Time machine keeps performing full backup to my new time capsule

After years of perfect time machine function to a local usb drive, I bought a time capsule and reconfigured time machine to backup there for my wife's macbook air and my macbook pro.
The macbook air time machine is running perfectly. However after a week or so the time machine on my macbook pro has repeatedly performed a full backup and lost all the backup history. I clearly cannot keep on like this and find it very worrying that this piece of technology, even if it loses connection for some reason, is not robust enough to recover the incremental backup?
Is this a weakness of time machine design? or is there something obvious I need to check?

try if this user tip helps.

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Time Machine randomly performing full backups instead of incremental

I've been using a Time Capsule since October 2009 with my 13" MBP running Snow Leopard with no issues.
A few weeks ago, I noticed Time Machine decided to do a full 160GB backup, which then filled the Time Capsule and then deleted older backups. It then kept trying to do full backups every single time, resulting in the error 'Not enough space'.
I archived the backups from the Time Capsule, disabled Time Machine and completely erased the Time Capsule.
I set up Time Machine again and it's been working for about a week, but it's doing the same thing again - trying to do another large HD sized backup of 160GB or so (the amount of data my drive has).
I have noticed in the logs the following line
*17/02/2010 13:36:16 com.apple.backupd[946] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: HD*
Which seems to appear as Time Machine starts to do it's full backup.
Any ideas? It's getting to the point that Time Machine is becoming unusable as I can't rely on it.

Cool, I'll give that a try.
Log files are here. I did rename my machine to remove spaces and punctuation but haven't backed up since then (only a few hours ago).
Should I resume this backup or erase the TC and start again? (I've also renamed the TC network and drive)
Feb 20 00:16:14 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Starting standard backup
Feb 20 00:16:14 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:16:22 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:16:32 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Machine/Jordan’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Feb 20 00:16:32 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Feb 20 00:16:38 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.13 GB requested (including padding), 264.22 GB available
Feb 20 00:16:47 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Copied 8 files (15 KB) from volume HD.
Feb 20 00:16:47 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Starting post-backup thinning
Feb 20 00:16:48 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Marty/2010-02-18-234422: 264.22 GB now available
Feb 20 00:16:48 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Marty/2010-02-18-225109: 264.22 GB now available
Feb 20 00:16:48 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Post-back up thinning complete: 2 expired backups removed
Feb 20 00:16:48 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Backup completed successfully.
Feb 20 00:16:50 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Feb 20 00:16:51 marty com.apple.backupd[8919]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
Feb 20 00:23:42 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Starting standard backup
Feb 20 00:23:42 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:23:52 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:24:11 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Machine/Jordan’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Feb 20 00:24:11 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Feb 20 00:24:11 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Backup canceled.
Feb 20 00:24:14 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Feb 20 00:24:14 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
Feb 20 00:25:24 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Starting standard backup
Feb 20 00:25:24 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:25:25 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Time%20Machine
Feb 20 00:25:30 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Machine/Jordan’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Feb 20 00:25:32 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Feb 20 00:34:44 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 200.38 GB requested (including padding), 264.22 GB available
Feb 20 00:35:46 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Copied 283 files (6.5 MB) from volume HD.
Feb 20 00:35:46 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Backup canceled.
Feb 20 00:35:49 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Feb 20 00:35:50 marty com.apple.backupd[9017]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.

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.

Time Machine not performing routine backups

Hi all,
I noticed recently that Time Machine has not been completing my scheduled backups. A full backup has not been completed since December of 2011. The backups start but never progress past "Preparing Backup", today I let it sit with no other applications open or processes running for 4 hours and nothing occured.
I have reviewed many discussions here and so far nothing seems to be working. I deleted the preference file and have powered the Time Machine off and on to no avail.
Here is a snippet of the log from my latest attempt at running a backup. I'm sure I need to give more information but I'm not sure what that is. I would appreciate any help.
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Data-1/Jen Bradshaw’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Capsule
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Capsule/Backups.backupdb
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Exception writing exclusions cache. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Unable to create exclusions cache data.
Failed to write exclusions cache. Continuing anyway.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)

