Time Machine - It Hangs Forever Before Starting Backup

Don't know why this might be happening, the thing took about 15 minutes to prepare. Got a note that said something like "preparing backup". And now it's hung up, saying "6K of 11.8G". I had to do a restore recently, and it was a pain. I had to recover a huge mail folder. Maybe this is why the data amount seems large, and why it is "preparing" for so long? Can any tell me if this is typical, or strange?
Thanks...

Programs like Entourage, Outlook, VM Fusion and Parallels store their data in one big file. If you make even the tiniest change Time Machine will back up the whole file. Those types of files are best excluded from Time Machine backups and backed up by other means. Also, working on large video or graphic files can chew up disk space quickly. You might want to work on those files in a folder that is excluded from Time Machine backups and only allow Time Machine to back up the final versions.
To exclude volumes, folders or files go to System Preferences > Time Machine > Options. You can drag items to the "Do not back up" pane or use the "+" button to include them in the excluded list.
If you can't figure out why your Time Machine backups are so large you can use a program like WhatSize to help locate large files and folders. Once you have sorted out what might be taking up so much space on your Time Machine backups you can delete entire backups or files from your Time Machine backups with the Time Machine browser. If you have a file or folder selected in Time Machine's browser clicking on the button with the gear will give you the option of deleting all instances of that folder/file. If no files or folders are selected it will give you the option of deleting an entire backup. Deleting an entire backup will not free up as much space as you might expect as Time Machine uses hard links to keep track of its previously backed up files. You can read about how Time Machine uses hard links in this Ars Technical review.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14

Similar Messages

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

My MacBook was not normally booting up. It would turn on, make the Apple startup noise, and the bottom loading bar would progress just a little bit, then my MacBook would shut down. I tried rebooting it many times and the same thing would happen, it would just shut down. Then, I read that I can reset the PRAM (by holding Option+Command+P+R after the Apple startup noise comes). That worked, but now I get a screen that asks me to choose one of the 4 options (see: http://images.macworld.com/images/article/2012/07/lionrecoveryutilities-289404.j pg). I choose Restore From Time Machine Backup, but it progresses to 17.6% and gets stuck there forever. I tried doing it again, and it got stuck at 17.6% again. That is why I am asking if I should just reinstall Lion, then restore a previous backup on the fresh new Lion?

Time machine fails backing up with a "backup disk not found" error after upgrade to Lion 10.7.2

Time machine fails backing up with a "backup disk not found" error after upgrade to Lion 10.7.2. I've erased and reformatted the drive; reconnected Time Machine(it saw it) and began a new backup. The backup starts again but fails before completing with backup drive not found error. I used the 10.7.2 combo update. Any help on how to fix this problem would be appreciated.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
After waiting since October for a fix, I have now upgraded the firmware on the Time Capsule and installed the new Airport Utility, released yesterday, and the situation is even worse.
Up until now, the Airport Utility had an option to disconnect all drives manually and the Time Capsule would then work until the next reboot – a temporary (?) work-around.
Now that option does not exist in the new-look Airport Utility. And the Airport Utility installation can’t be rolled back and the old utility won’t restore.
The sparesbundle is still not accessible. Anyone worked out a work-around in the new environment yet?
I have another Time Machine backup working fine to a trusty old Lacie Drive so erased the one on my Time Capsule to see if that works. I have renamed the Capsule and the Time Capsule Drive. But to build another full backup will take at least two days and I shall be away from tomorrow and am reluctant to leave the Capsule and computer up and running for a week. And I’ll bet the sparsbundle will still be nowhere to be found.
How can Apple screw up so badly when they are to become the richest company in the entire world and – soon – will have more cash in the bank than the entire United States? Can’t they afford someone who really can sort this out? Especially when a Firewire connected hard drive – my trusty and simple LaCie – works fine.
Words, almost, fail me.

Time Machine will not complete a system backup and terminates with "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. This follows a problem when Time machne terminated when the volume was almost full.

