Time Machine-"preparing for EVER/backup"

i read an earlier post, saying that after mac crashes, its likely TM wants to do an initial backup again, and something in Console..
I hadnt crashed, only change was hadnt backed up in 2 weeks while traveling...so after coming home, my Time Capsule and Time Machine went to back up, and 4 hours of "preparing back up", it never backed up..And i guess my question is, why is the response from TM to want to do its initial backup as opposed to just backing up to whatever is new or had changed. Does this mean, after a day or two of not connecting with TimeCapsule or whatever External Drive I choose, that this will happen? As for now, how long would you say is a normal time, for the "preparing" to...prepare, and start to backup? And if its doing its initial, isnt it wanting to do everything, so there will be duplicates?
thank you for any help!!!

JGcalifornia wrote:
i read an earlier post, saying that after mac crashes, its likely TM wants to do an initial backup again, and something in Console..
If that's what it said, it was wrong. After a crash, TM can't be sure where everything was when "the lights went out", so it will likely do a "deep traversal", examining every file and folder on your system to see what needs to be backed-up. It will send explanatory messages to your logs. This process takes quite a while, of course, and much more with a Time Capsule, but TM won't do a full backup just because of a crash.
I hadnt crashed, only change was hadnt backed up in 2 weeks while traveling...so after coming home, my Time Capsule and Time Machine went to back up, and 4 hours of "preparing back up", it never backed up..And i guess my question is, why is the response from TM to want to do its initial backup as opposed to just backing up to whatever is new or had changed. Does this mean, after a day or two of not connecting with TimeCapsule or whatever External Drive I choose, that this will happen? As for now, how long would you say is a normal time, for the "preparing" to...prepare, and start to backup? And if its doing its initial, isnt it wanting to do everything, so there will be duplicates?
You have about three questions there.
First, TM will do a full, complete backup after certain hardware repairs, a full restore, or going several days without a backup. Just how many days is unclear, but it seems to be a combination of days and the volume of changes: 10 days seems safe, 2 weeks may not be.
And yes, this is another full backup of everything on your system. So it will take a very long time and a lot of disk space. Depending on how much space is available, you may want to erase the disk and let TM start over.
You say TM "never backed up" after the lengthy "preparing" phase. Did the backup fail, or did you cancel it?
If it failed, we need to look at the messages in your logs. Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the failed backup, then copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).

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Leopard applications all hang while Time Machine prepares for backup

I'm sure others have posted about this but I can't find a usable solution. I have the most recent version of Leopard, a 1TB external FireWire drive dedicated to Time Machine storage and about 400GB of backups on it. Every day at some point, Time Machine starts a backup, pauses while preparing, and the entire Mac grinds to a halt. New processes won't launch, open applications hang, Finder becomes unresponsive, menus and dock freeze in whatever position they were in at the point of launch, and I can't cancel the backup process.
The only solution is to turn off the backup drive while its running and wait for the Mac to wake up again (which it does in under a minute). I have no virus protection running. I have erased the drive and started fresh at least once to no avail.
Since I am effectively breaking a live connection every time I turn the drive off without unmounting it first (an obvious no-no), the data has great potential to be getting more and more screwed up. What can I do?

Message logs:
October 12, 2009, 1:43:25 AM
Volume at path /Volumes/Racer BU does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Backup failed with error: 18
October 12, 2009, 11:32:32 AM
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Racer X
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 984.2 MB requested (including padding), 443.72 GB available
Copied 21948 files (368.1 MB) from volume Racer X.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 548.2 MB requested (including padding), 443.35 GB available
Copied 961 files (965 KB) from volume Racer X.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-215828: 443.35 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-205855: 443.36 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-195856: 443.40 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-185908: 443.46 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-175907: 443.51 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
October 12, 2009, 12:18:32 PM
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 954.4 MB requested (including padding), 443.51 GB available
Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
Copied 16717 files (339.6 MB) from volume Racer X.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 569.5 MB requested (including padding), 443.17 GB available
Copied 634 files (18.7 MB) from volume Racer X.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-225832: 443.24 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-165828: 443.25 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-155855: 443.30 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-145857: 443.36 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-135852: 443.38 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
October 12, 2009, 4:46:51 PM
Starting standard backup
Volume at path /Volumes/Racer BU does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Backup failed with error: 18
etc...
The long periods between backups are when it is "preparing for backup" and nothing is happening. Sometimes this is while I'm not using it and the machine is asleep.

