Time machine keeps losing backups

Time machine keeps losing backups on 10.8 machine.
I do Verify Backups or Enter Time Machine or Browse Other Time Machine Disks and all I can see is an older, concurrent machine.
While I can tell it to run a backup, and it will complete apparently successfully (and I'll be able to view it) the backups won't be there tomorrow. This makes Time Machine unusable at best.
What gives? Why are the backups vanishing?
WD MyBookLive
2010-mid MacBook Pro
This maching is also having trouble with scp, and other secure connections. But why would Time Machine report that it works, only to throw everything away?
Need help.
-Crissa

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil listbackups | awk -F/ '{print $NF}'
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
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 icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.

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Time machine keeps preparing backup..

Hi, my Time Machine linked to a 1TB Time Capsule keeps preparing the backup but no backups are done.
I had a look at the 'backupd' in the console messages and here is what i have:
26/07/2009 22:11:13 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[214] Disk image /Volumes/Data/The MacBook_0023df8ceb34.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of The MacBook
26/07/2009 22:11:48 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[214] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
26/07/2009 22:11:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[214] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
Anyone could translate this for me?
Thanks,
S.

Hi thezedhongkong,
My understanding of the "node requires deep traversal" is one of a few things:
The "backupd" process has lost track of what's contained in your backup and how much has changed since the last backup. As a result it needs to verify the integrity of the sparsebundle image, unpack it, check each file against what's on your machine currently and then run the backup again.
Every file has a "flag" that the backupd file is looking for when it scans the drive. If the flag is "on" then that means the file has changed since the last backup. If the flag is "off" then that means the file has not changed since the last backup.
Flag On - Backup
Flag Off - Don't backup
It's why Apple recommends against backing up large database files. Because if one piece of information is changed the entire database file will need to be backed up every single time. Entourage and Aperture are common offenders of this issue, iPhoto is not because it's a package (a gloried zip archive).
Based on how large the sparsebundle is, I've seen deep traversals take as little as 1 hour to as long as 8 hours (I had a 178GB image). Unfortunately, if you stop/cancel/quit the process it has to start over again each time. So you pretty much just need to let it sit and do its thing, even if that means overnight.
Now my understanding of the entire process could be totally wrong, so someone please correct me if that's the case.

HT3275 Time machine keeps ejecting backup drive

I haven't been able to make a time machine backup in 63 days. Getting very concerned. Running OSX 10.8.2. Time machine spends a lot of time preparing, and after it finally starts making a backup it fails part way through. I used to be able to make backups just fine using the same external drive. Verified both backup and Mac disk. Deleted TimeMachine prefs, re-started....still won't work. Console only shows these messages for the daemon:
2012-09-30 8:21:43.989 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Finished scan
2012-09-30 8:26:54.891 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Found 638403 files (107.51 GB) needing backup
2012-09-30 8:26:55.397 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: 134.17 GB required (including padding), 39.51 GB available
2012-09-30 8:26:55.472 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Mac Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH/2012-08-14-075425.inProgress/E3E8FC8B-ECD0-4074- 8CB5-EC0A04A7A609 containing 4 KB; 39.51 GB now available, 134.17 GB required
2012-09-30 9:52:22.463 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Mac Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH/2012-08-14-075425.inProgress/F7D26A34-AA10-4B80- B63A-FF13FBC55552 containing 6.67 GB; 46.22 GB now available, 134.17 GB required
2012-09-30 9:52:22.467 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Removed 2 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
2012-09-30 10:11:09.000 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
2012-09-30 10:11:10.294 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -36.)" (ioErr: I/O error (bummers)) deleting backup: /Volumes/Mac Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH/2011-04-23-070957
2012-09-30 10:11:10.294 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Deleted 2 backups containing 6.67 GB total; 46.22 GB now available, 134.17 GB required
2012-09-30 10:11:10.294 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now May 7, 2011
2012-09-30 10:11:10.295 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
2012-09-30 10:11:10.296 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
2012-09-30 10:11:10.296 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
2012-09-30 10:11:10.296 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
2012-09-30 10:11:11.240 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: couldn't determine volume-uuid of mount point: /Volumes/Mac Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH, error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4 "The file “LarryH” doesn’t exist." UserInfo=0x7f9eb1d42a50 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/Mac%20Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Mac Backup/Backups.backupdb/LarryH}
2012-09-30 10:11:11.805 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Backup canceled.
2012-09-30 10:16:23.420 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[603]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

