Time Machine backup fails about once a week

I'm backing up to an external firewire drive.
About once a week, a Time Machine backup will fail.
I have no other information on the failure. There are no errors in any of the log in
Console.app. Time Machine simply reports "Last Backup Failed", and that's it.
I looked through system.log, and found this;
system.log:Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Error: (-43) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/mauroj/Notebook/.DS_Store to /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/kilroy/2008-11-25-085528.inProgress/D2D3A 24A-4AC2-4BBE-B95B-70F6C122AA07/MacIntosh HD/Users/mauroj/Notebook
Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Copied 1132 files (90.0 MB) from volume MacIntosh HD.
Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Nov 25 08:59:56 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Backup failed with error: 11
I'm not 100% sure this is the reason Time Machine failed and aborted, but it correlates
time-wise. So it appears backupd (aka Time Machine) is reporting it can not or will not
copy one particular file. There is no indication as to why.
This is buggy behavior for backup software. The message is broken, because there's no
"why" to the failure mode, and the software is broken, because it should be able to
recover from this, complete the backup, and simply report that a specific file was not
backed up.
If I can, I'll file a bug. Note to Apple - We RELY on backups. Stuff like this in the backup
software does NOT make us feel warm and fuzzy.
/jim

this is a known bug introduced by 10.5.3 update. lots of people have it (including myself). it's been acknowledged by apple. there is nothing you can or should do about it yourself. we have to wait for a fix from apple.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backup fails in extended network

Dear all,
I've recently setup an extended network using 2 additional AirPort Express units connected to the main Airport Extreme modem (all working well). I'm using the Extreme for Time Machine Backups, which used to work just fine as well.
However, when connected to the Expresses, the Time Machine Backups fail with the message that the backup file is already in use. I'm guessing the Express modem tries to connect to the backup file, while the Extreme is keeping the file stand-by or something.
Does anybody know a fix to this problem?
Kind regards,
Dennis

It took a Snow Leopard a while but after 2 days it started working again. I've checked whether the connection was directly to the Extreme, but the connection actually went through one of the bridged Expresses.
I guys one just has to hope for the best ;-)
I've upgraded to Lion last week and backup works fine with the new operating system as well.

Time Machine Backup Failed even though I still have 1.9TB of a 2TB Time Capsule. I am using Yosemite.

Time Machine Backup Failed even though I still have 1.9TB of a 2TB Time Capsule. I am using Yosemite 10.10.3 on an iMac (mid 2010)

The recent update in Yosemite (10.10.3) is causing some issues for some users.
Try a complete network power cycle as follows:
Power off each and every device on your network......modem, Time Capsule, computers, printers, etc......in any order that you want
Wait a minute
Power up the modem and let it run 2-3 minutes
Then, power up the next device that is connected to the modem an let it run a full minute
Then, continue to power up devices one at a time about a minute apart until everything is back up
Check the network
Wait for a backup to occur and report on your results

Time machine backup fails; error creating folder. Western Digital drive requires password which is perhaps/likely the issue. I can't eliminate the password/encryption.

Time Machine backup fails on new WD external drive (My Passport Studio); error creating folder (after several hours of Time Machine apparently working).
Background: I purchased a Western Digital drive from an Apple Store to use for Time Machine backup. I followed the Western Digital instructions that came with the drive for Mac. I didn't get the Time Machine prompt which the instructions indicated I would receive--namely to select whether I want to encrypt my Time Macine backups. (I already have a Time Machine backup I use at another location, which is perhaps why I didn't receive a prompt.)
I decided to install the Western Digital utilities and security software that comes on the disk--with a view to potentially encrypting the disk (since I still wanted to have an encrypted backup since I was mobile). I forgot that (from experience 2-years previous) that I shouldn't install Western Digital software because it just makes life really complicated.
I tried several times to do a Time Machine backup with failures each time (error creating the backup folder). I tried to get help from WD but I don't think the technicians were following what my issue was. Potentially I was not helpful in explaining it. I deleted the WD applications from my system after the first contact with WD. However the problem persisted--I still had an encrypted hard drive. After three phone sessions with three different WD techs I still could not get a solution. (By the second call I was not at all interested in having an encrypted drive--I just wanted to format and restore the drive to an unencrypted state so that I could have SOME kind of Time Machine backup.)
I still don't have a solution--either to get Time Machine working with the WD encryption/password on the drive, or to remove the encryption so I can backup. Right now my options are to return the drive to the Apple Store -- or get a return authorization from WD. Seems crazy since the drive is fine and I have the working password.

Never install "helpful software" provided by WD and Seagate (or any HD mfg.)
All such stuff is fluff and nonsense that interferes with normal HD operation.
Always when you buy a new HD, format it for Mac and then use it to TM backup or clone a HD, or archive data.
Less is more on HD new out of box. A "blank brick", no fluff and cotton candy software

Time Machine backup fails because "volume could not be found".