No sound while time machine prepares for backup

something strange happen to my OS. yesterday i updated to 10.5.2, and now, while time-machine started to prepare it's backup, i tried to listen to a mp3 song.
no sound came. in the system preferences, suddenly i don't have any sound input or output devices.
i have a powerbook g4, 1.87 ghz, 1.5 RAM.
what is going on here???.

something strange happen to my OS. yesterday i updated to 10.5.2, and now, while time-machine started to prepare it's backup, i tried to listen to a mp3 song.
no sound came. in the system preferences, suddenly i don't have any sound input or output devices.
i have a powerbook g4, 1.87 ghz, 1.5 RAM.
what is going on here???.

MY POSSIBLE FIX for Time Machine preparing for ages every hour

Like many others, i have had problems with Time Machines backups - ever since upgrading to 10.5.2. Every hour it would say 'preparing' for ages, and then, when it did finally backup, the data transfer was incredibly slow. Not to mention the amount of cpu usage it was using during the preparing status!
I have no idea if this is a FIX, or if i was just lucky, but Time Machine now works as it should, i.e. it backs-up seamlessly.
Anyway, this is what i did: booted from my Tiger disc (yes, even though i have Leopard) and went into its 'disc utility', from there i selected 'repair permissions'. Once the Tiger disc had completed repairing the permissions, i quit out of it and restarted my MacBook normally, i.e. not from the Tiger disc. When it had finished restarting, i went to disc utility and selected 'repair permissions'.
Ever since, TM has been just perfect. Coincidence? - i honestly do not know.
By the way, i don't know if repairing the permissions from within Leopard did anything or not, but this is the sequence i used. Plus also, it might be good to note that i had repaired permissions many a time, but with no success in fixing TM, but once doing it from the Tiger disc it fixed TM.
I hope it helps someone, because i know just how annoying it was when TM was not working correctly!

I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, which is why i believe i have had trouble.
What is 'A&I or E&I'?

Time Machine preparing for over 19 hours ??

Is this exceptionally long? There has not been a backup of the laptop (to the Time Capsule) for about 3 months. I have installed the monitoring widget for time machine and this shows that it is doing the full scan - but come on surely nearly a day preparing is too much. I have the laptop connected directly to the time capsule via ethernet.
Piers

pierslofi wrote:
Is this exceptionally long?
Yes. It's clearly stuck.
There has not been a backup of the laptop (to the Time Capsule) for about 3 months.
After that long, TM will almost certainly do a full backup. So if your TC isn't considerably more than twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet will be to erase it and let TM start fresh.
Also, try all the things in item #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Using a single external drive for both Time Machine AND for manual backups?

I'm new to Leopard and haven't launched Time Machine yet. I would like to use a single (500 GB) external hard drive to use with Time Machine, plus I would like to use whatever portion of this external drive Time Machine isn't using to keep some other files upon it as well--things that I can drag-and-drop manually and then trash from my computer's HD (avi files, etc., so that they don't take up space on the computer). Is there anything special I need to do with the external hard drive before I let Time Machine have its way with it, so that I can also do drag-and-drop manual file backups with it?

I’m not terribly knowledgeable, but I’ll tell you what seems to be working for me.
I also have a 500GB external drive which I had planned to use for TM for my MBP. I partitioned it (using Disk Utility) into two partitions. One I created nearly the same size as my MBP drive, the other I used for TM.
I used the smaller partition for a backup using SuperDuper prior to upgrading from Tiger to Leopard. Once I tested that I was able to boot from it and that all my programs seemed to work, I upgraded to Leopard and told it to use the other partition for TM.
It then created a TM icon for the other partition and, to the machine, it looks like a separate drive. I’ve seen no performance hit at all.
Just one man’s experience, though I haven’t yet tried to retrieve anything.
Good luck.

Time Machine Preparing for ages

I know this has come up a lot, but there seem to be so many possibilities, I thought I'd post some data from Time Machine Buddy.
Basically it had all been working great, but seems to have gone AWOL recently. Its still saying preparing just now in my latest attempt. (To be fair, hasn't been that long), but I'd been getting some error messages about not being able to mount etc.
And that appears in the TMB report so far :
Starting standard backup
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Iain%[email protected]/Time%20Capsule
Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/Time Capsule
Failed to mount disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/Iain MacDonald’s MacBook Pro_002332b100e6.sparsebundle (DIHLDiskImageAttach returned: 60)
Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Time Capsule (FSVolumeRefNum: -101; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
Backup destination alias resolved to path: /Volumes/Time Capsule
Any clues as to what my next steps should be would be much appreciated.
Many thanks.
Message was edited by: Iain MacDonald1

I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, which is why i believe i have had trouble.
What is 'A&I or E&I'?

