Time Machine only partially backing up

I'd upgraded to 10.5.6 and started to get permissions problems with Time Machine. Tried fixing them using Disk Utility and some Terminal fixes suggested elsewhere, to no avail. So I erased the external Western Digital 750Gb drive I've been using as my Time Machine backup drive. Now when I try to back up, Time Machine backs up about 180Gb of data (of about 300Gb) and stops. I've tried "Back up now" but it begins to back up, and quits at 1.16Gb (of 124Gb) each time. Wussup widdat? Anyone have any suggestions? TIA.

I have identified the TM hang problem on my system. It was related to a problem in mds (indexing routines). Apparently changes in 10.5.6 have affected indexing (and there are reports of these 10.5.6 indexing issues and related Spotlight problems on the Leopard Use forum). A problem (IMHO a bug) in one of the mds routines, probably mdimport, had mds trying to import files for indexing on behalf of a specific UID. The account associated with that UID had no imported files. Neither cleaning the user's cache nor deleting the existing indexes (with mdutil) helped; I finally changed the user's UID and that fixed the problem.
The TM issue here is that the indexing problem was trying to index the phantom files every 4 sec. TM depends on mds and its indexing; i.e. if there are Spotlight problems caused by indexing issues, this may also cause TM problems. So trying to initiate a new (i.e. first time) TM backup was waiting "forever" (I tried up to 24 hours). Once the mds problem was fixed, a fresh TM backup was created for a 75 GB set of files in a couple of hours.
The bottom line here seems to be that indexing problems can cause havoc with TM operation. Reported indexing and Spotlight problems under 10.5.6 are a clue to possible TM problems. (This has nothing to do with the TM problems caused by MAC number file permission errors.)

Similar Messages

Using time capsule for months but time machine only goes back to yesterday!

Topic says it all.
I'm in a bind and I need something that might have been on my hard drive a month or so ago.
Anyway, I click time machine because that's the whole point of having a backup app, and to my suprise, the bar on the right only goes back to yesterday at 2am.
What the ****?? Is there some way of opening my time capsule bundle package file thing or what.
Thanks
Running leopard, time capsule is 500gb and set to only take my pictures, music and a couple other folders.
Thanks

jackbyo wrote:
Topic says it all.
I'm in a bind and I need something that might have been on my hard drive a month or so ago.
Anyway, I click time machine because that's the whole point of having a backup app, and to my suprise, the bar on the right only goes back to yesterday at 2am.
What the ****?? Is there some way of opening my time capsule bundle package file thing or what.
Thanks
Running leopard, time capsule is 500gb and set to only take my pictures, music and a couple other folders.
Did anything change on your computer just before today? If you look at your Time Capsule's "Data" disk, how many "sparsebundle" files do you see?
If you see more than one (assuming you're only using it to back up one computer), Time Machine may have decided to start a new backup set. in that case you can probably access the old data if you click-and-hold (or control-click) on the Time Machine icon in the Dock and choose "Browse Other Time Machine disks".

HT3275 Time Machine only goes back one week!

I've been backing up for well over a year. My backup disk is 1TB and my Mac drive is only 500MB. The backup is still only half full. Why can't I find data from months ago?

Did you upgrade to Mavericks between then and now.. if so the old backups are difficult to get hold of.. you can do it but only by manually accessing the sparsebundle..
See the info in Pondini here.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Try Q15 but it is good to read the whole section on restore from 14-17..
Mavericks has made life that much harder.

Time machine won't back up

I just got a new MacBook Air with Lion. On my old Mac, I thought I remembered that Time Machine would only backup files that have changed since the last time I backed up my drive. I used Time Machine to transfer my old desktop to my new Air. Today when I tried to use TIme Machine to back it up, it said I did not have enough space.
I'm not clear if it's trying to back up the whole drive or just things that have changed since the install (which is all I need).
What should I do to make more room for my current back up or to instruct Time Machine only to back up items that have changed since the last backup?
Thanks.