It's a 1 TB drive and my Mac Pro drive is 500Gb. Time machine is supposed to prune old backup sets as needed to make space. If you read the messages it appears that it was about to prune some more when the disk got unmounted.
2012-09-30 9:52:22.467 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Removed 2 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
2012-09-30 10:11:09.000 PM com.apple.backupd[211]: Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
Besides, since when is it okay that Mac OSX spontaneously unmounts an external drive?

Time machine keeps repeating backup of entire iMac harddrive

Two issues with Time Machine:
ISSUE ONE: Time Machine is backing up my ENTIRE hard drive, which takes several hours, every time it automatically backs up which is often - not just the changes that are due to me working on the computer and editing existing files or creating new files. I want Time Machine to only update the changes as per the description of how this software is supposed to function as provided by Apple.
ISSUE TWO: I excluded some files from the backup to reduce the volume that was being frequently backed up, assuming I had the option to return them to the list of files to be backed up but it seems I cannot do so. You can only exclude files from the backup and not reverse this action which doesn't make sense at all.
I would like to resolve both issues.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Both problems may be caused by the preference file being corrupted. Try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If that doesn't stop the full backups, is your entire system being backed-up each time, or only your home folder? If in doubt, create another one via +System Preferences > Accounts+ and see if it's affected, too.

Does Time Machine keep backups of my emails?

I was wondering if Time Machine keeps a backup of all my stored emails and the folders I created in Mail.
Anyone know about this?
Thanks

I gave up on TM as a worthwhile backup solution, but dee if the gree demo of BackInTime can help...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/backintime.html
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Time capsule and time machine keep disconnecting

My Time Machine keeps losing connection to my Time Capsule and dropping it's wireless internet connection. The internet comes back, but when I click on the Time Machine settings and open Airport Utility, it shows the internet connection as Green, but it never finds the Time Capsule.
A. How do I get it to reconnect.
B. What is causing it to disconnect?
I have an iMac (Intel) with OS 10.7.5. I have Time Machine setup to backup my iMac wirelessly to a Time Capsule. I also have a cable modem providing wireless access. The Time Capsule is setup in Bridge Mode.
Thanks in advance!
John

Hi John, let's see if we can stop the disconnect.
Though all of these steps may or may not be needed, I'm including them all.
Make a New Location, Using network locations in Mac OS X ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2712
10.7 & 10.8…
System Preferences>Network, top of window>Locations>Edit Locations, little plus icon, give it a name.
10.5.x/10.6.x/10.7.x instructions...
System Preferences>Network, click on the little gear at the bottom next to the + & - icons, (unlock lock first if locked), choose Set Service Order.
The interface that connects to the Internet should be dragged to the top of the list.
10.4 instructions...
Is that Interface dragged to the top of Network>Show:>Network Port Configurations.
If using Wifi/Airport...
Instead of joining your Network from the list, click the WiFi icon at the top, and click join other network. Fill in everything as needed.
If that doesn't work try changing channels on your Router.

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

It must have found the old backup corrupt.. so you will more than likely have little choice. You can archive off the old backup if it is still useful.
You can also verify it. See A5 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
He also has some info on this problem. eg C13.

My time machine keeps saying the backup disk cannot be mounted. how do I fix it?

my time machine keeps saying that the backup disk cannot be mounted. we cannot figure out why this is happening. We have a 500GB time capsule /wireless router and using a Macbook . any ideas?

Try deleting your iPod Photo Cache folder. See:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1314

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Dan's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Dan’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use.

Make sure that no other Macs are backing up at the time.
Pull the power cable from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cable back into the back of the Tme Capsule
Wait a few minutes, then try a backup again.