On 11/1/2011, Time Machine (TM) terminated with an error message I did not record. I noted that the drive was full and decided to do a separate complete bootable system backup using Carbon Copy Clone (CCC), before clearing the TM volume and trying to start it over clean. Part way through the full system backup CCC put up a message that there was a Physical Problem "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16". That was about the time that TM malfunctioned, so I assumed they were related. After starting CCC over a couple of times, and getting the same error message, I let it go through to completion of the backup, which took three or four hours. I then ran tests using Disk Utility and verified that there was nothing physically wrong with both the internal hard drive and the TM volume. I also erased and reformatted the TM volume. However, every time I started Time Machine, it would record a few GB and terminate with "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume". I restarted the computer with no change in results. Note that prior to starting the CCC backup, I "Repaired Permissions", "zapped the PRAM" and "re-set the SMC", hoping to have a clean bootable system on the backup. I ran Techtool and no problems were found.
I'm running this on an Intel iMac under 10.5.8 and recording to a 500GB My Passport drive. My hard drive is only about half full at 246 GB. My assessment is that something happened at 16-28-16 on 11/1/2001 to screwup the Backup Directory in the file at "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16". My question is, how do I fix it?
I had just completed writing everything above here, explaining the problems I had been encountering for the past 24 hours. I had the Time Machine window standing open on the desktop where I could see it, having recentlycleared it after the last termination. As I was proofing what I had written, I looked at the window and noted that the clock had started a new run for a full back up, since all prior efforts had failed and the TM volume was empty. As I watched and waited for it to fail again, as it had been doing at about 13 GB, it kept going and going until it just finished a complete backup, about 4.5 hours later, with my having done nothing. Now my question would have to be - what could possiibly have happened to make it perform this way? It will be interesting to see if it continue to operate normally, or if the problem will return, in a later backup run.

jcm21 wrote:
CCC put up a message that there was a Physical Problem "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16"
You should not keep those files for long, and probably shouldn't back them up (if you need them at all -- since you do regular backups, I'm doubtful just how worthwhile that feature is).
"Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume".
One of Apple's maddeningly incomplete messages. Most likely, there's a problem with a file (quite possibly the one CCC didn't like). See #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details and instructions on finding and fixing it.
If you continue running the Directory Protection app, be sure to exclude your Time Machine drive from it (as it will just take up lots of room, and won't help repair your backups if there's a problem); and exclude the folders it creates from being backed-up by Time Machine (as they'll create large backups, and you probably can't use the backed-up folders anyway), per #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Time machine fails to complete/maintain a backup

Time machine is driving me nuts!:
The last successful backup was one month ago. Since that time it seems to have been stuck in a perpetual loop of trying but never successfully completing a backup, no matter what I try. Here is the history:
I bought a new iMac 6 months ago with OS X Lion (1Gb HDD). Set up Time Machine over wireless network with a 1Gb WD MyBookLive attached to a new BT Homehub 3 router (UK). Lion successfully backed up my system (total size approximately 159Gb) over a two day period, but every 4-6 weeks Time Machine would tell me it needed to create a new backup. Frustratingly, this meant that the backup history never stretched very far in the Time machine 'starfield window' but at least I had a backup of some sort.
I upgraded to Mountain Lion 3 months ago, in the hope that it would fix the error and, briefly, things were going well. Time Machine didn't need to create a new backup from scratch after upgrade, and continued to add to the existing backups & history for 2 months. Then i got the dreaded 'Time Machine needs to create a new backup' message and, 1 month later, it hasn't been able to finish the process yet!
After about 6 days it was about 30% complete (just over 50Gb) which didn't sound right given how long it previously took. I stopped the backup using the TM dialog box , reset my mac, router and MyBookLive and started again. Time machine automatically started again, and after several days of crawling I got the message that the 'sparsebundle was already in use'. I followed the suggested tips regarding unmounting the drive, reset everything and tried again. TimeMachine took about another 4 days to get to about 30Gb, then stopped itself with the message that the backup had failed. I tried deleting the preferences files for TM as several sources suggest, but this doesn't seem to have helped, TM just takes days to crawl along and then terminates saying either simply that the 'backup has failed' or that the sparsebundle is already in use. About 5 days ago I used the WD browser-based administration tools to create a new, separate, share for TM (presumably because this ensures that there can be no record of any previous backups on the backup device which TM sees) and set up TM from scratch. All seemed well, it took only 23 hours to back up 103Gb - then it failed, saying that the 'sparsebundle is already in use'. I set the backup away again overnight and it managed about 12Gb before the same message appeared. TM now estimates 5 days to backup the remaining 40Gb.
Somebody please tell me what is going wrong and how to get TM to actually complete a full backup then maintain it without constant intervention!!!
Some further points worth mentioning:
1) My iMac is located too far from my router to backup using ethernet cable.
2) I have used iStumbler to determine that the signal strength is 36% (surely strong enough?) with only 3% noise. (802.11n Gigabit Ethernet).
3) WD MyBookLive plugged into the GigE port on the router, and firmware is up to date.
4) I've searched Pondini's tips, from start to finish looking for a solution, as well as the Western Digital and BT forums, but none of the common solutions seem to work.
Help! and thanks.

