Time Machine Backup 'InProgress' - Not Finishing

My first TM backup has not stopped running. There was @ 195 GB supposed total (time machine estimated size of backup) and when it got down to '5 seconds' left it has continued backing up now for another 10 hours and just slowly adds to the total and is up @ 222 GB. Does not appear to be an end in sight. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately, let it run. I had the same issue with abotu the same amount of data, and it took several days to complete. Maybe this was because there are other Mac devices on my network so there is a lot of activity, but I grudgingly rode out the time and it eventually did finish. But it took forever. Since that first one, no issues.
Also note, there are exclusions you should be considering to make the amount of the backup alot smaller. I saw in some other posts that if you use Microsoft Entourage, that can be an exceptionally large file. You can remove that in the preferences pane to make the backups faster (even with a single change to a large file like Entourage data, I guess the WHOLE file gets re-backed up.)
Hope this info helps.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backups do not migrate from iMac to MacBook Pro

I just moved from a iMac G5 to a MacBook Pro. I love Apple's migration tool, but it seems that Time Machine backups do not migrate.
I checked with support, and did a basic amount of searching, and it seems that I need to erase and reformat the backup drive, losing all of my backups.
Can this be true? That's a pretty screwy backup solution.
Is it possible to rename the backup folder from "iMac G5" to "MacBook Pro"?
Is it possible to add a MacBook Pro backup folder to the one already there?
Any help is appreciated.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. It sounds like you successfully migrated, and got everything set up properly on the new Mac.
Now you want TM to just continue backing-up the new Mac to the old Mac's backups?
If so, then no, that's not going to work. TM keeps the backups for each Mac completely separate. This is usually an advantage, so you can back up two or Macs to the same drive without any conflicts.
Plus, the version of OS on your new Intel laptop is very different from the one from your old PPC desktop; a whole different set of drivers, and of course code for Intel vs. PPC.
So TM on the new Mac cannot treat the old backups as if they were from the new Mac. It must start a whole new "sequence" of backups for the new Mac. If there's room on the disk, you can leave the old backups there until you're sure you don't need them, but that presents another problem: when you want to delete them, you can do it only one at a time, via TM, using the procedure in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum. That's rather tedious and time-consuming, so most folks just erase the TM drive and let it start fresh.
If I've misunderstood, please clarify the situation.

"Time Machine Backups" could not be unmounted (Disk Utilities)

Hi there,
I am having an error message when trying to back up time machine. Therefore I went to disk utilities and verified disk.. said it needs to be prepared. When I try to repair time machine, i then get the following message "The disk “Time Machine Backups” could not be unmounted". I tried again and then it says its been repaired. so when i tried a backup of time machine i get "time machine error. unable to complete backup. an error occurred while copying files to the backup volume"
I have installed "Time machine buddy" and I am getting"error reading system logs"
I have a mac osx 10.5.8. No antivirus or spotlight running that i know of.
Any ideas?

One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode, see if external Drive can be repaired...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.

HT201250 Time Machine backup disk not found

I recently reconfigured my external disks, creating a 500GB oartition for Time Machine backup. thefirst time I set up Time machine to use that partition all went well. Seconed time it failed "cannot find backup disk."
This is a 24 inch, mid 2007 iMac OS X 10.8.2. I am using two external backup drives - 1T LaCie with 4 partitions and a BlackX removable adaptor with a WD 1T drive plugged in. Both are formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) In the view below the top "Time Machine" drive at the top is a duplicate of the last drive in the list.
If I select the top drive - I have the option to "Remove Disk" - NOT to "Use this Disk." So I have to select the bottom "Time Machine" drive. The backup will then run once but on the second try I get "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Time Machine". Unable to complete backup. An error occured while creating backup folder." Whether I remove the top listed disk or not doesn't seem to matter, sometimes it finds the drive, sometimes not!
The BlackX is a USB connected directly to the iMac. The other partition on that drive contains movie clips and they run fine.
There is a backup folder on the Time Machine drive with six backups - however I have to "reset" the Time Machine each time to get it to backup. It craps out on the second try every time. Got me buffaloed! Any ideas?

