Time machine backup starts, stalls?

Hi - I'm running MBP, 10.7.4, trying to time machine my laptop after about a month of travel.  Time machine starts the backup, indexes the changes to be committed to the backup, but then doesn't proceed.  It gets 7KB into a backup, and then just stays there.  I just upgraded to 10.7.4 and cleaned up the disk (multiple GB of old files relocated).  I don't think it matters, but trying to use firewire, and my 2 TB backup disk has ample space.

Hello jacques:
welcome to Apple discussions.
It is a guess, but I suspect that there is a file that is corrupt that is causing the problem.
Take a look at the log files to see if anything looks strange.
If it were me, I would probably erase and format the external drive and let TM try to do a full backup. Of course, i admit I also keep a fairly recent bootable clone (SuperDuper) that I could use to recover if things did not work properly.
Barry
Barry

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine - Backup Starts, But Won't Complete

    Hi all,
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    +The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk.+
    +The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.+
    +Time Machine Error+
    +The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.+
    +Latest successful backup: 10-02-15 at 14:57+
    Here are the log messages:
    +Starting standard backup+
    +Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Data+
    +Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Data+
    +Disk image /Volumes/Data/Sean’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups+
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    +No pre-backup thinning needed: 45.51 GB requested (including padding), 1.62 TB available+
    +Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Library/Keychains/System.keychain, /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Sean’s MacBook Pro/2010-02-15-155508.inProgress/F373C449-00B9-4411-88C4-95B00E51D6E3/Macintosh HD/Library/Keychains/System.keychain+
    +Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.+
    +Stopping backup.+
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    +Ejected Time Machine network volume.+
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    Thanks for the help - failed again this time...here are the logs:
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    +Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Data+
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    +Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb+
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    +Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Library/Application Support/MindVision, /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Sean’s MacBook Pro/2010-02-15-155508.inProgress/903BABC7-5AB5-4241-97ED-37BE76D20A40/Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/MindVision+
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  • Macbook Air Freezes when Time Machine backup starts

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  • System crashing when Time Machine backup starts

    My MacBook Pro has crashed 4 times today. The first 2 times I wasn't around to see the crash, I just saw the message that the system had crashed and that I needed to hold down the power button and restart.
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    Hi Garner,
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    —Hazy

  • Time Machine backups start and then fail!

    Time machine had a single successful (ethernet-connected) backup up to a new 2TB time capsule. But subsequent backups began to fail. I did a quick erase of the TC, reset the machine and began again...with no luck. I connected my wife's macbook to the same ethernet connection and asked time machine to backup, which is did. After scanning through the Pondini Q&As, I'm still not sure what's happening - I believe the failure to be in time machine and not with the time capsule. I ran Onyx for permission repairs, etc.
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    I have a brand new 3T external hard drive (the Lacie Porsche p9230.) I manually backed up several big files from my computer ok, but all attempts to do a time machine backup just stall, usually after only a few K are backed up.  hours go by, no progress. 
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  • Time Machine backup stalls in 10.5.5

    I noticed yesterday that my Time Machine backup was stalled... and that no new backup had been made since Tuesday, shorty before I installed 10.5.5. I've run Disk Utility on my 1TB Hitachi drive and tried copying to and from it, and it appears to be fine.
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    That's OK. If you take a look at the Console logs Time Machine is reporting that your backups need "deep traversal". That's fine. Time Machine knows what is wrong and how to fix it. Let it do it's thing. If you have alot if data, it may take quite awhile.
    After your update to 10.5.5 Time Machine realized the system no longer matched 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. It knows what it's doing - let it do it!
    Hope that helps.

  • Time Machine backups corrupt or external hard drive failure?

    My goal today was to upgrade my MacBook Pro's HD, and to restore my system from my latest Time Machine backup which resides on an external hard drive. I installed the new hard drive, formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and selected Restore System From Backup from Utilities. The system restore was five minutes form finishing when I received an error that the system restore could not be completed, and that I should restart my machine and try again. I did as instructed, but once the system restore process began, the screen went gray, and I was told that the Snow Leopard install could not be completed.
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    2010-12-29 21:14:30 -0800: Verify and Repair volume “Time Machine”
    2010-12-29 21:14:30 -0800: Starting repair tool:
    2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
    2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking extents overflow file.
    2010-12-29 21:14:31 -0800: Checking catalog file.
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Invalid node structure
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: The volume Time Machine could not be verified completely.
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Volume repair complete.
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800:
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    ali_baba7 wrote:
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Invalid node structure
    2010-12-29 21:20:22 -0800: Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
    It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party utility such as +Disk Warrior+ can fix that. It's about $100, and there's no guarantee, but it's probably a good investment for the future.
    Do these errors indicate that my Time Machine backups located in the Backups.backupdb are corrupt, or is the external hard drive corrupt and failing?
    The structure of the file system is damaged.
    That may have been caused by the disk beginning to fail, but there's no way to tell for sure until you erase and reformat the disk and try to use it.
    I've also recently noticed that my Time Machine backups started slowing. For example, I would plug in my external hard drive and if 1.3GB needed to be backed up, it would stall at 300 MB before jumping to 700 MB, stall again, then jump to 900 MB. That could be a sign of a failing hard drive, correct?
    It could, but it could also be whatever's wrong with the file structure.
    If the external hard drive is failing, I can purchase a new eternal hard drive then copy the Backups.backupdb to the new hard drive, correct?
    No. You can't copy corrupted backups. They're all linked together, like a database, so if anything's damaged, the whole set is suspect, and can't be copied.
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  • Time Machine backup increases as it runs

    I have a problem that it seems that many people have had but I have yet to find an answer, despite trying many of the things mentioned in these boards.
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    Deleted all time machine backups and started from scratch.
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    Disk image /Volumes/Data/xxxxxx’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
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    Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|require scan|

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