Thanks, Linc, for your response. I will also seek advice from the manufacturers of the other devices, however, I fear that every party will foot the blame at the door of others.
I don't agree with your suggestion that this shouldn't be my only backup, given the marketing literature of both Apple and Western Digital. Apple state on their website:
"Connect the drive, assign it to Time Machine, and start enjoying some peace of mind. Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents."
Similarly, Western Digital state about their MyBook Live:
"Mac users can utilize all the features of Apple Time Machine backup software to protect their data."
So where, I wonder, does the fault lie? At the end of the day I am a home user and 'consumer' - just your average Joe looking for a robust home computing solution, not an IT boffin with an in-depth understanding of the nuts and bolts. I expect both products to do what they say on the box. Not surprisingly BT (the supplier of the router) state "The wireless 'N' technology in the BT Home Hub ensures you get a more reliable wireless connection throughout your home at all times."
To me, the advantage with my set up (should it ever work) is that, should the unthinkable happen and my computer is stolen, the likelihood of my backup device disappearing with it (as might be the case with a locally attached device) is greatly reduced because the NAS is hidden away elsewhere.

Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copy

I purchased my iMac 24" in February.
After I had set up the machine I configured an IceCube Firewire 300 GB (Seagate) Hard Drive as a backup volume and flicked the switch in Time Machine. All went as expected. I even restored my whole hard drive from the Time Machine volume about a month ago after I repartitioned the boot volume to set up Boot Camp. No problems.
About a week ago I purchased a 500GB WD HDD and set it up inside the IceCube enclosure (I remembered to make it the "Master" disk too!!). I partitioned it with Disk Utility with a GUID Mac OS X (Journaled) partition for my Leopard boot partition, and as MS-DOS FAT32 for my Boot Camp external partition. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy all the Windows files across from Boot Camp to the new FAT32 partition and set up Time Machine to make a backup of the Leopard boot partition.
After several hours Time Machine stopped with the error message above. ("Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup").
I have spent days formatting the new WD drive, repairing permissions on the boot drive, excluding large files and cache files from the backup in Time Machine to no avail. Every time I get the same message. I even set up another 200GB firewire drive to see if it was anything to do with the enclosure of WD HDD. Same result!!
I have searched these forums for any ideas, and have done wide searches with Google but nothing has worked.
I can not understand why my Mac worked perfectly with Time Machine before I installed the new Western Digital Hard Drive.
What have I missed?

I keep getting the Time Machine backup error too, like many others. Was fine until just the other day, now, nothing. Although my husband's backs up just fine. I assume it's the 10.5.3 bug everyone else has. I've tried reselecting the drive, running the disk utility, shutting everything on and off... help!
Here's the console log- anyone know what this means?
Jun 10 08:37:27 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Starting standard backup
Jun 10 08:37:27 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Network mountpoint /Volumes/Library not owned by backupd... remounting
Jun 10 08:37:27 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/Library-1
Jun 10 08:37:43 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Disk image /Volumes/Library-1/Tiffany Danko’s Computer (2)_001b63baf698.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Tiffany Danko’s Computer (2)
Jun 10 08:37:43 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Tiffany Danko’s Computer (2)/Backups.backupdb
Jun 10 08:37:48 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Failed to create progress log file at path:/Volumes/Backup of Tiffany Danko’s Computer (2)/Backups.backupdb/Tiffany Danko's computer (2)/2008-06-09-065427.inProgress/.Backup.234797868.792920.log.
Jun 10 08:37:48 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Jun 10 08:37:48 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Error: (-36) Creating directory 77B4FA27-3E65-4B81-897C-610DEE7BB187
Jun 10 08:37:48 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Failed to make snapshot.
Jun 10 08:37:53 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Backup failed with error: 2
Jun 10 08:37:58 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Jun 10 08:37:59 Tiffany-Dankos-computer-2 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1683]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.