Assuming you have nothing on your Time Machine volume that you need, erase that volume and Verify it from Disk Utilities. Repair if necessary. Then, go into the Time Machine Preferences and Remove the selected drive to use. Now, reselect it and try a backup.

HT204350 USB Time Machine backup drive not visble in Mavericks Migration Assistant

Hi all,
Yesterday I updated my dad's iMac from Snow Leopard (SL) to Mavericks. Seemed to work ok apart from the fact that turning on iCloud wiped out the calendars. In order to get the calendars back I restored from the most recent SL Time Machine backup. This turned out to be a big mistake! It did get the calendars back but stopped all programs not included in the OS X install to stop working!
I then managed to get a bootable flash drive installer for Mavericks sorted out and installed a fresh copy of Mavericks on the computer with the plan of using Migration Assistant to bring all my dad's files, settings, etc over. The problem is that when I open Migration Assistant and try to migrate from the USB Time Machine backup drive, the drive doesn't show up in the list.
I have also tried restoring from the Time Machine backups that were made straight after the upgrade to Mavericks as I have exported copies of the calendars now and that was the only issue at the time but when I do that the restore fails after about 4.5% progress.
Any help would be amazing as my dad runs two small businesses with the computer and the down time causing quite a few issues.
Thanksin advance!

If you synchronize any of your calendars with a server such as iCloud, disable that synchronization. Quit Calendar.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Calendars
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a folder selected. Enter Time Machine and restore that folder from the snapshot you want.
Relaunch Calendar and test. Your calendars should be as they were when the snapshot was taken. If you don't sync with a server, stop here. If you do sync some of the calendars with a server, select each one in turn and then select
File ▹ Export ▹ Export…
from the menu bar. You'll get ICS files with the filename extension ".ics". Re-enable sync. Usually, all the calendars you just restored will be deleted. That's not a problem. Create a new calendar on the server for each one you exported and want to sync:
File ▹ New Calendar
Then import the calendar from the corresponding ICS file by double-clicking it. Follow the prompts to import the new events to the calendar you just created. For calendars that you don't want to sync, just import them again. They'll appear in the calendar list under On My Mac.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

Time Machine Backup does not fit on HDD

Hi,
I have a very odd problem. I do have a 750GB hdd in my macbook pro. My external time machine backup drive is 1TB. After haveing some issues with my system I had to reinstall OSX. Now I want to recover my system from the external drive. When I run through the recovery process formatting the 750GB drive the drive utiliity tool tells my that I have 748GB available. When I get to to the point to chose the target for my recovery partition of the 748GB only 697GB are left. Now, of course) the recovery tool tells that there is not enough space to recovery the system from the external drive.
My old system was quite full. I only had 2 GB free space left. So the size of the time machine backup should be close to the 750GB. But 697GB is just not enough. What happened to the 50GB between formatting the drive and wanting to recover from the external HDD?
Thanks for your help.

Erbsenroller wrote:
When I run through the recovery process formatting the 750GB drive the drive utiliity tool
Do you mean Disk Utility? If so, that's not how you restore Time Machine backups.
After erasing the HD, quit Disk Utility and select the Restore From Time Machine Backup option.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #14 for the gory details.

Time machine . Job not finish

I have a big HD connect to my airport extreme. I did a wifi time machine backup on my Macbook pro (75G) without trouble. The same with my macmini (60G).Very long but no problem.
When I try with my wife's Powerbook(only 7,5G) it stall at 5.6G every time. I did it with the ethernet cable, on air... I try to increase or decrease the size of the backup file in the time machine prefs and it always block at about 2/3 of the file.
Any idea?
Thanks

The OP has a 2008 MBP, which is not new enough for this.
Lion Internet recovery in the absence of a recovery partition on disk has to be done via the Mac's firmware. All new Macs have this capability, and there are EFI firmware updates available for a number 2010 and 2011 Macs, but there is no such EFI firmware update available for a 2008 MBP.
from
Computers that can be upgraded to use Lion Internet Recovery
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)
iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011)
MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010)
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)
Mac mini (Mid 2010)
MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2010)
iMac (21.5-inch and 27-inch, Mid 2010)
MacBook Air (11-inch and 13-inch, Late 2010)