Change which old backups Time Machine keeps

Any body know how to change what older backups Time Machine keeps? I know how to change how frequently Time Machine backs up (sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int XXXX),
but what I want is for it to not save so many recent backups and keep more of the old ones. Right now it saves hourly backups for the last 24 hours, daily for the last month, and weekly for each month until you run out of space. I don't need all the daily stuff, and would really like to keep more of the monthly. The older the info, the harder it is to recover by other means. What I'd like to do is keep older backups and lose more of the intermediate ones.
Any ideas?

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.
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. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Post the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear.
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. 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 a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.

After upgrade to mavericks: time machine keeps asking for my back up disk and won't open unless i plug in the disk. any solutions?

after upgrade to mavericks: time machine keeps asking for my back up disk and won't open unless i plug in the disk. any solutions?
before the upgrade, i could open time machine without the need for having the back up disk plugged in.

Ok. I got it to work, sort of....
As I mentioned before I tried the "disk password" and the "Time capsule Password" options to see if I can start the back up again or start a new backup. Neither worked. So I tried the firmware down grade, but like you said that did not work. I then decided to try the "Account password" option and I have never used this option before becasue it states that if there is data on the drive it would not be acessable after creating an account. Since I wiped out the disk that was nno problem. When I created the new account and choose the drive it asked for the user name and password. I entered the info for the new account I just created(FYI this has nothing to do with your login username and password), bingo! It worked!
Now I have two partitions on the TC disk. The old one and now the new account. I am guessing this is to be used if I have multiple computers, which I don't.
I any case, I am going to wipe out everything again and try again to do a backup the way I had it before.

External drive conntected to Time Capsule keeps losing connection

I've been having this problem since I bought my TC over one year ago. Other than this everything works fine (aside from the occasional need for a restart).
I have an external 500GB drive attached to my 500GB TC via usb. I use the TC strictly for backups and the other drive to host my media files. When I want to use those files I switch on the drive. Only about half of the time does that work. When it does work everything is fine. I see the drive in the finder as expected.
When it doesn't work, I can see the drive name in the finder. But if I click to go into the folder, I get an error saying that the connection cannot be found.
It shows up in the Airport Utility as normal.
Powering the drive off and on does not help.
Relaunching the finder doesn't help either.
The only way I can connect to the drive again is to either logoff and log back into my mac, or restart the TC.
It seems that my computer is remembering some kind of network disk mounting settings that don't get refreshed when I turn on the drive, but then do get refreshed when I logoff and back in. Does anyone know how I could force that refresh to happen? Has anyone had this problem before?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated
PS all my software and firmware are the latest.
Thanks.

OS X fan
This helped meRe: Time Capsule keeps losing connection in Finder
Dec 17, 2013 4:08 AM (in response to whootang12)
Left click on the Finder icon from the Dock and click "Connect to server...", go to recent server and click on your Airport Time Capsule.
THANK YOU!!!!
This solved it for me!

My Time Machine keeps backing up and won't stop.

My Time Machine keeps backing up and won't stop. The problem started when it said I was out if space. It is supposed to delete the oldest backup. Now I cannot even backup at all. It just keep going and never stops, although it really does not work at all. I have used the disk utilities and iI have Zeroed out. The TC is a 1 TB and is about 13 months old. Right now it says "79.9 MB of 104.9 MB" and "backing up 961,837 items". I do not have the check mark in "Notify after old backups are deleted." It will stay stuck like this for hours and hours. The TC is plugged into a U-verse router and the 27" MAC is plugged into the TC.

So you already wiped the old backup and started again??
If that is the case it did a fresh full backup ok?
How much free space is on the TC now?
Do you happen to have multiple network links? Meaning do you have TC bridged to the U-verse router.. with both ethernet and wireless working at the same time. I discovered this one all by my loansome.. having multiple paths does not seem to worry most things on the computer.. but it totally kills TM.
I had the same sort of thing happening in testing a TC I am fixing. So I have multiple ethernet and wireless. The incremental backups became extremely slow.. by turning off wireless and one ethernet so there is only one route to the TC.. it flys again.

Doesn't Time Machine delete old backups when it needs more space?