Time machine has deleted/hidden *all* my backups.

At the moment I'm using two 1TB external hard drives connected to my mac, one as storage and one just for time machine. Yesterday the storage drive died on me, so I replaced it with another 1TB drive.
Time machine has been backing up everything on the main computer and the storage drive for several months now so I thought it would be an easy fix, just restore what was lost from the storage drive and I'm set.
After connecting and formatting the new external hard drive I tried restoring the lost data but couldn't figure out a way to have it restore from time machine directly to the new drive. Instead, I went into the Backups.backupdb folder on the time machine drive, found the most recent backup of the files I needed from Feb 9th and just dragged and dropped it into the new drive.
It comprised of some 550GB of data, so I left it copying overnight. Checking on it this morning, it seems that a little less than half of the data has been copied across and what's worse - time machine no longer shows any backups made before this morning. Checking in the drive contents, it seems that the backup folders no longer exist either.
Now, I don't actually think the data has gone missing since the time machine drive is still showing that it has some 700GB of data still on it, it's just not viewable for some reason.
I've been through Disk Utility to see if the drive needs repairing, but I'm being told that there's no problem with it. I've also checked to see if the data has somehow found its way into the trash can, but it's not there either.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what happened and how to recover my lost backups?

pheadlessg wrote:
Thanks for that. It's backing up again now but the old backups are still missing.
I have no idea what went wrong with the drag and drop. It should have copied your data (likely with a zillion permission problems), but shouldn't have affected the TM data. There might be something in your logs, but that probably won't help now.
Your old backups are probably hosed (pardon the technical term <grin>).
You might be able to give yourself read rights to the .Trashes folder, and see if there's anything in it, but I doubt you'll see anything.
To do so, select it, then +Get Info.+
Click the padlock at the bottom of the pane, then enter your Administrator's password.
Then click the plus sign at the bottom; you should get a selection screen for yourself. Click it.
That should give you read rights.
A very long shot, but worth a try.
Most likely, you're going to end up erasing the drive/partition and starting over.

HT203177 iMAC & maverich Time Machine error message "unable to complete backup folder

iMAC with OSX10.9.4 ; 8GB ram ; two partitions external disk formatted MAC jurnaled ; connected via Fire Wire or USB2 .
During Backup the sistem get stack and display into the "details window" Time machine was unable to complete the backup because unable to complete the backup folder.
This problem happens with USB and Fire Wire.
The file backups.backupdb is excluded from virus scanning.
Also happens time to time that (without doing things) both the partitions of the external disk disappaire from the desk-top and a message "the disk must be ejected properly" is diplayed.
This two problems are independent une to the other.
I have change the backup disk but both the problems persist.
Thanks for any help
Gian Luigi

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.

My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. I have tried everything and even did time machine in safe boot as told by an apple suppoprt advisor. still the same error after 16gb

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to a failed backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showning, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Time Machine -- can't access parts of backups

Prior to upgrading my MacBook Air to Yosemite, I made a Time Machine backup, removed temporary stuff I didn't think I'd need any more, and made a bootable clone of Mavericks using SuperDuper! The upgrade went fine, but after a while I realized one of the things I'd removed (Adobe Lightroom catalog, having transferred all the image files from the MacBook Air to my desktop machine) contained some information I needed. My attempts to restore it have run into an odd problem, and I'm hoping someone has some ideas that can help me.
I have the backup disk connected, and when I start up the Time Machine application it shows the expected backups in the "ruler" along the right-hand edge of the screen. However, for the most part, I cannot "go back in time" to find the files I want from before I deleted them. What I mean is that, for most locations I select from Finder's sidebar, the "backwards and forwards" buttons are grayed-out and inaccessible. For a few locations (Desktop, and the system Applications folder) the buttons work as expected and I can access any backup date I wish. For a few others (e.g. "All My Files") the "backwards" button is available but clicking it takes me to the very first backup stored (8 months old) and "forwards" takes me to "Today (Now)". None of the intervening backups are available for that location.
I've used the Terminal app to navigate down the directory hierarchy of the backups on the Time Machine volume. I can find the files I want there, so it's not like Time Machine had failed to back them up. However, it refuses to show them. I tried using the Terminal to copy the files back under my home directory, but the filesystem ACLs and extended attributes were causing problems (Lightroom thought it didn't have write permission). Deleting the ACSs and xattrs got Lightroom to run, but it's clearly confused (shows blank thumbnails, has exif data but not captions) so something's not right.
Wondering if this is a Yosemite issue, I rebooted the machine onto the Mavericks clone and tried running Time Machine there. I get the same results.
Someone at work suggested that leaving the Time Machine app running for an extended period of time might fix the problem. I've had it running for 7 hours now and while a few more locations started working, the ones I want aren't.
Anyone know what's going on and how to fix it?