Time Machine - Preparing backup - It's endless

My C2D Mac Mini is hanging on Time Machine - Preparing Backup for the second time since "Upgrading" to 10.5.2
I had to re-format my backup disk last time and start all the backups again.
Here is an extract from the console log:
29/04/2008 23:50:13 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1094] Starting standard backup
29/04/2008 23:50:13 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1094] Backing up to: /Volumes/LaCie Disk/Backups.backupdb
29/04/2008 23:50:15 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1094] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
29/04/2008 23:50:15 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1094] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
Does anyone recognise this? I'm a Mac novice so I don't understand what it all means. I hope I don't have to reformat and start again as I was converted to Mac from PC on the advice that "A Mac Works!"
My backup drive is a 500GB Lacie Mini if that is of any relevance. Spotlight is told not to index the drive and also the Lacie drive is told not to back itself up.
Can anyone help as it's driving me nuts!

Are Lacie really that bad? I thought that the main reason they are mentioned in these forums is that Lacie are one of the only brands of external storage that apple actively promote through their own web stores so there a good chance that quite a few Mac users will buy one. Anyway I can't afford to buy another Hard Drive at the moment and the lacie works perfectly apart from Time Machine.
The problem seems to be with Mac OS the more I delve into these forums and more importantly the 10.5.2. update which is where Time Machine appears to be providing users with a lot of troubles.
The Apple support self service on the website is far from comprehensive as I guess they want you to purchase Apple Care for ongoing support after the 90 days initial period but come on apple give us a break and sort it out or provide a support email address for specific problems!

Time Machine deleted my first backup to make space for a new one, is there anyway to recover it?!?!

So I had all my stuff backed up to December 23 on an external hard drive with Time Machine, then I deleted it all so that the next automatic backup didn't have any of these older files. Today Time Machine deleted my original backup to make space for a new one and so I lost Decemer 23, now I am screwed..HELP?? I accidently let it delete or something, I don't really know, I know this was just a series of mistakes and now I'm desparate ):

Have a look at this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 and section "backup drive fills up".
It's a normal behavior that Time Machine is deleting oldest backups when drive is filling up.

Library Update rqstd on Aperture 3.2; now won't open get msg "error opening data base for the library "~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary" TIme machine won't load backup "error code -8003"

Aperture working on OS 10.6.8 then Library Update rqstd on Aperture 3.2; said yes;
now Aperture won't open, get msg "error opening data base for the library "~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary"
TIme machine won't load backup "error code -8003"
Tried reloading Aperture 3.2 but get same result.

You’re running an outdated copy of Safari on your Desktop. That won’t work.
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Applications
from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-A to open the Applications folder. Check that the Safari application is in that folder. If it is, use it, and delete the copy on your Desktop. Never move or copy built-in applications.
If you've deleted Safari from the Applications folder, back up all data, then reinstall OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.

Hallo. My time machine cant do the backup. It cant make the folder for the safety-backup. How do I solve this?

Hallo. My time machine cant do the backup. It cant make the folder for the safety-backup. How do I solve this?

Have a look at Pondini's Time Machine information pages: http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Brand new iMac 23.GHz Intel Core i5. Mounts external drive for time machine, then dismounts after backup is complete.

brand new iMac 23.GHz Intel Core i5. Mounts external drive for time machine, then dismounts after backup is complete.

The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.
If you bought the product in the U.S. directly from Apple (not from a reseller), you have 14 days from the date of delivery in which to exchange or return it for a refund. In other countries, the return policy may be different. If you bought from a reseller, its return policy applies.

I just bought and backed up my computer and time machine with a "Seagate BackUp Plus for Mac". Now my time machine is empty. Panicked. can anyone help?

I just bought and backed up my computer and time machine with a "Seagate BackUp Plus for Mac". Now my time machine is empty. Panicked. can anyone help?

Lets start over...
Please restart the network.. shut down everything..
Restart in order.. modem.. router.. if different to TC.. or TC.. client devices.. wait 2min between each startup.
If the TC does not show up on the computer, in finder.. then we need more info.. what OS are you running?
Does the TC show up in Airport utility? Are you running wireless or ethernet?
If you still have issues.. plug the TC directly into the computer by ethernet.
Do a full factory reset of the TC.. and see if it now shows up.
Please tell us exactly what model TC it is and how old.. the A1xxx model number from the base will help if you don't know.
You take a screen shot of the TC opened in finder.
eg..
My TC is named Tardis4.. click on it.. and then open the data folder.. on this one called Tardisdata.
Then take a screen shot of it so we can see what the problem is.. screenshot.. with area selection.. control + shift + 4 .. the picture goes into the desktop.. and then you click the picture icon in the posting web page controls and select the picture.

