Time machine not backing up, no error message,plenty space in external disk

Hello,
Every time the Time Machine starts a back up, it stops 2 seconds later, it records that the back up has been made, but no file gets updated. It gives no error messages. For it, the back up has been made, when in reality it has not. There is plenty of space in the external disk (twice as much as the space used in the Mac HD). Do you know what may be going on?
Thanks
Message was edited by: F A

See #D5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Similar Messages

Time Machine keeps giving me an error message when I try to back up to my Lacie drive.

Time Machine keeps giving me an error message when I try to back up to my Lacie drive. It won't back up and I can't find where to fix it.

I was having the same problem with my LaCie hard drives, both of them had errors like that and wouldn't eject properly. They would be fine after turning off and then remounting and so on, but then it would start again after a while. So I looked on LaCie's web site for any software updates and I found a usb firmware update from last October and applied it to both drives and now they're perfect. Sorry, I can't find it on their web site right now, but you might want to remember this if it persists and apply the update if you haven't.

Time Machine not backing up. Very slow, essentially hanging. I have 10.7.5 Mac OS X Lion (11G63). I have put in all updates. I tried to put my folders into "private" in the Spotlight (b/c I read that might be the problem). Still not working.

Time Machine not backing up. Very slow, essentially hanging. I have 10.7.5 Mac OS X Lion (11G63). I have put in all updates. I tried to put my folders into "private" in the Spotlight (b/c I read that might be the problem). Still not working.
Thanks in advance for any help!

For all things Time Machine see Pondini's excellent information here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start at Troubleshooting.

Can someone tell me where this error is generated. I have no backup set of any kind thru time machine. I get this error message in console every Friday.EBEngine[4611:b07] ditto: /System/V2: Permission denied

Can someone tell me where this error is generated. I have no backup set of any kind thru time machine. I get this error message in console every Friday. EBEngine[4611:b07] ditto: /System/V2: Permission denied

Can someone tell me where this error is generated. I have no backup set of any kind thru time machine. I get this error message in console every Friday. EBEngine[4611:b07] ditto: /System/V2: Permission denied

Time Machine not backing up

Why is my Time Machine not backing up my documents, folders and files.
I have a Mac oss 10.5.4. 2 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1.5 GB. I have been trying to remove files as I'm running all my programs slow. I recently installed the recent ILife upgrade.
Often I would go in and turn off the hourly time machine backup because as I was working on memory intensive programs such as Photoshop I found it may have been linked to crashes. This is particularly concerning as the backups aren't accessible anyway.
Okay, this is the stupid part - on my part - I included my (House) folder in the files not to back up. I was mistaken as to this being a way not to have redundant back ups.
However; the only file now that is in the do not back up is the (time machine backups) and still nothing is saving - particularly concerning? iphoto file. see below.
Now this is concerning! I restored all photos from "March 13, 2008" - it's september. to IPHOTO from Time Machine. I don't know what changed since then(?) I thought it would add these folders into my i photo cache. This of course has involved a software upgrade since to iphoto. I was prompted for upgrade to the restore. So I said yes, to assure the photos added? where in a compatible format. However; instead it has erased all my photos SINCE. Are my photos irretrievably lost?
Why won't my files back-up for retrieval? Can I restore my settings from March 13, 2008 when my Time Machine back-up worked?
I find it horribly confusing that I no longer can access the photo cache, instead having the 'iphoto cache' icon.
This feels like PC headache. I am about to give up!

One thing you can check (using disk utility info button) is that the disk used for backing up must be in the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, and must have Access Control Lists enabled. Permissions must be set so that you are allowed to use the disk, and the disk can’t be read-only. There must also be sufficient room on external disk for the entire TM backup. Since apple recommends just using TM on the disk, one thing to contemplate if having problems you can't resolve is to reformat as the above and start from scratch.

