Time machine Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed

Question

Hi,
I'm having big, ongoing problems with a customers iMac, 10.6.7, when trying to use Time Machine.
All i want to do now is start afresh.  And want to make sure i clear out everything.  It's no longer the priority to find out what is the cause.
Here's the setup, and what i plan to do.  If i miss anything, please point out.
the setup:
iMac, connected via ethernet, to a Ethernet over Power plug (Airport switched off on iMac)
EoP plug then connected to Time Capsule, which is in turn connected to the modem
Internet connection is fine / other mac connected direct to TC backs up fine.
Mac with the problem (unfortunately i only get the info second hand, after i've visited):
TM Sys Pref Pane reports No errors, just that the last completed back up was 7th June
When TM goes through process, it reports 'Preparing xxxxxxxxx items'
Then takes forever to back up a reported 40GBs, reports something like '4KB completed', then '225MB completed, then back to 10KB completed...', then 'Calculating Changes...'
There's never any error message, still reports last back up to be 7th of June.  Finally installed backup buddy widget and got the 'bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed' and "Stopping back up to allow ejection of back up destination disk".
Things tried:
repairing sparceimage of back in disk utility
deleting prefs for TM in /Library/prefs
Tried forcing new back up (without deleting the old one) by renaming the sparcebundle to '...old.sparcebundle' - it carried on trying to back up to the old one, as indicated by the Date Modified in the Get Info window, and lack of new .sparcebundle on TC.
What i plan to do, to thoroughly reset Time Machine, when i visit (I won't have time /opportunity to hang around, wait for anything.  I just do this sequence of events, then i have to leave, not by choice.  So it's important i get it right, do a thorough reset.):
Switch off TM on problematic iMac
Delete the .sparcebundle for the problematic iMac from the TC
Delete /Library/Prefs/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist on problematic iMac
Rebuild spotlight index cache: sudo mdutil -E
Shutdown
Unplug EoP plugs for 30 seconds / replace ethernet cables
Restart iMac
Turn on TM, set up to backup to TC
Now, surely, this is starting totally afresh.  It is assumed the TC is ok, because another iMac directly connected backs up, no problem, and the SMART status of the TC drive is not reporting problems.
If i'm missing anything, any comments, or just reassurance, would love to hear comments.  This has been quite traumatic!  And is dragging on way too long, and made more difficult by the fact i can only visit in short time frames, and the results take so long to come through.
Many thanks,
C

Answer 1

Col Kav wrote:
Ah, ok,  this would be system.log, and then filter 'backupd' ?
Yup.  And when you find a problem, it might be worth noting the time, removing the filter, and see if there are other messages at about the same time that might be contributing to the problem.
But as it's going via Ethernet-over-Power plugs, which are 200mbps, excuse my patchy knowledge, but would this account for slowness?  Speed isn't a priority, i mean, just as long as everything got backed up.
Of course -- they're getting 10% of the speed.  Earlier you posted "I know Time Machine generally takes ages to do the first backup, but is there any reason why it should take 20 minuites+ to make the backup disk available?"  20 minutes is certainly a long time, but if they're only getting 10% of the speed they should, that's gotta be a big part of it.
The thing is, the internet access is fine, and this customer has offline backups with carbonite.
If they're trying to do backups and any serious internet access over the same "pipe," it's gonna be very slow. Depending on what they're doing, they may not notice how slow response time is.
The external disk isn't an option.  i mean, he has the TC, he wants that to work.  Which is fair enough.
Even if it's like molasses? 
Can you even temporarily connect the iMac directly to the TC via Ethernet?  If so, see how much faster it is.
I don't see the point of the TC.  Is it being used wirelessly for anything at all? 
Since everything's connected by cable anyway, why not plug an external HD into the iMac? 
From your first post:
When TM goes through process, it reports 'Preparing xxxxxxxxx items'
Then takes forever to back up a reported 40GBs, reports something like '4KB completed', then '225MB completed, then back to 10KB completed...', then 'Calculating Changes...'
That sounds like TM is simply making two "passes," which is common.  If additional changes are made while it's doing the first one, it will make a second pass to catch up what's ordinarily small and quickly backed-up.  You'll see that in the logs.
But the network or whatever problem is preventing a completed backup; so on each backup, TM isn't sure it got everything the last time (you'll see a UUID message).  Because of that, it will do a "deep traversal," with a message, comparing everything on the Mac to the most recent completed backup, to figure out what's changed and needs to be backed-up.  With an excruciatingly slow connection, that's going to take forever.  And that will be repeated on each backup attempt until one completes normally.