Time machine no longer backing up...please help!

Question

I've scanned a lot of the posts already so I'm going to try to include as much information as I can:
*The last time TM performed a backup was on 3/15 of this year. (hmmm...now that I look at it...perhaps it was the Ides of March that botched it all?...i digress...) All of the sudden it was telling me that my backups were huge (can't remember specifically how big at the moment) and that it could not complete the back up.
*When I look in my backup volume (500GB WDMB) in the backups.backupdb folder under my computer, I see a file that is named 2009-03-15-145335.inprogress...no idea what that means but I thought I'd mention it.
*My HD shows 465GB capacity with 139GB available.
*To my knowledge, I do not run any programs like Parallels. (This was mentioned as a possible problem in other posts so I thought I'd include that info)
*I just downloaded the TM widget and attempted to do another backup, which also failed, the details of which I will post here:
+Starting standard backup+
+Backing up to: /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb+
+Starting pre-backup thinning: 18.07 GB requested (including padding), 4.32 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: unable to free 18.07 GB needed space+
+Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.+
+65 days since last backup+
Please advise! Thanks for any help!
Cecilia

Answer 1

Pondini wrote:
CeciMami wrote:
Then either hold down the +Option +key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar (or control-click/right-click the TM icon in your Dock) and take the +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option. Select your TM disk, then again note the oldest backup you see.
When I do that, I don't get a "Browse other TM disks" option.
Uh, you should. Are you sure you're on 10.5.6? Try this one again. What options do you see?
Ok, I'm a dork, just tried it again and got the option. Checked the date on the backup and it is the same, March 15th.
Do you often go several days (more than 10 or so) without a backup?
I have never gone that long without a backup. The only reason I stopped was because TM stopped doing them. About two weeks ago I got aggravated and just turned TM off because I was tired of getting those error messages...but I really want to resolve this issue since I have very important pictures/movies/stuff on here that I want to be safe and backed up!
That's the only other reason I can think of that would cause TM to do new, full backups, and perhaps start a new sequence.
If it does that, sometimes it thinks you have a new Mac. Then it won't delete the oldest backups from the old sequence to make room for new ones (because it thinks they're for a different Mac).
Very carefully, look at your TM disk again with the Finder (this is probably best in List mode (View > As List).
In the Backups.backupdb folder should be a single folder with your computer name (but I suspect there may be more).
There is only one folder, named after my computer.
In that folder should be folders named with dates and times, like the one you found (but without ".inProgress" at the end).
See if there are more than one with your computer name, and the range of dates in each one.
The only folder with a date (other than the .inprogress one) is listed as 2009-03-15-135352. When I look it there, there seems to be a happy backup inside.
Your earlier post said *My HD shows 465GB capacity with 139GB available.* I assume that's your internal HD? How big is your TM disk?
My TM disk is listed as having a capacity of 465.76GB with 4.32GB available.