Since I upgrade to Mavericks, I am unable to back to Time Machine. I receive this error message -The disk image "computer name.sparsebundle" is in use. Try ejecting the disk image

anyone have any suggestions how to fix this. I have looked around but do not see this specific error message on any of the discussions. Also, very little information regarding mavericks

I am using Time Machine, but it an external drive that is connected to Airport Express with a USB through a hub

Time Machine not backing up 2nd external drive, remove option grayed out

I have two external hard drives, 300gb (firewire) and 500gb (usb). Time Machine is backing up to the 300gb. In Time Machine's options, the 500gb is excluded from being backed up, and the remove option is grayed out.
The 300gb Time Machine Backup drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended. The 500gb drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32).
I know the backup drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended, but will it not even back up other drives that are FAT32?

I am having a similar problem. I initially set it up 3 days ago and had it back up just the iMac to Time Capsule (about 120 GB) which it did no problem (I initially had my LaCie drive excluded). I then un-excluded my other drive, where all my photos and music reside (about 130 GB). Since then, it keeps trying to back up about 102 GB each time. Looking at the list of backups it does not appear that it has ever successfully backed up the LaCie. I am not aware of any error messages, but I have not been home much. I normally shut down the computer at night but I have been leaving it on trying to let Time Machine do its thing. All I can say is that every time I am at the computer TM is running and it always looks like it is in the middle of backing up 102 GB (usually seems to be near the beginning, never seem to see it more than halfway done). Looking at the TM panel it says the latest backup was 2 days ago. I'd appreciate any advice!

Time Machine not backing up other external hard drive

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Leopard and am trying to use Time Machine. I have one external hard drive that is used specifically for the Time Machine Backup, it's called "Backup Drive". The other hard drive is called "Captured Memories" and is used to store my graphic design files. Time Machine seems to backup my iMac because there is a folder called iMac and it contains the files, but the folder for Captured Memories is blank. I was getting errors saying that the backup failed but when I clicked the "Back Up Now" option on Time Machine, it doesn't list the error - but the Captured Memories folder is still blank so it didn't back up that external drive. I also changed the Spotlight preferences so that it does not search the Backup Drive.
Both the Backup Drive and the Captured Memories drives are the same, they're both Seagate Free Agent Pro drives, 1TB each.
The Free Agent Pro drives both have a sleep timer that I cannot adjust, does that have anything to do with why Time Machine won't backup the Captured Memories drive? If that is the case, what other software can I use to backup the Captured Memories external drive? I want it to sync to the Backup Drive because I am constantly saving and moving files around on the Captured Memories drive.
I was using a Memeo backup software that came with the Free Agent Pro drives but the problem I was having is it would make copies of files rather than move them. For example, I have a folder on the Captured Memories drive that is called, In Progress and one that is called In Proofing. So once a project is complete, I move the file to the In Proofing folder. The Memeo software would copy the file to the In Proofing folder rather than move it. So I'd end up with 2 copies of the file, one in the In Progress folder and one in the In Proofing folder.
Does anyone know how I can simply have the drive backed up like that?
What do I do?
Please help! I really need to make sure that the Captured Memories external drive is being backed up!

I am having a similar problem. I initially set it up 3 days ago and had it back up just the iMac to Time Capsule (about 120 GB) which it did no problem (I initially had my LaCie drive excluded). I then un-excluded my other drive, where all my photos and music reside (about 130 GB). Since then, it keeps trying to back up about 102 GB each time. Looking at the list of backups it does not appear that it has ever successfully backed up the LaCie. I am not aware of any error messages, but I have not been home much. I normally shut down the computer at night but I have been leaving it on trying to let Time Machine do its thing. All I can say is that every time I am at the computer TM is running and it always looks like it is in the middle of backing up 102 GB (usually seems to be near the beginning, never seem to see it more than halfway done). Looking at the TM panel it says the latest backup was 2 days ago. I'd appreciate any advice!