I tried to install a new hard drive using Snow Leopard to back up with Time Machine. When I installed the new HD I installed Leopard (10.5) on it and tried to use time machine to restore the backup I had made using 10.6. Kernel panic screen occurred.

I backed up my system using 10.6 Snow Leopard's Time Machine to an external hard drive. I did this because I purchased a new internal hard drive to upgrade my 2007 White Macbook from 80GB to 320GB. When I installed the new hard drive, I installed 10.4 (Tiger) and then 10.5 (Leopard) and once Leopard was in I tried to use Time Machine to restore my backup from 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and received a kernal panic screen directly after the bootup.
The screen had code asking for 10.6, so does this mean that the computer is searching for Snow Leopard? If so, how can I do this? Will a bootable drive with Snow Leopard on it be able to solve the issue or will I somehow need to find a way to wipe out this new hard drive?
-Steve

Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.

Time Machine doesn't make backups

Hi,
I have problems with Time Machine. I deleted by error the backup file in Time Capsule, but now Time Machine doesn't create a new one, simply it doesn't work. External disks are recognized (Time Capsule or USB disk) but it doesn't make backups, only appears the "preparing" for one or two seconds and then nothing. It's the same if I try to make backups on a external USB disk.
I can not enter to Time Machine to see the backups.
Looking at "Console" for the last logs there many crash reported, for example:
18/02/09 11:59:26 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3053] Backup requested by user
18/02/09 11:59:26 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3053] Starting standard backup
18/02/09 11:59:27 ReportCrash[3054] Formulating crash report for process backupd[3053]
18/02/09 11:59:28 com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd[3053]) Exited abnormally: Trace/BPT trap
18/02/09 11:59:28 ReportCrash[3054] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/backupd2009-02-18-115926GK.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
Any one with a similar problem???
Is it possible to reset Time Machine in order to restart the backups?
I bought Time Capsule and I can't use Time Machine!!!!
Thanks.

magali mistral wrote:
Hello!
Thanks for your message. The Time Machine Buddy widget was helpful. Although I couldn't mark the text, copy and insert it here.
You should be able to highlight them by dragging your mouse over them, then cmd-C to copy to the clipboard, then cmd-V to copy it here.
Event store UUID don't match for Volume: Macintosh HD
This means TM isn't sure whether the last changes to your internal HD got logged to OSX's File System Event Store, a log of all changes that TM can normally use to see what needs to be backed-up. Most commonly caused by an abnormal shutdown.
Node requires deep traversal:/
Reason: kFSEDBE even FlagMustScanSubDrs /kFSEDBE vent Flag Reason Deep Backup/
Since it can't trust the Event Store, this means it has to examine every file and folder on your HD. Quite a lengthy procedure, of course.
Then it said - I didn't copy that - something like "thinning out" isn't necessary because there was still 368 GB or so space left - 7 GB were backed up - but it did "thin out" some outdated file afterall, whatever that is - hope it didn't delete something I wanted to keep.
All normal. TM automatically deletes it's hourly backups after 24 hours, except the first of the day, which is called a Daily backup. That is kept for a month, when a similar process converts the first of a week into a Weekly backup, and deletes the others.
Only when the disk is near full (TM does need some workspace) will you see deletion of one or more of the oldest weeklies, instead of the first message.
Then the next problem started. It wasn't possible to eject the external drive. I waited for quite some time but each time tried to eject it, a window opened saying that it was still in use and could not be ejected. Although it had defenitely finished doing the backup and the next one was to be done about half an hour later.
Is there anything else on your external drive, besides TM backups? Could you have been looking at it via the Finder, when you tried to eject it?
Try this: de-select the drive (chose the "none" icon) in TM's preferences, then quit System Preferences. Then go back and re-select it. Sometimes this resets TM's lock on the drive.
If not, and it happens again, try turning TM off, then ejecting the TM drive. You shouldn't have to do this -- TM is supposed to let you eject it, then automatically do another backup whenever you re-connect it.
Now that you have a good full backup, just keep an eye on it. Your incremental backups should be very, very quick under normal circumstances.
There are a few things that may cause long backups, such as an abnormal shutdown, certain hardware repairs, not letting TM back up for several days (seems to be about 10, some say), and the use of certain apps. File Vault, Entourage, vmWare, running Windoze are a few. If you do see long backups, post the messages here in a new thread.

Time Machine-"preparing for EVER/backup"

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