Time Machine: Backup Disk Not Available

I realize there are a few topics floating around about this issue, but I'm still not finding a solution. Not sure if my situation is different than the others but figured I'd take a shot a describing my scenario in a new thread and seeing if it generates any new ideas.
I have a 2TB Seagate external expansion drive connected to a MacMini on my home network. The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is not partitioned.
I have mounted the drive on my MacBook Pro 2.66/i7 running 10.6.6. I then go to the TM Preference pane and select the drive, enter the username and password for my admin account on the Mini. It indicates that it's preparing and then comes back a minute later with a Time Machine error indicating that the backup drive is not available.
I have an older MacBook Pro, my sons MacBook, and my wife's Macbook also on the network. Each of these Macs can mount the backup drive, select it in the TM Preference pane and successfully begin and maintain the TM backup.
I have created a second "test" account on my MacBook Pro. I have followed the same steps and have had no problems with time machine preparing and successfully beginning the back up account.
So - with those facts - I have had to conclude that there is something amiss with my main account.
Other steps I have taken on my MBP with my main account include:
* Deleting the com.timemachine.plist file from /Library/Preferences - restarting and trying again. No luck.
* Restarting into applejack and performing an "applejack auto restart". No luck
* Removing all timemachine related entries in the Keychain, running Keychain FirstAid. No luck.
* Reformatting the external drive on the Mini, repairing permissions and running a disk repair and starting all over again. No luck.
In each case above a restart was done before attempting to reinitiate the TM process.
So - with out blabbering on with any more details, I think it's clear that I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else I should try. I'm WIDE open to suggestions.

I resolved this issue just this morning (see below). This may not (or may) apply to your situation because yours magically corrected itself, but hopefully it will help somebody.
Environment Architecture: We appear to have a very similar system architecture to the one you describe. In my case, we have 4 macs all relying on Time Machine and a networked 1TB Time Capsule for backups. Each of 3 workstation macs share data from the 4th, which we use as a primary server. I ran into my problem when the Time Capsule filled up and stopped backing up our primary server due to lack of available space. All recommended solutions for freeing up space appeared time consuming, and because we do daily off-site backups through MOZY (we use Time Machine for simplicity of recovery for hourly backups) I could take the "easier" path of just reformatting the Time Capsule's data drive and start again fresh.
Problem identified: Per instructions, I used Airport Utility to erase my Time Capsule data drive, but thought I'd check my existing settings while I was there. Seeing the password prompt, and not remembering for sure what my password was, I thought I'd just reset it to what I wanted. Seemed benign at the time. When I started my 1st system's backup, I was prompted for the Time Capsule's password, and entered the new password. It accepted it as it should have, but then rejected the backup with a message indicating that I had provided the incorrect network account and password. The odd part was that it had originally accepted it, and even flashed the available space on the Time Machine preferences window. After much searching through these topics, I discovered that the password is stored multiple times -- some correctly and some not. Correcting the passwords fixed the problems.
Where to look:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2048
Mac OS X 10.5.3 or later: Time Machine - "Backup volume could not be mounted" after changing network volume's password
* Last Modified: October 14, 2008
* Article: TS2048
As it turns out, Apple stores that password in multiple places in your Keychain (don't ask me why!), even using the identical Keychain entry name. All I can presume is that one piece of the software looked in one Keychain entry, and another looked in a different Keychain entry. The passwords were different (one was my original password, and one was my new password). Once I changed them to the same thing on each of my satellite stations, they all worked again and Time Machine is happily chugging along on all workstations.