My iMac restarts everytime time machine is backing getting this error

my iMac restarts everytime time machine is backing up i had time capsule so   i changed back up disk to seagate and still does it.
getting this error any help would be great and im not real computer smart
Interval Since Last Panic Report: 415540 sec
Panics Since Last Report:          5
Anonymous UUID:                    50E71E33-0C3E-B6B0-1F87-93F5501AF275
Fri Apr 12 18:09:41 2013
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff8000e43d5b): "a freed zone element has been modified in zone: cluster_write"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-2050.18.24/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:214
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff80f1b23680 : 0xffffff8000e1d626
0xffffff80f1b236f0 : 0xffffff8000e43d5b
0xffffff80f1b23730 : 0xffffff8000e435d2
0xffffff80f1b23810 : 0xffffff8000ee80cf
0xffffff80f1b23840 : 0xffffff8000ee4cd7
0xffffff80f1b239d0 : 0xffffff8000ee337e
0xffffff80f1b23c30 : 0xffffff8000ee2ff5
0xffffff80f1b23c60 : 0xffffff80010fb26d
0xffffff80f1b23d70 : 0xffffff8000f11da2
0xffffff80f1b23dd0 : 0xffffff8000f08179
0xffffff80f1b23e40 : 0xffffff80011770e9
0xffffff80f1b23ef0 : 0xffffff80011772e4
0xffffff80f1b23f50 : 0xffffff80011e182a
0xffffff80f1b23fb0 : 0xffffff8000eced33
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: backupd
Mac OS version:
12C60
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 12.2.0: Sat Aug 25 00:48:52 PDT 2012; root:xnu-2050.18.24~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: 69A5853F-375A-3EF4-9247-478FD0247333
Kernel slide:     0x0000000000c00000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff8000e00000
System model name: iMac11,1 (Mac-F2268DAE)
System uptime in nanoseconds: 4702215649822
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Model: iMac11,1, BootROM IM111.0034.B02, 4 processors, Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 1.54f36
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4850, ATI Radeon HD 4850, PCIe, 512 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D54313235533642465238432D47372020
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D54313235533642465238432D47372020
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM1, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D54313235533642465238432D47372020
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM1, 2 GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz, 0x80AD, 0x484D54313235533642465238432D47372020
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x168C, 0x8F), Atheros 9280: 4.0.70.23-P2P
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Network Service: AirPort, AirPort, en1
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Serial ATA Device: ST31000528AS, 1 TB
Serial ATA Device: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GA11N, 9.2 MB
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424 (SMSC), 0x2514, 0xfa100000 / 2
USB Device: Backup+ Desk Mac, 0x0bc2 (Seagate LLC), 0xa0a5, 0xfa130000 / 6
USB Device: USB-SATA Bridge, 0x067b (Prolific Technology, Inc.), 0x2571, 0xfa140000 / 5
USB Device: Internal Memory Card Reader, apple_vendor_id, 0x8403, 0xfa120000 / 4
USB Device: BRCM2046 Hub, 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0xfa110000 / 3
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, apple_vendor_id, 0x8215, 0xfa111000 / 7
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424 (SMSC), 0x2514, 0xfd100000 / 2
USB Device: hub_device, 0x0409 (NEC Corporation), 0x005a, 0xfd130000 / 5
USB Device: Built-in iSight, apple_vendor_id, 0x8502, 0xfd110000 / 4
USB Device: IR Receiver, apple_vendor_id, 0x8242, 0xfd120000 / 3

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, or by a peripheral device.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

My Time machine backup fails with an error message

Time machine used to work just fine when I first upgraded to Leopard but now every time it tries to backup I get an Error message "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume." This occurs while Time Machine is "Preparing". Next hour it starts all over again and does the same thing. I have reformatted the backup drive but still get the error. I'm backing up to a 300g Firewire drive and have used about 207G for the backups.backupdb folder.
An ideas how to resolve this issue?