I just had my logic board replaced in my Macbook Pro and went to do a backup (yeah, I didn't do this right before it crashed) and now Time Machine backup fails with the message "volume could not be found" Under Time Machine/Choose Disk, it appears that the drive is the one selected. The computer "sees" the drive and I can read files on it. The only other thing that has happened in the meantime is that a friend helped pull a file off the hard drive that I needed for a project. No apparent issues there. Any suggestions?

You might try going to /Library/Preferences, then drag the file com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to the Desktop. Reboot your Mac, then try declaring the backup disk for Time Machine. It might help if you mount the backup disk first.
Are you using Time Machine to write its backups to the disk of a Time Capsule? If not, since this discussion section is for Apple's Time Capsule AirPort base station, a discussion involving Time Machine should be held on the discussion section for whatever version of OSX that you're using.

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Without any specifics it's impossible to assist you, however the best tool for debugging TM failures is using Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting guide.
Good luck.

Time machine backup failed

My time machine is not backing up my files anymore. Everytime I start it, it prepares for a very long time (maybe 30min or longer) and then eventually does start. But in the middle of the backup, an error pops up saying that I need to verify the space needed for the backup. But there is definitely space on my back up drive and Time Machine also recognizes the external harddrive. I've tried re-backing up a few times already but it doesn't work properly each time. I can still enter Time Machine and see the older back ups. If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

Time Machine always gets corrupted, eventually and inevitably. It just gets more complex by the hour. I pretty much always recommend that a user erase the Time Machine drive on a regular basis - a very active computer should have it erased and started over every few months. Average home computer doing general duties maybe go 6 months. Longer than that and you risk it being not useable.
In test run here on 7 computers we failed every Time Machine backup within 10 months. All of them failed in a different way. One looked like it was backing up, but no data was stored, another the computer wouldn't even do minor duties when TM was running. A third looked good, but had not updated the backup in many months. My own computer the recover window wouldn't pull up anything, ever, once the corruption occurred. Cannot even tell you when as I didn't keep track for weeks at a time. One day it didn't work and nothing I could do would change that.
I do not know if anyone can answer the question of whether you can go backwards in OS and have it run. I doubt it will work. But because the database created by TM is proprietary and totally useless unless Time Machine can put it all together, there is nothing you can do except try things like going backwards in OS and/or TM utility revision.

Time Machine Backup fails

After working fine for several years, my Time Machine backup suddenly started consistently failing about a week ago. It spends a very long time "preparing backup", then gives the error something like "Backup could not be completed. There was an error copying files. Try again later. If the problem persists, use the Disk Utility to repair the disk". I've repaired the disk (several times) as well as all the other disks in my system, but the problem keeps occuring. Restarting the system also did not help. I can still access backups on the disk and in in fact went in a deleted a bunch of old stuff to insure there was plenty of disk space.
I have a 2011 iMac backing up to a 2 TByte Hitachi drive. I backup files from both the local hard disk and an external Seagate drive.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks. In the end it turned out that it was failing to copy the directory of my newly installed X11 libraries, and that caused the entire backup to terminate (which strikes me as kind of crazy).
Following the advice on your link, I excluded that directory, did a backup, then reincluded it and it backed up fine. It must be a very subtle bug in the Time Machine code.
I find it profoundly annoying that Time Machine didn't simply tell me what the error was, rather than make me search through the system logs to find it. That would have saved a great deal of time.
Thanks for your help.

Restore Lion 10.7.3 from Time Machine Backup Fails

Follwoing a hard disk failure and installing a new disk, I connected to my Time Capsule to restore my Mackbook Pro running Lion.
Choosing the latest backup resulted in it restoring about 36% of the drive and failing with a subsequesnt reboot from which the system was unable to root to the hard disk.
After repeating the restoration process, I kept choosing backups from Time Capsule, going back choosing an older one each time following a restoration failure as described above.
Once I chose the latest 10.7.2 backup, restoration completed.
I have since attempted to choose and restore several of the 10.7.3 and 10.7.2 backups in the sequence on the Time Capsule, and ONLY the 10.7.2 backups are fully recoverable.
I believe there is a bug in 10.7.3 which prevents backups from restoring off of a Time Machine Backup that is not in 10.7.2.
Can anyone else confirm this?

