Time machine caught in preparing time machine

I switch off my time machine for a few hours yesterday as I had some intensive tasks and lots of harddrive action going on.
I deleted the files from the trash and have turned time machine back on, whereby its been stuck on preparing for about 40 minutes now.
Does this sound right? It also has not mounted the time machine back up disk (Network on an airport extreme)
Please don't tell me the simple act of turning it off for a few hours means I lose all my backups to may this year!

We may be having the same symptom for different reasons. I noticed my Time Machine would experience extremely long preparation times after I shutdown my computer. My computer is about 2 months old and before I started using time machine, would shutdown immediately when prompted. After utilizing Time Machine, I noticed my computer would take 30-60 seconds to sutdown. Upon restart, time machine would not backup automatically. If I forced Time Machine to backup, it would prepare for hours before backing up. I read an Apple support topic (same one Barry linked to) stating that this would happen if the computer were shutdown with the backup volume mounted. I would always make sure that the backup volume was ejected before shutdown, but I noticed tonight that sometimes my Time Capsule (the actual Time Capsule, not just the backup volume) would be mounted in the finder window (eject button next to it) but not on the desktop. This would happen when I would click on Time Capsule in the finder and manually view folders in Time Capsule. When I ejected both the backup volume and Time Capsule, the shutdown happened immediately when prompted. This was a good sign. Upon restart, I forced Time Machine to backup and the preparation time took only seconds instead of hours. The backup completed within 1 minute. I tried this several times and it worked every time. I haven't had a chance to verify that Time Machine is backing up automatically upon restart, but I suspect it will. I will post once I have those results. Like I said, we may be experiencing the same symptom for different reasons, but this seemed to fix my problem. Hope this helps.
Message was edited by: Mech. Eng.

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    This is a semi-rhetorical question: I have now resolved this for my own setup, However, there was very little information on this error in the fora, so I thought I would post my experience with getting a Time Capsule (2TB, 3rd edition) to work on OS X Lion after the AFP/NAS debacle.
    Background
    My third party LaCie Big Disk Network* NAS died when Lion came out.
    I could access neither Time Machine nor the drive through Finder.
    The excellent thread on "Lion: Connecting to legacy (pre-Lion) AFP services - and Mac OS X (server)" (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3258472?start=0&tstart=0) allowed me to access the drive via Finder to save my files but, of course, Time Machine was still broken. That guide showed you how to lift security restrictions on AFP shares.
    For reasons explained below [disclaimer: rant follows] I decided to ditch the LaCie and purchased a Time Capsule.
    The Problem
    Time Capsule connected via DSL to the net and set up a wifi network with a green light.
    The "Data" mount for Time Machine was visible in Time Machine, but trying to access it showed the following error:
              The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 13)
    Trying to open the share in Finder using the appropriate credentials showed:
              The operation cannot be completed because the original item for "Data" can't be found
    Things that didn't work
    Turning lots of things on and off
    Resetting the DSL modem, the router (Time Capsule), the computer
    Repairing permissions
    What DID work
    Undoing the modifications made during the process of mounting the old LaCie NAS
    To do this, open Terminal and enter:
    sudo -s
    chmod o+w /Library/Preferences
    cd  /Library/Preferences/
    rm com.apple.AppleShareClient.plist*
    (from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3258472?start=0&tstart=0)
    Then restart your computer.
    This worked for me. I don't UNDERSTAND any of why this did or didn't affect the computer, so please don't ask me to explain how it worked or what else to try. I thought I would just put this out there for knowledge.
    * LaCie have really got my goat. Unlike other manufacturers who seem to be trying to provide support for their drives (Western Digital MyBook), LaCie have stated outright that they will not be providing any updates for their Big Disk Network. This is a hard drive they describe as a "Professional NAS", though I can't think of many professions where £200 backups need to be replaced every two years to keep abreast of security updates. In their defence, the drive is no longer manufactured… but, IMHO, I don't see that as sufficient reason to abandon all support or updates immediately. Boo! On the upside, loving my shiny new refurb Time Capsule.

    Our true genius died a little while ago.
    But up to Mountain Lion he has tones of info ..
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    Try some of the section C solutions.
    It is more than likely network.
    BUT do the following.
    1. Install the widget A1
    2. Reset TM, A4
    3. Verify the backup, A5
    4. Reboot the whole network and restart it in order.. modem.. TC.. MB Air.
    No luck to this point.
    Tell us exactly what OS you have.
    The worst possible is Mavericks. If you are trying to connect to old backups after an upgrade it is hopeless.
    I recommend you start over.
    Simply wipe the TC and start afresh.
    Manually mount the TC disk in Mavericks so you are sure it is working. Tell us if you run into trouble.
    Most important.. in wireless network preferences are you running ipv6 in link-local mode.