volley15 wrote:
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
That's a problem writing to the (hidden) log Time Machine keeps on the Time Capsule, not your internal drive. (As Linc says, you also need free space on your internal).
Do you have other data there, besides Time Machine backups? Usually that's how this condition happens -- Time Machine always leaves a bit of space, so the next backup can get started, see if there's enough room for the backup and if necessary start deleting old backups to make room. But if the very last of the free space gets used, it can't get started.
First, connect via Ethernet cable if at all possible. What you have to do, and the next backup, will take a while, but be 2-3 times faster than via WIFI.
If you have other data there, copy some of it elsewhere and delete it (50 MB should be enough), and copy it back after the next backup completes.
If there isn't any other data there, delete your oldest backup, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12, and "compact" the sparse bundle per the pink box there.
The next backup will take quite a while -- TM has to do a "deep scan" first, to see what needs to be backed-up (since the previous backup failed), then "compact" the sparse bundle, then start deleting backups to make room.
Once you get this sorted out, if you have other data on the TC, see #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for some workarounds to keep this from happening again.
Message was edited by: Pondini

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

Time Machine Does Excessive Full Backups

Time Machine used to just backup changed material on a hourly basis. It seems that recently every time I look at the progress indicator it is trying to do a full backup of my entire hard drive. Any ideas why?

Have you recently done a restore?
I have the same problem. I did a full restore, and TM did a full backup afterwards. This is a "documented feature". Then it did skims every hour. However, if I reboot, it does a full backup the first time after the reboot. It's done 5 full backups (50 GB each) in the past 5 days. I can't afford to shut down my Mac until I figure this out. I only have 170GB of free space on my Time Machine drive.
Is there any way to see how big each backup is, and delete un-needed ones?
I'd really like to figure out what causes this problem, before Time Machine starts deleting old stuff I want backed up to make room for all these wasteful new backups.

Will time machine do a full backup of external volume (extra storage) after new logic board?

I have a MacBook Pro running leopard, that just had the logic board replaced. I haven't picked it up yet, but I am told that my hard drive and data were not touched.
I have read Pondini's very helpfull info/site, so I know that time machine will want to start a new set of backups.
Here is my question, based on my setup: in addition to the internal HD, I have a firewire drive for additional storage of files. Time machine backs up both volumes to another, larger, FireWire drive
Now, after the new logic board, will time machine make a whole new copy of the external storage drive as well as the internal? Or just the internal?
Basically, I know time machine will think it's on a new machine, but will it treat the external storage as if it were new as well?
I would appreciate any help or advice you can give me. Thanks.

Still no answer? I do have the same trouble on my iMac G5 PPC with 10.5.8: I just replaced the MOB and Time Machine insists to create a new bkup! Attempted with "tmutil" command but doesn't work on my OS...it is really impossible to tell the machine to learn the new address? I DON'T want to believe it!
Tks for any help

Time Machine not performing automatic backups

Time Machine performs a backup when I select Back Up Now, and the Time Machine preferences shows that a backup is scheduled, but Time Machine is not performing automatic backups. How can I can it to perform automatic backups?

The same thing happened to me a while ago. Doing a full reset solved the problem.
Start with A4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time Machine does a full backup after a full restore

Hi,
To test Time Machine (as you should always do with any backup system) I decided to do a full restore of one of my Macs. This went fine (after figuring out how to mount my remote backup disk).
However I noticed that when the restored machine did its first scheduled Time Machine backup after being restored it did what pretty much amounted to a full backup (taking ages).
I believe Time Machine should be clever enough to know that the restored files are the same as the backed up ones, and there is no need to copy new versions.
Cheers, Ed.

Indeed not unexpected, however it would be easy to fix this in the future by linking the restore into the existing baseline (given that it is a direct copy of it) as it writes the files.
It is worth mentioning because if you have a smallish backup disk (I don't) then writing the second baseline may flush out a number of your older weekly backups that you would rather have retained. It will also eventually mean that you will always have those two baselines and therefore restrict the number of valid backups that you can keep.
Cheers, Ed.