No. It will not fix my issue, per say...
I have essentially had to restore from backup of a 10.7.2 dated version, and update everything back to where it was before it failed with 10.7.3, and then put all the latest updates on to include the TM update... Now hopefully I can rely on my backups... again... not that I knew I couldn't...
I really do not feel good about this... So, ALL data & settings are going into Dropbox and onto External RAID media, as well as I am presently making an image of my disk... which by the way is SSD now.
Fortunatley the 10.7.2 backup worked and it only required a few hours to get the system updated back to where it was b4 the crash, but had that not happened, I would have been looking at a couple of days...

Time Machine Backup fails after Restore

Had my 500GB HD on my iMac fail. After being replaced by Apple, I performed a restore from 1TB time machine backup. After this was done, I set time machine back up to back up to this 1TB drive. I want it to append to the previous backups. However, the backup fails due to "backup is too large for the backup volume". It doesn't seem to want to append to previous backups but thinks this is an entirely new backup, which I guess is mostly true. I suspect this has to do with UUIDs of the new and old drives, but I'm not sure how to correct it (I'd prefer not to just wipe the backup disk and start over). I migrated backups before from one extenal HD to another but can't remember what I did... If anyone has steps to fix this, let me know em. Thanks.
Here's the time machine log:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/MyBook-Mac/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|
Starting pre-backup thinning: 506.55 GB requested (including padding), 502.31 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Backup Failed: unable to free 506.55 GB needed space
Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
Message was edited by: Delmonte3161

Delmonte3161 wrote:
Had my 500GB HD on my iMac fail. After being replaced by Apple, I performed a restore from 1TB time machine backup. After this was done, I set time machine back up to back up to this 1TB drive. I want it to append to the previous backups. However, the backup fails due to "backup is too large for the backup volume". It doesn't seem to want to append to previous backups but thinks this is an entirely new backup, which I guess is mostly true. I suspect this has to do with UUIDs of the new and old drives,
yes, that's correct. TM will make a full backup after a full system restore on a new hard drive because the UUIDs of the new drive is different from the old one.
you may try the following hack to get around it
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090213071015789
But I make no promises about how well it works.
but I'm not sure how to correct it (I'd prefer not to just wipe the backup disk and start over). I migrated backups before from one extenal HD to another but can't remember what I did... If anyone has steps to fix this, let me know em. Thanks.
Here's the time machine log:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/MyBook-Mac/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|
Starting pre-backup thinning: 506.55 GB requested (including padding), 502.31 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Backup Failed: unable to free 506.55 GB needed space
Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
Message was edited by: Delmonte3161

Time Machine Backup Failed, don't have old backups

Last night I ejected my external hard drive to use that USB port to plug in a card reader and download a bunch of videos and images. This afternoon, when I plugged my external drive back in, I got a Time Machine Error: "This backup is too large for the backup volume". When it tries to back up, I get the more detailed message that this backup needs 6.7 GB of space but there are only 6.2 GB available.
This is the only computer I've ever attached to this external hard drive, so the 49.38 GB that are currently being used should be being used by Time Machine to back up this computer (and so Time Machine should delete old weekly backups to make room for the most recent backup). However, when I open Time Machine to go look at my backups, it says I only have one backup, from last night.
I do like the fact that I can go restore old stuff I've deleted or disastrously edited, so, if possible, I'd like to get my old backups back. Failing that, I guess I need to clear the external drive and just do a new back up.
If someone can help me 1) get my old back ups back or 2) get Time Machine do a successful completely new backup, I'd be really grateful.

My first reaction was that that couldn't possibly be the problem (because I've had no problems at all backing things up for the past year and a half), but it appears that you are correct.
Apparently, all of the pictures and videos are, in fact, too much for my Time Machine external hard drive. I don't have anything else on the external hard drive, but my TM drive is, in fact, much, much smaller than my internal HD.
Time Machine Backups
Capacity: 55.57 GB
Available: 6.19 GB
Used: 49.38 GB
Macintosh HD
Capacity: 232.57 GB
Available: 175.45 GB
Used: 57.12 GB
I see the problem. I guess I'll move all of the videos to a folder that I can exclude from backups. (I much prefer to have excel spreadsheets I put data on every day backed up than blizzard videos shot with my spouse's camera: those I can lose.)
I was so certain that I wasn't running out of space that I didn't check, so I was thinking that I should still have old backups. Since they've been deleted, that's fine with me.
Thanks for asking me to check the relevant sizes!

Restore from Time Machine Backup fails half-way through...