FWIW I had this sort of problem which generally #$%^& me off. I had a brainstorm and tried somebody's MBP and it worked just as expected. So I reinstalled Leopard after erasing and formating the drive and using time machine off my external LaCie.
That didn't work worth a #$%^&
So I once again, reformatted the drive and reinstalled leopard FROM THE DVD and then used time machine as part of the migration assistant, and everything worked perfectly, and I can now use TC with my Mac Pro octo.
So something MIGHT be hosed on your system, and if you feel that you have a solid back up, reinstall off the DVD and then migrate with time machine.
Hope this helps. I spent about 2 days getting this straightened out.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
                    Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

My Time machine has stopped backing up saying there are some read only files.

My Time machine has stopped backing up and says that ther are some read only files preventing this. What steps do I need to take to fix it?

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.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time machine no longer backs up after cloning startup disk

I cloned my startup disk (250 mb) in April 2013 to a 500 mb disk and replaced it with the cloned disk. Before the clone, Time Machine was backing up properly to the 6tb external drive designated for backup. Since installing the clone Time Machine has not backed up anything. Everything (all the apps) is working properly on the cloned disk except, apparently, Time Machine. In fact, I cannot get Time Machine to allow me to make any adjustments to the settings. I went on the Apple Support website to see if I can reinstall Time Machine, but could not find anything. Any suggestions?
Model Name:          Mac Pro
Model Identifier:          MacPro1,1
Processor Name:          Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          2
Total Number Of Cores:          4
L2 Cache (per processor):          4 MB
Memory:          12 GB
Bus Speed:          1.33 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          MP11.005C.B08
SMC Version (system):          1.7f10

If only the system was cloned with CCC it should work, though if you change names who knows.
Delete the plist and turn off and on.
they don't make 6TB so you're using some kind of array or JBOD.
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine
subsection in Mac OS X forum.
TimeMachine 101
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Lion Recovry & TimeMachine
http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/
http://www.apple.com/support/lion/
Time Machine’s Gory Details:
https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
How To Restore Your System
http://pondini.org/TM/14.htmlMac OS X v10.7 Lion
Back-In-Time 2: Unleash the power of Time Machine
Restore Time Machine data: Time Machine is a great basic backup tool. But the options for locating and restoring data are quite limited. Back-In-Time gives you total flexibility in discovering and recovering your data to any location on your Mac. See more...

How do I redirect time machine to current back up?

I just sent my Powerbook to Applecare for a repair (screen, fans, and keyboard), and I just received it yesterday. The first thing I did was click time machine to go back into time to retrieve some files that I didn't want to be somehow (purposely or more likely accidentally) affected by Apple's repair. Only the problem is, there is nothing there. Can't go back in time. Then an error pops up telling me that my disk has 1.99 GB's left to use and it needs 77 to create a new back up. The issue here is the fact that my partition has 200 GB's to back up on, and the reason that I only have 1.99 is because everything is already currently backed up to the backup bundle already created and used before sending it to Applecare. How do I make Time Machine recognize the current back up again (which has been in use since October) so that I can actually access all the files and continue to back up? I know the files are there, and I know the .sparsebundle still exists (I'm looking at), so how do I make Time Machine recognize and utilize it like nothing has happened?

Thanks a lot for responding, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. I did check the computer name and it is the same. There are no new backups since I've received my computer back from Applecare so I'm not afraid to loose and current saves, all the ones I want are in that bundle. Once I saw that it tried to create whole new back up (sparsebundle) and couldn't because it didn't have enough space, I turned time machine off to make sure nothing changes from what was previously set. It's just a matter of figuring out how to make Time Machine recognize all the backups again so that I can access the them and continue to back up on it.
I'm not sure if I wrote this in already, but thought I would to see if it helps. My external hard drive is set up with the backups on it. When I access the external hard drive in finder, it shows a file that says "Kagan Buck's Powerbook G4's backups.sparsebundle" (not exact, but you get the drift). And it's trying to create a new one of those. So my basic question how do I make Time Machine access the current bundle again to utilize it like it always used too.
Sorry again if I'm being repetitious, but I feel like that's the first time I've actually correctly described the issue.
Thanks a lot.

Time Machine - data to back up keeps on increasing as it's backing up!

Apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but I couldn't find anything on it when I searched.
I want to install Mavericks on my iMac, currently running 10.8.5, but before I do so, I want to do an up-to-date Time Machine backup.
I already had Time Machine set to back up to an external 1TB drive, but after several versions of backups over the past few months, and also me adding and creating several GBs of new data on my iMac, Time Machine ran out of space to do any more backups to the external HD.
So to be safe, before the Mavericks install, I wanted a fresh new up-to-date backup of all my data. I did a quick erase of the external HD to clear the space on it, and also deleted quite a few GBs of unnecessary data on the iMac. After that, I had 999GB of free space on the external HD and just 850-ish GB of data on the iMac to backup. So I set my Time Machine to run, and watched it start backing up... 1GB of 850GB... 2GB of 850GB... 3GB of 850GB... And so on. All going as expected. No problems there.
So then I leave my Mac to get on with it, as it estimates it's going to take several hours.
After the estimated time has passed, I come back to see if it's done, but to my surprise, the progress bar is now reading something along the lines of 850GB of 900GB. Where did the extra 50GB come from to take it up to 900GB?
Worse still, as I sit and watch it continue, it progresses along the lines of 860GB of 920G (60GB remaining), then 870GB of 940GB (now 70GB remaining), then 880GB of 960GB (now 80GB remaining) and so on.
So not only is the total amount increasing for some bizarre reason, but it's also increasing faster than it's backing up!
What on earth is going on here?!
It may be worth mentioning that I originally tried doing this with approx 900GB of data to back up to the external 1TB disk, and a similar thing happened, but when I came back to check on that a couple of hours after it was due to complete, I came back to see an error message stating that Time Machine could not do the backup because it needed an additional 100mb of space. Just 100mb, that's all.
After that error, I removed approx 50GB, way more than 100mb, and got my data down to 850GB before starting this again. But the same thing is happening. The total amount just keeps on increasing and increasing and increasing as it progresses!
It's worth noting that I am not doing ANYTHING else on my Mac whilst this is running that would take up data / disk space. No apps are running at all.
Can anyone please tell me what's going on here, and more importantly, how can I fix it?
Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestions.
I am aware that you can turn Time Machine on and off completely via the preferences, but that basically defeats the purpose of having a "set and forget" backup. Especially since Time Machine specifically includes an option to not backup when on battery power.
I'll try the "full reset" option described in the link to see if that helps.

IMac freezes while Time Machine updates the back up. What to do?

Ever since I upgraded to Lion my iMac freezes or nearly freezes for 5 - 10 minutes every hour while Time Machine updates the back up. What to do?
I have tried everything I can think of but its only improved from total freeze while Time Machine backs up to freeze with an occasional few seconds of activity.
I am really fed up with this.

When I first updated to Lion everything was a mess with freezes happenng constantly like every two or three minutes. Then when looking at the app store I noticed in purchased items that Lion was showing install instead of installed so I downloaded and installed again.
After this install every time Time Machine updated a backup my iMac froze for about 5 or 10 minutes while the backing up was in progress. I was getting really fed up and started this thread. Then one morning I got up and the iMac would not start up. It just sat there with the progress thingy spinning. I started in T mode to look at it from my MacBookPro and two copies of the HD appeared. Both showing zero files. I ran Disk utility on the MacBookPro to try to fix the disk. It showed 8 copies of the disk and all not reparable.
I then created a startup USB drive using my MacBookPro, used it to start up the iMac and restored everything from the previous day's backup. Since then it has been running smoothly with no freezes so maybe the answer is simply to restore a recent backup.
I am using Imation external drives and I don't believe the problem is drive specific.

Time Machine Won't Back up Completely

When I insert an external drive, Time Machine does not back up my whole computer. It only backs up around 4 GBs. Any solutions/tips on why that is the case? It is a brand new hard drive

jcwong15 wrote:
Actually, the issue is my "Untitled" hard drive is on the excluded list.
I somehow thought it was normal to have the hard drive there, and anything else that isn't there should be deleted. I can't remove my hard drive from the excluded list though.
What happens when you try to remove it?
If it's listed in gray, and you can't remove it, that means it's not formatted for a Mac (any variant of Mac OS Extended) and Time Machine can't back it up.
If so, you must have an SSD with OSX on it (since OSX won't install or run on a drive like that).
Even so, the system folders (Applications, Library, and System) alone on your OSX drive should add-up to at least 14 GBs.
Let's see just what's what. Start the Disk Utility app (Applications/Utilities) and screenprint the display. For each partition (indented) with a gray icon, select it and screen print that, too. Then post them all here.