Time Machine "Backup Disk Not Available" over WAN

I have port forwarded port 46 (TCP and UDP) to port 548 a Mac mini server running Mac OS X 10.6.8, and I have Time Machine backup disk on it set as a share point with Time Machine support enabled. On my Mac Pro running OS X 10.8.5, I am able to connect via AFP to my server with the address "afp://my-ip-address:46" and can read and write on the backup disk share point. I tested that, and it works. When I am on the same LAN as the server, I can use that disk for Time Machine and have been doing so for years. However, I cannot do a Time Machine backup to that share point over the WAN. When I open Time Machine preferences, I can select the share point as my backup disk, but once I start the backup, it says "Backup disk not available" and fails to start. How could I fix this problem?
In case you're wondering, I forward port 46 to port 548 instead of port 548 to port 548 to minimize hacking attempts. Last time I used a default port, a computer in Taiwan started spamming SSH authentication failures.

I did find this article via Google
<http://www.macgurulounge.com/make-time-machine-remotely-back-up-to-your-time-cap sule/>
Personally, I use CrashPlan (free option using my own disks) to backup over the internet. It works very well when I'm away from home. Everything is encrypted.

Time machine backup is not recognized in Setup Assistant

Hi, I went through lots of discussion but could not find answers to my case.
My Macbook pro crashed the other day and replaced HDD.
I had Time Machine Backup several days ago and was trying to restore.
I started with install CD and used utility to restore from backup.
It recoginzed the volume of Time Machine Backup and next step, it does not show any backups that I can choose.
I installed Mac OSX and tried "transfer from a Time Machine Backup" but it does not recognize my the backup.
I checked hard drive on other computers and can see backups and no issues with hard drive.
Can anyone help?
Mac OS X 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard)
Macbook pro 2.53 GHz Intel Core duo
Thanks.

Dear Pondini,
I found the .exclusions.plist file at the 3/6 backup and it has the bunch of exclusions list...I guess this was the reason. But I really didn't set this up.
Thanks again. Somehow, I don't have "com.apple.mail.plist" in "~/zzang/library/preference". I foundt it under "~/zzang/library/containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/".
1. I first deleted the current preferences files and copied the com.apple.mail.plist from the backup to ~/zzang/library/preference/ folder.
2. I also delted all the files under ~zzang/Library/Mail.
3. I copied contents under ~Library/Mail/ from backup.
4. I started Mail and saw basic account settings and different mail accounts were there. But all the contents (mail, signature, mailboxes under each accounts (sent, deleted, spam, etc.), mailboxes on my mac, are missing.
5. I rebuilt the root mailboxes and no effect.
6. Hence, I checked copied mailboxes and got information and it only has size of 8KB each. When I copied, it was copying 6.6GB. I don't know what is going on here.
7. Hence, I started again from the process 1 above. It is now copying 6.6GB again.
8. What I noticed when I started Apple Mail, it says it will import mail but it was very short and then went back to the same status. No contents....
I looked at more details...
Original backup has V2 directory and no other directories or files ~zzang/Library/Mail while my current Mac created bunch of other things over there. See below images.
3/6 backup
Copied mail on the computer.

Time machine backup is not working

I have tried three different times to restore my computer from a time machine backup. Each time it gets stuck on the Apple logo screen once it it is done restoring the information. Not sure what to do.. every time I restart it by holding the power button it gets stuck on the same screen.

Read all the info about restore in Pondini.. I am not sure what you are looking at but he goes through the different methods here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
See info for setup assistant and migration assistant.
More particular info from inside the OS.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Q14-17
The backup could be corrupt.. and it can take a long time to work over wireless .. it is really important to use fastest possible connection.. if you are talking Time Capsule that is ethernet.. if you are talking external drive that is whatever is the best external drive system you have available.
Pondini also has info on how to verify the backup is working and to fix minor issues.
See A5 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Let me add.. TM is great when it works .. and it is a dog when it fails.. Of late.. it fails alot. Yosemite being the worst possible. If you are trying to restore a computer having loaded Yosemite it is probably no longer possible to recover back to what you were running.

How to setting up new (June 2011) TC to do wireless time machine backup but not connected to network?