I'm trying to fix my mom's 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo 24" Aluminum iMac (w/ 2GB of RAM). It was stuck on the white screen with the Apple logo and a spinning wheel. I tried a few things to get it to boot up but nothing worked, so I booted up using my OX 10.5 Leopard disk (the retail box version) and tried to repair the disk using Disk Utility. Disk Utility couldn't un-mount the disk so I decided to erase the disk and start from scratch.
So I erased the disk and formatted in OS Extended (Journaled). Then I ran the repair disk function and the disk checks out OK. So, here is my problem:
When I tried to restore from a Time Machine backup, everything worked normally until it got about 20% through the restore process. At that point it froze for a while and then gave me an error message that the restore failed and asked if I would like to restart?
I've tried this a few times, all with approximately the same result (it either freezes or gives me the error/restart message).
What's wrong with my mom's computer?

c.d.stone wrote:
The restore process is just spinning it's wheels and the log says "erasing" drive name.
Is the drive name your internal?
UPDATE: When I stopped the restore function I checked the error log again and it said "could not un-mount disk for erasure" Not sure what that means. Anyone know how to fix that?
I'm pretty sure something is wrong with the hard drive installed on the iMac at this point. I tried to do a clean install of 10.5.0 from the Leopard retail DVD and that stalled early in the process as well.
Yes, it sure sounds like it. It now sounds like both the TM restore and Erase and Install are unable to erase your internal HD. It's not even getting to your TM backups, or installing OSX.
Let's double-check and try again. Boot from the Install disc again, and completely reformat the internal HD. Be sure to use the GUID Partition Map scheme if it's an Intel Mac, or the +Apple Partition Map+ scheme if it's a PPC. And use the +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ format.
It might be worth taking the time to then do a +Zero Out.+ Select Erase, then +Security Options,+ then +Zero Out Disk+ (the one-pass option is sufficient). That will, obviously, write zeros to the entire disk. If this fails, the disk is dying and likely the cause of the whole mess. If it passes, it isn't necessarily ok, but it's a pretty good sign, and you may be able to proceed with the restore.

Restore from Time Machine Backup Fails

I had a system instability issue and needed to restore my system from a Time Machine backup.
I tired restoring from several backups of different dates, with OS X Version labeled 10.7.3 (11D50b). I did so by booting into Lion Recovery HD and following the menu. However, once the recovery finishes copying files to the boot HD and reboots, the computer got stuch forever on the screen with Apple logo with the spinning wheel.
Luckily my backup still contained a backup from about two months ago with a different OS X Version, labeled 10.7.2 (11C74). Restoring from this backup completed successfully.
At least I did not have to build the sytem from stratch, but I wonder why restoring the system from the latest backup did not work. Has anyone else seen this issue?

Maybe there was already something wrong when you did the latest backup.

Time Machine backup fails linking files

I recently had a external disk fail that was still under warrenty, so I dually went to the Apple store and got a replacement. After plugging it in I went into Time Machine and performed a restore (I was backing up the external disk to another external time machine managed disk). All worked perfectly so far. However, come the next backup I got
"Time Machine Error Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while linking files on the backup volume"
Searching the forums I don't see any obvious solution. In the system log I also see 'Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: MyBigDisk' every time there is a backup.
Anyone got any ideas how to fix this?

Ok, I finally figured this out. The problem is that the old and new disks both had the same name (MyBigDisk) and time machine was getting consused. To fix
Complete the restoration of the drive via timemachine
Rename the drive (on Leopard in finder under devices ctrl-click / right-click on the name and rename)
Go into time machine preferences and remove the drive from the exclusion list
Perform a Time Machine backup
This will re-backup the freshly restored external drive but this isn't a big issue as older files will be deleted from Time Machine as necessary.
Restoring files on the external disk from before the failure: Now the drive is renamed the older backups seem to have disappeared. Actually, they are there, just tricky to find. To find an old file on the old named disk:
Go into finder and make sure show path bar is selected
Go to you home directory in finder
Enter Time Machine
Select the date you want to go back to
In the path bar find the directory with the name like 2011-11-12-202011, click on folder
The old drive will be in that directory - use the normal restore process
Why is it broken
My guess is that to avoid accidentally backing up the wrong disk (after all every WD My Book is called MyBook when plugged in) they use the UUID (Universally Unique ID) to identify the drive. But, we see the MyBook name in Finder and Time Machine so they need to link the UUID to the MyBook name. This is a one shot, once done, never undone.
So, now when it tries to check that link with the new disk it will have a different UUID (that's the UU bit!) and complains. Renaming that disk breaks the link (there's no MyBook now, so no link to check)

Time machine backup fails--not enough room.

I have a 2 TB drive in a Mac Pro running Yosemite (10.2) that I have been using for Time Machine backups. I have a 1 TB drive as my main hard drive that is about 2/3 full and another drive with less than 200 GB used. Unit recently, Time Machine has been working as it should. However, in the last week, I have been getting an error message saying there is not enough room (321 GB available). As I understand the process, older backups should be deleted when there is no longer enough room. Additionally, it should only be updating the backup and there should be enough room for that. Why can I not get a backup?

Try C4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time Machine backup fails about once a week

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