Time Machine won't back up OWC external drive

Mac Mini running 10.8.5. Time Machine will not back up brand new OWC MiniStack external HD. I've trashed TM prefs, reformatted the TM drive, verified that there are no exclusions, but it won't back up the external HD which contains only data files -- no system, no applications. TM does back up the internal HD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.
Recap: Time Machine would not back up an external data drive despite being correctly formatted and settings correctly applied.
Problem was either: a) the Mac, b) the external data drive, c) the Time Machine drive, or d) the data.
I replaced both the external data drive (cloned) and the Time Machine drive, but Time Machine would back up that external drive either.
Finally, instead of CLONING (SuperDuper) the external data drive, I COPIED the data to a new HD -- root folder-by-folder. Now Time Machine again backs up my external hard drive.
SOLUTION: Problem was not hard drives or Mac, but within the data itself. Cloning the data simply passed on the problem to the new hard drive. For this problem, the solution was copying the data rather than cloning.
Thanks all.

Will Time Machine identify a back up hard drive after main has been erased?

I went to the Genius Bar a couple of days ago and was told that in order to fix some of the problems I was having I should do a achieve and install (or maybe erase and install I can't remember.) Then use Time Machine to restore all the files on my computer except for the system and library folders (since there is a lot of stuff inside them that has been causing errors.)
My question is will Time Machine be able to identify my disk after the achieve and install? I looked at the Time Machine Backup from another start up disk and Time Machine just showed up blank. Is that what would happen if I wiped my drive? Or would that only happen if I completely erased the hard drive and not be an issue if I went with the achieve and install?

The Time Machine disk certainly shouldn't look blank - that could indicate a pro blem with your backups not running when you expect.
When you look at your Time Machine disk you should see a 'Backups.backupdb' dire ctory which contains subdirectories for each Time Machine snapshot.
If you don't see these then your Time Machine isn't backing up and you shouldn't re-install your machine :)
If you do see that, then you should be OK (as long as the subdirectories cover r ecent dates), in which case you can run the re-install - I'd go for a 'clean ins tall' and use the 'Copy my settings from a Time Machine backup' which is one of the options after the first boot.

Time Machine is not backing up...

Hi, I have a 27" iMac (mid-2011) and now Time Machine is not backing up. Actually I had turned it off, then forgot about it...so it was off for about 2 months. I read on some of these forums, when you do that...TIme Machine can be stuck in the "Preparing to Back up" phase for quite some time. To just let it go and it would be fine. But after several days, I have given up. It has not backed up in over a week now. Just spinning "Preparing to Back Up" only. Any suggestions what I should do? I have OS X Lion (10.7.3) and using a external HDD connected via USB (NOT Time Capsule).

Hi again Linc Davis,
I tried the "backupd" in the ALL MESSAGES under system log queries, and did manage to see:
18/3/12 8:48:31.277 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 66432 files (wired: 0 resident: 19957 swapped: 2 regions: 2037), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxxの iMac/2012-01-15-141532/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/[Gmail].mbox/All Mail.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/6/1/Messages/16497.4.emlxpa rt, exiting to clean up now.
18/3/12 8:53:20.761 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 40576 files (wired: 0 resident: 20389 swapped: 2 regions: 2011), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxx の iMac/2011-12-29-001513/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/Japan.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/1/1/1/Messages/111994.emlx , exiting to clean up now.
18/3/12 9:05:36.840 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 36480 files (wired: 0 resident: 19529 swapped: 2 regions: 2019), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxx の iMac/2012-01-13-001459/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/Sayang.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/1/3/1/Messages/131667.par tial.emlx, exiting to clean up now.
Does this help? Thanks again!

Time Machine only partially backing up

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