Time Machine hangs and prevents application and machine shut down

Question

I've been having problems with my Time Machine over the last few weeks and seem completely unable to fix it.
When time machine starts to back up my machine, it hangs (the clock icon in the top right hand corner of the screen spins, but the backup disk is not being accessed and currently Time Machine shows no backup in the last five days). Once it has hung, various applications start to behave oddly and generally I am unable to shut them down, even via force quit.
Eventually when I try restarting the machine, it clears everything from the screen except the desktop background and then refuses to go any further.
Through tinkering I think the problem is the Time Machine disk, but I've run Disk Utility on it, and it says that the drive is ok. At one stage I deleted the Time Machine backup and started again, which was fine for a week, but now I've got the same problems again.
I do get these messages in console:
Apr 8 11:09:55 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.fra mework/Support/lssave[167]: Wrote corrupt store file /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-0230.csstore_corrupt
Apr 8 11:10:04 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 configd[14]: AppleTalk startup failed, status = 92
Apr 8 11:10:13 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.fra mework/Support/lssave[169]: Wrote corrupt store file /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-0230.csstore_corrupt
Apr 8 11:10:23 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.fra mework/Support/lssave[171]: Wrote corrupt store file /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-0230.csstore_corrupt
Apr 8 11:12:31 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 [0x0-0xd00d].com.apple.finder[113]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored
Apr 8 11:12:31 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 [0x0-0xc00c].com.apple.systemuiserver[112]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored
Apr 8 11:12:31 christopher-arthurs-computer-3 [0x0-0x1c01c].com.apple.systempreferences[172]: Unexpected reply from backup server - ignored
Any ideas? I'm getting very frustrated by all of this.
Thanks

Answer 1

PaulArthurUK wrote:
Through tinkering I think the problem is the Time Machine disk, but I've run Disk Utility on it, and it says that the drive is ok. At one stage I deleted the Time Machine backup and started again, which was fine for a week, but now I've got the same problems again.
It's possible the drive is beginning to fail. They are mechanical beasts, after all, with moving parts and bearings, and don't last forever, and they do fail without a complete crash. You might try stopping TM, then using Disk Utility to +Erase Free Space+ on it, just to see if DU can write to the unused part successfully. Passing isn't necessarily a clean bill of health, but a failure would be a clear sign.
Any ideas? I'm getting very frustrated by all of this.
First, exclude your TM drive from any anti-virus scanning, and from Spotlight, at least temporarily (System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy).
None of the posted messages have anything to do with Time Machine backups, except the last few seem to indicate that you may have been trying to do something with the Finder on the TM disk. Normally, you can look, but do not touch any of TM's files. But you do seem to have a corrupt cache you might want to investigate.
Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to one of the problem backups, then copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
Or, if you'd rather use Console, filter for the backupd process to get the TM backup messages.