Hello. Just got new (refurbished June 2011, 2TB) Time Capsule. My building has a shared wifi network, and I'm assuming it's hard to join the network with Time Capsule and still be satisfied with security/privacy/performance. (Of course, if I'm assuming wrong, please let me know!)
My understanding is that I can use Time Capsule wirelessly to do Time Machine backups by switching out of my wireless network to - I assume - a new Time Capsule generated network(?). It's an extra step, but that beats connecting cables to the computer everytime I need to do backup. Basically it's like an external wireless hard drive that I have to join everytime the backup is updated, right? (Again, if there is a better way to go about doing this, please let me know.)
So how do I go about doing this? The setup manual isn't helpful (not at all).
Here's more detail if necessary. I have 10.8 Macbook Air (which I plan to upgrade to 10.9 soon) and my spouse is running 10.9 Macbook Pro. I am also assuming I don't have to partition Time Capsule, and when the Time Machine backs up, it'll figure who's who.
Thanks in advance.

Hello. Just got new (refurbished June 2011, 2TB) Time Capsule. My building has a shared wifi network, and I'm assuming it's hard to join the network with Time Capsule and still be satisfied with security/privacy/performance. (Of course, if I'm assuming wrong, please let me know!)
Security is ok.. but performance is abominable.
The TC unfortunately has some design limitations that Apple imposed that makes it rather poor for anything but ethernet.
There is a couple of ways around the problem of sequential internet or backups.
1. Get a wireless bridge that is suited to your in-building system.. and plug that into the TC so it can take normal router settings .. This will give you double NAT but I doubt your in building system will be handing out public IP anyway. An airport extreme can do this. Although it is pricey for the same results as a $35 standard wireless bridge. All devices in your place will then get both internet and backup direct to the TC.
One flaw here could be the download limits.. if you have two connections do you get double the downloads.. ??
ie how many IP are allocated to you?? And is it divided between all of them or the more IP clients the more download bandwidth?
2. Use a USB wireless stick in the Mac.. these can be tiny little things now.. just buy Mac compatible ones.. use that for internet and use the internal (faster) wireless for local connections. there are some manual setup tricks needed here but nothing hard.

Time Machine backup did not restore office suite app from backup

I recently restored to my internal HD from a Time Machine backup.
I had not done a Time Machine restore before, so I did not attempt to customize the restore -- that is, I just accepted the default behavior after selecting the source disk.
I've since found that Time Machine does not seem to have backed up a third party office suite I had been using on my MacBook Pro or a file I had saved to my hard drive from that app. Perhaps I'll find that other files were also not restored.
Does anyone have any idea why those would have been missed in the restore?
Also, given the situation I’m now in would it be best to just download the app and start from scratch? I don’t know how one manually restores an already-installed app (i.e., from its backup), given the many different files that are usually created in many different locations when an app is installed from its original 'package' file.
Thanks.

Linc Davis wrote:
Locate the files in the Finder, then enter Time Machine. You should see snapshots of the open Finder window cascading back in time.
Delayed response, sorry. What I meant to ask there was how one can navigate quickly to the window that (hopefully) has what one is looking for.
E.g., if I don't recall anything else about a file than its name (& hopefully I remember that well enough to get a search hit from it -- its own kind of problem since a filename misspelling can end you up with no hits), how to locate the desired file quickly -- i.e., without paging through lots of Finder windows.
Any further advice about how to do that?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding how to do this in Time Machine, but the Finder window cascade seems to me like having a file cabinet full of folders, any of which might have the desired file.
Thanks again.

Time Machine backup files not able to access

Before Reinstalling Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5, I have made my WD My passport 1TB as Recovery HD and then took time machine backup.
After Re-Installing Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5, I am not able to see any of the content in my HD.
I tried to connect Timemachine using Migration Assitant to connect my HD but still it is taking long time.
How can I get back my data in HD to reinstalled Mac.?

There are actually 3 passwords on the Time Capsule - assuming it has the same setup as my Airport Extreme Base Station.
One password for the WiFi connection.
One password to access setup of the device
One password for access to the storage drive - most people leave the check-box to just use the base-station setup password again.
And, as I said before, you also have the option to encrypt your TM backups. So even if somebody runs off with the device and breaks in to the disk, it will all be garbage without the TM password.
This is the screen as it is on my computer:
As you can see, to access my drive I have it set to use the device setup password.
Here is a screen shot of the other options:

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 'InProgress' - Not Finishing

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