Here is a list of some TM articles that may help. You can look for more by searching Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu or searching the Knowledge Base from Apple's Support Page.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Here are several articles to help troubleshoot Time Machine Problems as well as assist in properly setting up Time Machine.
Mac 101- Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Is Time Machine all you need?
Some advice for those using Time Machine
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X- Time Machine- The Good, the Bad, and the Missing Features
Mac OS X 10.5- Time Machine backups are not visible
OS X 10.5- Time Machine stops backing up to external disk
10.5- Disable the 'use this disk?' Time Machine dialog
Time Machine tips and troubleshooting
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Restoring files backed up with Time Machine
OS X 10.5- Using Time Machine and troubleshooting Time Machine issues

Help w/ Time Machine Not Backing Up

I have a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X v. 10.7.5 and an older (flat, not tall) Time Machine which keeps showing an error and not backing up. The error says: "The backup disk image …(then it talks about my sparse bundle) could not be accessed (error -1)." and then does not back up. It's done this once every few months for the past few years. I've found several quick fixes on the internet to solve it for a few months but then it starts again, usually after I restart the computer or for no good reason at all. I don't remember exactly what I've done but it's usually something involving making sure the name of the disk doesn't have an apostrophe in it or making sure the name of the Time Capsule matches the backup disk, I think. I'm kind of sick of doing this every time though, and I'd like to find the real reason why it's happening and top it once and for all. I found one answer that says that the Time Machine software isn't compatible and I should get a new model of Time Machine but I have a Mac and the Time Machine is a Mac so it seems crazy that they aren't compatible. And I did find a few answers that are very technical involving "mount the remote disk for read/ write access" but I really don't know what that means or how to do it. So if someone has advice in layman's terms, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

We don't see this error much nowadays.. since Yosemite it has much worse issues.
This is classic Pondini troubleshooting.
http://pondini.org/TM/C17.html
He has a fairly long list of links and you can go back and read through the whole C section.. as what you have already done is part of the fix.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
This particular fault was mainly on Lion and Mountain Lion.
How old and what model is your TC?
The fix.. as you call it might be to wipe the existing backup and start again.
After a backup has been in use for a while it seems to become increasingly flakey.. A start over can be very helpful.
If that also proves to be less than reliable.. are you using wireless?? If so it definitely introduces issues.
Time Machine is not the only game in town for backups. Indeed I strongly recommend to people now to supplement their TM backup with something like Carbon Copy Cloner.. especially if you can do a clone backup to a USB drive as that can then be used to boot the computer if anything goes wrong.
Consider other backups.. as TM may just be too complex for its own good.

Time Machine NOT backing up all new files

I have 3 internal disks in my Mac Pro: SYSTEM (System and Apps), DATA (all my user data), and TM (Time Machine)
i use TM in manual mode to backup my DATA disk, typically every time i copy new images from my camera to my DATA disk.
i notice that sometime the latest files i copied to my machine are NOT backed bup by TM.
Every time i run TM, it finishes really quick, i.e. seeing nothing new to back up.
I then created a simple text file, and invoked TM again - and this very latest file was backed up - but my images from the past few days are STILL not backed up (and likely never to be, it seems).
Other things i;ve tried (w/ no success):
- ran Disk Utility verify on all disks
- rebuilt Directories w/ Disk Warrior
- tried (in vain) to force a TM Deep Traversal by:
   a- restarting,
   b- starting up using my install CD
   c- restarting in Safe Mode
ps: here is an archived thread i found about this, but no solution mentioned
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11359191#11359191
help!
thanks!