I've had time machine running for a long time now. It worked flawlessly for quite some time.
Today it gave me the error that there was not enough free space on the disk to complete the backup (the error message says something like there is 360 GB of data on the Time Machine drive already, 140 GB of free space and it would require more than that to complete my backup). I have a 500 GB Time Machine disk and my Mac has a 500 GB hard drive, so I should technically never run out of space.
The Time Machine almost acts like this is the first time I've ever backed up, which is not true. Shouldn't Time Machine delete old backups to make space for the new? What's even weirder is that if I open the "Star Wars" window of Time Machine I only see one backup from March 31, 2011, but I have been running Time Machine for well over a year now. I'm totally confused as to what happened. Any advice on how to get my Time Machine back up and running (without buying a new drive) would help!

You see only one backup in the Time Machine window because Time Machine has deleted the older backups to make space to do the current backup.
Time machine needs some working space to do its backups, and so backing up a 500GB drive onto a 500GB time machine volume is not ideal.
However, I do essentially the same thing, and what I do, when I have this problem, is exclude things from the backup.
First off, figure out what you changed. If you moved things from one partition to another, then that will cause a backup of the size of the thing that was moved. This may be why you have a large backup.
When I have this problem, I exclude large things that have changed recently from the backup. This makes the backup smaller, and means that there is less working space needed. I do this until I get a successful backup. Then I remove things, one by one, from the exclusion list, and back up after each one.
So, for instance if you just put 4 new folders on your drive, each of which s 20GB of data and they are named A, B, C and D, add all four to the exclusion list, do a backup, then remove A from the exclusion list (leaving B, C & D on it) and do a backup, and continue like this, adding 20GB of backup data each time until none of the new data is on the exclusion list and you get a completed backup.
Another possible issue, if you use multiple partitions, is that Time Machine may be keeping an obsolete backup of a partition that you previously reformatted. To see if this is the case, go into time machine (The universe interface) and go back to the most recent backup it shows. Click on your computer and see what partitions show up-- are any of them old ones that have been reformatted and renamed? You may be storing a duplicate backup because Time Machine does not realize that the disk that went away isn't coming back (because it has been reformatted as a different partition)
You can right-click on these items and remove them from your backup by sleecting "Delete all backups of...." This will free up space as well.

Time Machine deleted "expired" backups. Why?

I want to know why Time Machine deleted some backups although the disk has plenty of free space available.
02/05/15 09:46:39,191 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Starting automatic backup
02/05/15 09:46:39,281 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Backing up to /dev/disk2s2: /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb
02/05/15 09:46:42,900 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Will copy (429,3 MB) from SSD Boot
02/05/15 09:46:42,968 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Will copy (1,45 GB) from USERS1
02/05/15 09:46:42,969 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Found 1675 files (2,19 GB) needing backup
02/05/15 09:46:42,980 com.apple.backupd[91015]: 8,51 GB required (including padding), 1,49 TB available
02/05/15 09:47:21,437 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Copied 1665 items (440,8 MB) from volume SSD Boot. Linked 1991.
02/05/15 09:50:03,429 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Copied 85 items (1,75 GB) from volume USERS1. Linked 2582.
02/05/15 09:50:11,048 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Created new backup: 2015-05-02-095010
02/05/15 09:50:11,753 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Starting post-backup thinning
02/05/15 09:50:20,156 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Deleted /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb/iMac van Hans/2015-04-30-230300 (855,9 MB)
02/05/15 09:50:22,363 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Deleted /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb/iMac van Hans/2015-04-30-215910 (308,4 MB)
02/05/15 09:50:24,766 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Deleted /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb/iMac van Hans/2015-04-30-205523 (38,2 MB)
02/05/15 09:50:25,756 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Deleted /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb/iMac van Hans/2015-04-30-195405 (36,8 MB)
02/05/15 09:50:27,671 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Deleted /Volumes/Backup2/Backups.backupdb/iMac van Hans/2015-04-30-185319 (36,6 MB)
02/05/15 09:50:27,672 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Post-backup thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
02/05/15 09:50:27,709 com.apple.backupd[91015]: Backup completed successfully.
Backups are alright so it is not an important issue but I am wondering if something in my preferences set is wrong.
Hans

Time Machine keeps hourly backups for one day, then daily backups for a week, etc. What you are seeing is it deleting the daily backups form more than 24 hours ago. This is what it does, nothing to worry about.
C.

Time machine keeps losing backups

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