Time Machine repeatedly does full backups, including FileVault while logged in

So let me preface this - for months I'd hoped for a way that Time Machine could backup my FileVault encrypted account without logging out. Last night Snow Leopard spontaneously started doing this. I know many may think that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, but read further and hopefully someone can help me make sense of this.
Last night I attached my external 1TB USB hard drove to my 15" MBP (spring 2010 model) running OS X 10.6.7. It started doing a Time Machine backup automatically, as usual. Since I was logged into my account that uses FileVault (a massive home folder - 220GB) I expected a fast backup of things only outside my home folder. As i looked at the details, however, i quickly realized that it was backing up all 270GB of data on my hard drive - including my FileVault account while still logged in!
At first i thought i just got lucky - i'd been craving this feature for years and it just happened to me without even doing anything. Curious guy that i am, i logged out of my acct with my USB drive still attached to see what would happen. After FileVault cleared out space in my home folder, it did _another_ backup, that took about 10 minutes to complete. This seemed strange so i logged back in and started another backup manually. To my utter shock, it started doing the whole 270GB over again!
I even cleared out my TM drive, erased, reformatted, checked permissions, etc etc and did the same on my system drive, hoping that it was just a matter of broken permissions. No change.
So there's two things going on here and i'm pretty concerned about both:
1) Why is TM backing up my entire encrypted home folder while i'm still logged in??? Apple has clearly designed TM and FV to NOT work this way for data integrity reasons and the fact that it's happening has me freaked out a bit over the reliability of my backups.
2) Why is TM doing full backups after each time i login to my account? If i stay logged in, it appears to only do incremental (normal) backups but if i logout, then re-login and allow the hour to pass and let a backup start on its own, it starts the whole 270GB again.
I'm getting to the point of wiping the system and starting from scratch but since i presently live in a country with no Apple store and extremely poor internet access, that prospect horrifies me
any ideas?
many thanks,
-Tim

Thanks for the input Pondini -
I tried deleting the file as mentioned in #A4 and it still had the problem. Last weekend i finally got a brand new hard drive and reinstalled OSX 10.6.3 from scratch, then promptly applied the 10.6.7 combo update. I purposely chose to NOT import my old user from backup and instead set up everything again manually (royal pain, but the only way i could be sure that i wouldn't bring the problem with me). Today i whipped out my TimeMachine drive and set it up for backups. I crossed my fingers and it AGAIN started backing up all 250+GB of my system from within my FileVault protected account.
My wife's MBP is still running 10.6.4 and i'm beginning to wonder if his is an issue with 10.6.7 since i'm relatively certain i didn't experience this before that upgrade.
I've checked my wife's exclusions under Options and her home folder is NOT in that list, yet her TM is not attempting to backup everything until she logs out of her FV acct.
In response to Linc Davis, _yes_ it was backing up my info into a sparsebundle file, not just the raw unencrypted data, which is extremely strange.
If i DO add my home folder to the exclude list, will it still be backed up when i log out?
At this point, i'm thinking my next steps are:
1) try a different TM backup drive, even though i've wiped and checked my current drive numerous times
2) downgrade to an older version of Snow Leopard to see if 10.6.7 is the culprit
Any other ideas?

Time Machine Keeps Thinking That it's a New Backup

We're running Snow Leopard Server on a Mac Mini, and are using an external FW drive for Time Machine backups of the server and shared data only, no client backups. Time Machine has not worked since we setup the Mac Mini, but was working well on the previous server using Leopard Server. Here are the troubleshooting steps I've taken, as well as the latest log.
Erased and re-setup the Time Machine drive using another drive name. I've encountered issues where Time Machine doesn't like to use the same drive name after a migration.
Repaired permissions
Trashed Time Machine preferences
Made sure that all updates are applied
Made sure date and time are correct on the server
Made sure that the backup hard drive was not damaged or corrupted
The error:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Graphics Backup/Backups.backupdb
Starting pre-backup thinning: 235.12 GB requested (including padding). 164.53 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed
Backup failed
Every time it fails, I wipe the drive and the preferences hoping that something will fall in to place on the next backup attempt. This happens every time after we complete an initial new backup where Time Machine doesn't recognize that there is an existing backup for the server on the external drive and that it only needs to create an incremental. It's extremely frustrating. We're not using any type of software that is using any crazy sql databases that would be flexing while backing up. Shoot, we have it set to backup at 5AM when no one is in the office nor connected remotely (which we don't allow nor have setup anyway). We are merely using the server for a share point for our digital assets (overkill, but not my idea). Indexing of the initial backup occurs in a reasonable time. Super frustrated at this point.