G'day
Xcode is an IDE, too. It automatically excludes its "build" folders.
It's still worthwhile to take a few moments to check, via the yellow box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11, just to rule that out.
Sorry, lack of clarity on my part. I did make the check first time around. The files are not excluded.
Yes, that's a possibility. Try making/copying a different folder.
Because this morming TM decided to copy the folders it was ignoring yesterday it is now up to date. I need to re-establish the errant behaviour i.e. wait until TM ignores a new version or two. Then I'll make a new folder and copy the contents of the IDE development folder into it. If folder damage is the issue then from then on new versions made will be copied by TM. I predict in fact this won't make a difference because I don't reckon folder damage is the issue. (But of course now that it is being watched TM will behave faultlessly and won't re-estabish the errant behaviour.)
True, but the folders should appear on subsequent backups (unless the originals were moved or deleted in the meantime). In other words, anything backed-up on Monday will still appear on the first Tuesday backup, even after all the Monday backups are deleted. You just can't tell which backup first backed them up.
Indeed. I can do a bit more analysis there. I will schedule that for tonight too.
How are you determining what's backed-up? Are you using TimeTracker or BackupLoupe,per #A2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting?
No. I simply open the Product Versions folder (that contains the copies of the developmet folder) on the desktop and then go into TM. There I step backwards through the backups. TM shows me what folders it has in in the Product Versions folder of each backup.
Without knowing the dates & timing, I agree it doesn't seem consistent. If you're getting different results at nearly the same time on the two drives, that may not be the problem. But it may be worth making some new ones to determine what's actually happening.
Not that I know I have to keep an eye on this I will be watching much more closely as I make versions during the day. To push the process along I will make versions, and associated TM backups, more frequently than normal and check each TM backup.
You might want to repair both TM drives, just to be sure, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. While you're at it, you might as well verify your internal HD, just to be sure there's not some sort of odd directory problem there.
Understood. I'll start by re-establishing the errant behaviour which I'll do via the accelerated process of development and versioning described above. You must be coming up to quitting time for the week. By the time you come in Monday morning I should have more to report. (I'm in Australia and I presume you are in the US.)

Time Machine not backing up full drive

On my macboook pro late 2009 model with mountain lion 10.8.2 time machine will not back up my full drive. I have 56gb use out of 250gb and only 8gb gets backup . How can i get time machine to back up the full 56gb on the first time of setup time machine? I am useing a hard drive connected to my airport extreme. I have the hard drive setup for one big parition. The size of the usb hard drive is 2tb. I have two users on my airport extreme that can access my usb hard drive. One for my macbook pro and one for my mac mini. My mac mini late 2011 model with mountain lion 10.8.2 useing time machine it can back up the full drive. On my mac mini i have 2.5gb used out of 500gb and time machine can back up 2.5gb on the first time i started time machine. But this is not the case for my macbook pro it will not back up the full used space on the first time i setup time machine. How can i fix this so that time machine will backup the full used space?

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. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. 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 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 not backing up iTunes folder

Hi.
I am having an issue with Time Machine on my MBP running 10.5.5. I currently have 2 TM backups on a 400gb external hard drive. Each backup is roughly 45gb. However, both times, my iTunes folder not been backed up. I checked the Time Machine options and nothing is being excluded.
Is there a way to make sure this folder is backed up?
Thanks,
markzegarelli

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I mean that Time Machine has backed up 2 times to this drive.
To expand a bit further, when I browse the disk in Finder, and navigate to where the back up of the music folder should be, (eg. backups.backupdb/<computer name>/2008-10-27-030029/<hd name>/Users/<user>/Music) all I see is an alias. Clicking the alias presents an error which says "The alias 'Music' could not be opened because the original item can not be found."
Thanks again.

Time Machine not backing up all data

Hello All,
I just bought a Time Capsule 2TB and have Macbook pro early 2011 (running Lion OSX). I wanted to do to a time machine backup. Everything went well. I got it connected good and the backup started very weel. My HDD is about 400 GB and when the time machine started back up it started with data and the progress bar showed the total data to be back up (400GB), but then it backed up only 30 GB out of 400 GB.
I have most of my files in iphoto and ivideo. Is this normal? Why didnt TIme machine did not back up all 400GB?
Any idea?

Then there are two possibilities:
The backup failed, but you didn't see the message. See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages.
Or, some things didn't get backed-up. A partial explanation could be iPhoto -- if the iPhoto app is open when a backup runs, Time Machine may not be able to back up your iPhoto library. It will attempt to "catch up" the next time, but in the meantime you may not have any backups of it.
That's unlikely to be the whole difference, though. Does the figure of 400 GB seem reasonable to you -- can you account for most of it?

Time machine not backing up, no error message,plenty space in external disk

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