Even weirder -- the problem I described above happens only with certain windows. WIth others, I can open the earlier backups.

Time machine, did it perform a full backup?

A bit new to this. Upgraded to a new MBPro retina, mt lion from an older MBP using migration assistant.
After all was finished and all the files were on my new machine (I did not use Time machine to migrate or backup to the new mac, I used migration assistant), I connected to time machine to perform a completely new backup of the new machine. I have 295GB to copy over. So, it seemed to take forever. I was on day 2, noticed all the threads about the slowness, but then the new machine froze. It said it was around 170GB through it. I could have also had a bit of interuppted internet too in that time. I also could not access the internet on the new machine at all by that point. So, I rebooted and I assume by finding the disc and starting again, it looked like it picked back up at roughly 125GB. that took about 6 hours or so. So, I think that roughly it may have gotten the whole 250 gb but not sure.
Also, on my select disc option I have two listings for my time capsule now. Not sure if that makes a difference.
My question really is how can I see what exactly went through? I have entered time machine but can't tell really if everything in those files copied. Can I at least see the size of the backup on time machine? I would even be willing to do a forced full backup again of all 295GB, but can't seem to see how to do that.
I am a bit new to this part, so sorry if I am asking really obvious questions. I just didn't want to find out at a later time that I only have partial backups. Thanks for any advice.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo tmutil compare
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Upgraded to Mavericks, Enter Time Machine and cannot see any previous backup at all

MBP, upgrade from 10.6.8 to Mavericks.
After "Enter Time Machine", the time line on the right side of the screen does not show any previous backup at all.
In Finder, I can see the backup folder and the inside contents.
In Time Machine Preference, I did select the disk for backup again.
Any idea ? Thank you.

Thank you for your reply and the links.
I did this:
1) I have two ext. USB drives for the MBP time machine backup, did not occur to me to try the other one which is the very first disk, let's call it disk 1, I used for backup, the other one I started using after a year or so.
2) reboot with the disk 1 connected
3) do a "Backup Now", and I forgot the exact dialogs and what they say.
4) something like, "choose a disk for the backup", I chose disk 1
5) it knows I had two disk for backup and ask me if I want to use two disk for backup, click yes
6) the time machine pref. says something like initial backup (after new system installed?)
7) after it done, I can see the previous time machine back up and the time line goes back to where it was before.
8) connect the disk 2 and "Backup Now", it just went to backup right away, after it's done, I can see the prev. backups and the time line too.
Thanks again for your help.

Time machine has lost a year of backups

I have time machine set to write to a Seagate Free Agent hard drive. It has 574GB spare on it, so it's nowhere near full, but I have no backups before about a month ago.
Time machine preferences say that I have backups going back to September 2009, and the timescale when I enter Time machine says the same, but the windows are greyed out and unavailable.
I haven't had any problems that I know about.
Help please?

The grayed-out windows are the clue.
What you see in the "Star Wars" display depends on how you get there and how you navigate once you're there -- if you start with a Finder window showing a folder that's a month old, you'll see all the backups that include it normally; all prior backups will appear, but be grayed-out and not selectable.
The easiest thing to do is select your Computer in the Finder Sidebar (or press ShiftCmdC before entering Time Machine), navigate to the backup in question, then see what's there.
There's a sample of this in #15 of [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine not backing up beyond initial backup on iMac G5

