all laptops, using Time Machine to back up to a drive on the server. All of the machines are working fine, except for my main work laptop.
This one has stopped backing up because it insists that the backup volume is now Read Only. The shared volume the sparsebundle is on is not locked. When I try to mount the image manually, it starts verifying itself an doesn't seem to stop. If I cancel the verification, it mounts. I tried using Disk Utility to check the integrity of the sparsebundle, but it fails and says it cannot repair it.
Anyone have any suggestions? Or has this backup corrupted itself to pieces?
Doc

Yup. Corrupted beyond recovery. I deleted it and started over.
Doc

HT3275 Time Machine back up issue

Hi, I have been using Time Machine for a couple of years backing up to a Tim Capsule. Now getting the following error message "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder". Does anyone know what the issue may be?

Standard Lion/Mountain issue.
See C17 Pondini.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Time Machine appears to be "read only"

My Time Machine suddenly turned into a Read Only device.
"Files can't be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be 'read only.'"
"you may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can't be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open the TIme Machine Preferences to select a different backup disk."
My computer Hard Drive is still running fine. Can I save a backup of the TIME MACHINE backups and load them into a new Time Machine drive.

Why not first repair the drive using Disk Utility?
Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. After DU loads select the TM hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your TM volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU.
The problem of having a TM drive revert to read-only is not new. There is this past fix:
What to do if Time Machine reports you don't have permission
This was posted in the Apple Discussions by V.K. I have only modified it slightly to be more generic.
The problem seems to be that 10.5.6 changes permissions on a file so that even the root user doesn't have write peivileges. I have no idea why they did this. The workaround suggested in [an]other post will probably work, too, but i did something less drastic. Instead of deleting the file I changed permissions on it, and it worked just fine. An added benefit is that the permission change seems to stick, so you don't have to delete the file every time you change a drive.
[Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt [enter] the following command:
sudo chmod 644 /volumes/"TM drive name"/.xxxxxxxxxxxx
The name of the file .xxxxxxxxxxxx is based on the MAC address of your computer and will be different for every computer. Put the name of the TM drive in the above and keep the quotes.
You'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see) which is normal.
This was edited by Kappy just for cleanup.
Enable Finder to Show Invisible Files and Folders
Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following command line then press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
To turn off the display of invisible files and folders enter or paste the following command line and press RETURN.
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
Alternatively you can use one of the numerous third-party utilities such as TinkerTool or ShowHideInvisibleFiles - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Also, see User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.

Time machine suddenly now says "read only"

Nothing else has changed except that I ejected the disc for time machine, then used the USB port to connect my camera. Then I reconnected the disc for time machine.
I at one point think there was a box that said disc utility is unable to repair time machine backups (or someting along those lines) and I xed out of that.
I'm afraid to reformat the disc because it will mean putting at risk theonly backups that currently exist.

Thanks. I'm sure you're right about that. I just wanted to keep life simpler.
I'll go get another external drive and start a new backup set.
multiple redundant systems, just like the military!

Time machine back up issue - external hard drive

Bought a new 1T USB 3.0 external hard drive. Backed up fine first time but now my mac is not 'seeing it'. Doesn't show in finder or anywhere, power light doesn't come on on hard drive though I can feel it working ('vibrating and heats up slightly). Sometimes when I plug it in it says drive wasn't ejected properly even though it didn't show in the finder to begin with and power light didn't come on. All ready done software update in first instance. What to do?

Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
Boot from your recovery partition (Mac OS X 10.7 or later) or from your installation disc, and launch Disk Utility. Is the drive recognized?
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

Time Machine Back Up issue - read only?

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