  • Time Machine over AirPort to Time Capsule... maybe a solution

    Like a lot of people on this forum, apparently, I have been suffering from the inability to make reliable Time Machine backups to a Time Capsule over AirPort. Here's what I did to solve the situation.
    Here's my network setup:
    I have an ADSL wireless box with b/g network connected over ethernet to a 1-TB Time Capsule which has a 5 GHz 'n' network. Using 5 GHz 'n' network where I am means no interference. All equipment that is not capable of 'n' is on the wireless box, 'n' equipment (basically, only my MacBook Pro) gets on the Time Capsule. It doesn't make internet faster, but sure makes the Time Capsule accessible. Both networks are hidden and secured with WEP (b/g) or WPA2 (n).
    (the Time Capsule is double-NATted, unfortunately, to cut down on network chatter in the system log)
    After upgrading to 10.5.6, I think I haven't been able to make a reliable Time Machine backup over AirPort. It may have been well before that (possibly with the AirPort Extreme update) but I don't remember. Most of the time, before the wireless box arrived, I have been making far-too-irregular backups over ethernet to the Time Capsule.
    Anyway, I had been trying to get Time Machine to work over AirPort to the backup on the Time Capsule. I had made the original backup over ethernet (all 500 GB worth over a weekend). For the incremental backups, though, I would prefer AirPort because keeping a cable attached really is a pain. Of course, it didn't work right away.
    What I couldn't figure out was why. Time Machine mounted the sparsebundle volume on the Time Capsule, but after that it seemed to do nothing with it. I left it for half a day and found little by way of relevant network activity. I tried the following to no avail:
    * disabled Little Snitch (outgoing firewall) and the OS X firewall (incoming firewall)
    * disabled security on the network
    * disabled and re-enable Time Machine
    * changed the name of the sparsebundle volume (that was dumb!)
    * trash Time Machine preferences and re-select the backup disk
    * reboot, reboot, reboot
    Whatever I did, it sucked. Connecting over ethernet was excellent, and incremental backups went really quick, but AirPort just didn't fly. It would have been worse if it were slow; chances are then it'd be a hardware problem. But nothing was going over AirPort with Time Machine.
    In amongst the surfing, I found somewhere how to downgrade the firmware on the Time Capsule. Worth a try since nothing was working. I opened up the AirPort Utility and checked, but it would only give me 7.3.2 (AirPort Utility 5.3.2). I searched and found the AirPort 5.3.1 software, and using Pacifist extracted the AirPort Utility application. That would let me 'downgrade' the Time Capsule firmware to 7.3.1 (and 7.3). It downloaded the 7.3.1 for me and put it on the Time Capsule without problems.
    I then made a test run with Time Machine over ethernet, that was fine. The I tried over AirPort - and hey presto! it worked! I re-enabled my network setup (firewalls, security) and it's still working fine.
    So, if your Time Capsule is on 7.3.2 firmware and Time Machine over AirPort *****, try downgrading to 7.3.1. The AirPort 5.3.1 software, which can download and install the 7.3.1 software (5.3.2 doesn't) can be found here:
    http://support.apple.com/downloads/TimeCapsule_and_AirPort_Base_Station__802_11n__Firmware_7_31
    Note: you need Pacifist to extract the AirPort Utility application;
    do not install the software over your existing AirPort software

    This may be tough because TM isn't supported over wi-fi unless you're using a Time Capsule. There are a couple of resources available to you and I'd also recommend posting in the Snow Leopard forum because TM is part of OS X the OS X forum would be the right venue. The first thing is I'm guessing you are using a router, if so make sure the firmware on it is up-to-date. You will need to refer to the router's manual. You also should do the same with the modem too. Some written resources are:
    Time Machine FAQs
    Time Machine Troubleshooting
    Pondini Time Machine Tips
    That's about all I can help you out with.
    Good luck!

  • Cannot open 2 Virtual Machines at the same time to access the same Database

    Folks,
    Hello.
    I am installing Oracle Database 11gR2 RAC system using 2 Virtual Machines (rac1 and rac2) on the top of VMPlayer 3.
    The VM rac1 and rac2 run correctly when one of them is shutdown.
    Their locations are F:\VM_RAC\rac1 and F:\VM_RAC\rac2.
    While rac2 is running, I open rac1. But this error message comes up:
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    While rac1 is running, I open rac2. But this error message comes up:
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    The 2 error messages are the same. This means I cannot open 2 VMs rac1 and rac2 at the same time. When we run RAC system, we have to open 2 machines or more than 2 machines at the same time so that all machines can access the same Database Server.
    My question is:
    Can any folk tell me how to have rac1 and rac2 run at the same time ?
    Thanks.

    You need to disable disk locking, which ordinarily is performed by the first VM to prevent any other VMs from corrupting your vmdk files via uncoordinated writes. You will have to shutdown both of your VMs and edit the *.vmx flat file for each, adding lines like the following (settings taken from workstation 6, but should be nearly identical settings for VM Player 3.x):
    http://crosbysite.blogspot.com/2007/10/clustering-in-vmware-workstation-6.html
    scsi1.sharedbus = "Virtual"
    disk.locking = "false"
    diskLib.dataCacheMaxSize = "0"
    diskLib.dataCacheMaxReadAheadSize = "0"
    diskLib.dataCacheMinReadAheadSize = "0"
    diskLib.dataCachePageSize = "4096"
    diskLib.maxUnsyncedWrites = "0"
    A few comments:
    - your shared disks (scsi1) must be on a separate virtual scsi bus than the boot disk (scsi0), to allow setting the sharedbus flag as seen above.
    - you must also ensure the cache parameters and unsynced writes settings are set to guarantee that all IO is immediately flushed to the vmdk file so the other VM can immediately access the latest version of data.

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