Hi - hoping someone can help...
I Have just upgraded to 10.5 and want to use my 500GB Mybook WD drive with Time Machine. When I first step it up it needed to erase the disc to get it into a Mac Journaled format, and then took about 10 hours to do its initial back-up of 230GB. After that it seemed to hang 'preparing' for another backup of over 20GBs... in system preferences had last backup and oldest backup as blank.
I decided to start again, used disc utility to format the drive and time machine again did a long initial backup, and I left the computer for a while and now it wants to do a second backup of 223GB... and in System Preferences it still shows no oldest / last backup, and when I use Time Machine I can't go anywhere else but 'now'.... any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers Sam

I am kind of having a similar problem. I am able to back up my computer, but it only backs up 1kb every single time. And when i go to search documents I am not able to find them, I too only have the initial backup, but I am able to go back in time to many days back to look at the same thing over and over again. And every time I use it, while it looks sweet, it proves to be useless. I asked about this somewhere else and someone responded with the comment that time machine was pretty much worthless and has lots of bugs. A guy at the apple store had this same problem on a mac pro. I know I didn't really answer your question, but I guess it give syou a little idea of the problems going on.

Time Machine - strange behavior while deleting old backups

Not sure if this is the right place, because this is actually not on Time Capsule, but on a Time Machine on an external USB drive.
In any case, I searched the web for "time machine delete old backups" and found many discussions of various aspects of this task. My objective is to clean up a partition on a the external drive that I no longer use for active TM backups, but to retain a small set of backups in case I need to go back to them. The partition now has other uses and I need the space. My main TM backup is now on a separate Time Capsule.
So again my objective is not to remove all backups, but just most of them.
It appears that the well-discussed procedure is the following:
Go into Time Machine.
Select the Macintosh HD.
Go back to one of the oldest backups.
Click on the Gear > click Delete Backup.
This procedure will remove one Backup at a time, and it seems to take 5 - 10 minutes for each backup.
Here is what I noticed that was "strange":
You could delete a selected backup using the above procedure.
For the first selected backup so deleted, there is a confirmation dialog with a warning message that it is not undoable.
After clicking OK on the warning message, the display backs up to the "Present" backup, and the administrative password is requested.
After the administrative password is entered, the backup starts but control is passed back to the user interface, and another backup can be selected to be deleted.
However, after the second backup is selected and deleted, there is no warning dialog, and no request for the administrative password. At this point the user interface is busy and nothing more can be done until the backup delete is completed. Except that the Time Machine can be exited by first pressing Escape, then Cancel on the lower left of the screen.
If the time machine is exited, there is a Delete Backups progress dialog with a progress bar for each backup so far requested. If the second backup was requested, as in the steps above, there would be two backups.
I discovered by playing around that either you had to wait within Time Machine for the deletion to complete, or alternatively exit Time Machine. While I was not sure what was going on, I kept starting one backup, then exiting Time Machine and re-entering Time Machine and requesting another delete operation. Each time after entering Time Machine, the warning/admin password sequence occurred and I was able to exit. And then immediately re-enter Time Machine and request another backup. Only by exiting and re-entering could another delete request be made.
When out of Time Machine, I thus saw the Delete Backups dialog with any number of concurrent "Delete One Backup" progress bars.
Because of the nature of the hard links used to indicate backups, I was wondering if these multiple delete operations could possibly be hung in a deadly embrace, so I decided to only do one at a time. Some further study to see if the multiple delete operations were all able to complete would be needed to know if this would be a good way to "queue up" multiple delete requests.
Bottom line: seems like kind of an odd implementation. Would be really nice if you could select many (say 30) individual backups and delete them all at once, rather than taking 5 - 10 minutes each. Again, this is because I am trying to reclaim disk space, but not delete all the backups from a Time Machine backup set that is not in active use.
Also, the method of "queuing up" backup delete requests is kind of odd, but seems to work, with the proviso that I have not yet confirmed that doing more than one at a time actually works.

Heinz-G?uenter Arnold wrote:
since the upgrade to SL it seem that Time Machine has problems to completely remove old backups completely. The "removed" backups do not show up in Time Machine anymore, but the backup folders and part of their contents can still be seen in Finder.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
That happens occasionally, in both Leopard and Snow Leopard, sometimes after something was deleted from the Finder, but also after an abnormal shutdown or improper disconnection of the TM disk.
Run a +*Repair Disk+* on it via Disk Utility, in your Applications/Utilities folder. If it finds errors, but can't fix them all, run it again (and again) until it either fixes them all, or can't fix any more.

Time Machine - It Hangs Forever Before Starting Backup

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