Still having this issue. Now with TWO servers, two different clients. Nothing had changed prior to this error.

Time Machine doing a full backup every time it runs

My Time Machine seems to be doing a full backup every time it runs on the hour. The backup size is about 19GB. Shouldn't hourly and daily backups be much smaller after you run Time Machine for the first time?
I remember a while back, my hourly backups were a couple of minutes.....now they are 30 minutes.
John

Hi Steve,
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3687285?start=0&tstart=0
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Time machine issue: always full backup after upgrade to Mavericks

I just upgraded to OS X Mavericks - since then, each Time Machine backup is a full back (Instead of just backing up the differential between backups) - I couldnt find the answer on the web, pls help! Thanks

Claude Crider wrote:
You say you think indexing is now done. Is that because everything else seems to be working with no delays?
Because you said "The CPUs stayed maxed and machine hot for about 3 more hours." That sound like it was done indexing your internal HD.
To be sure, look at the Spotlight index at the right of your menubar. If it has a tiny dot inside it, it's indexing something. Click it to see what. If not, it's caught up.
Oddly, the indexing of your backups may or may not appear there.
And when you say leave it for awhile, are you thinking more like 4 hours? or more like maybe 20 hours?
It depends on how large your backups are, and how you're connected. Ethernet will be faster than WiFI, of course, but will still take a while. The indexing may be done at the beginning of the backup, during it, or after it seems to be done (if the backup says it's done, but it doesn't eject the Time Machine Backups disk image, it's probably still being indexed).
I'd guess a few hours, again depending on how large your backups are.
At what point should I give up on it?
When you run out of patience?

Time machine keeps duplicating my backup

I tried searching the forum for this topic but didn't have any luck...
I've got my time machine backing up to a 1TB hard drive connected to my airport extreme. This seems to work just fine, but every couple days time machine will start entirely backing up my system again adding a "1" in front of the backup file. I'm not sure why it keeps doing this, as there is already a backup file on the hard drive, not to mention it re-backs up over 150 gb of stuff again, which takes forever and is using unnecessary space on my external drive. Anyone know why time machine is doing this, and more importantly how do I get it to stop?

Stereo..Sympathy wrote:
I tried searching the forum for this topic but didn't have any luck...
I've got my time machine backing up to a 1TB hard drive connected to my airport extreme.
You need to know, that's "iffy" and +*not supported by Apple+* See Using Time Machine with a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
This seems to work just fine, but every couple days time machine will start entirely backing up my system again adding a "1" in front of the backup file. I'm not sure why it keeps doing this, as there is already a backup file on the hard drive, not to mention it re-backs up over 150 gb of stuff again, which takes forever and is using unnecessary space on my external drive. Anyone know why time machine is doing this, and more importantly how do I get it to stop?
Usually the problem with backing-up via an Airport is, the sparse bundle will occasionally be corrupted, often beyond repair. You may be having a similar problem, or it may be something else.
A clue may be lurking in your logs. Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to one of the backups where it made a new sparse bundle, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.

Time Machine keeps re-creating backups

I'm having an issue with Time Machine on SL and wondered if theres a solution?
I'm running SL and use Time Machine to back up to a Western Digital NAS. All seems good and the backups seems to be fine, however every couple of days I get a message from time machine saying:
Time Machine completed a verification of
your backups. To improve reliability, Time
Machine must create a new backup for you.
Click "Start New Backup" to create a new backup. This will
remove your existing backup history. This could take
several hours.
Click "Back Up Later" to be reminded tomorrow. Time
Machine won't perform backups during this time.
I've checked the Apple support pages and it just says that this is an identified issue, but doesn't give a solution..
Has anyone else got any suggestions how to stop this? Obviously if I say 'Backup later', I don't get any more backups? As i'm am writing this, Time Machine is deleting a 310Gb backup file which is perfectly good, only to re-create it again and render me without a backup until the new one is created..

According to this Web page, what you're doing "may work as a destination for Time Machine backups, but it’s not recommended."

Time machine keeps performing full backup to my new time capsule

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