Time machine refuses to backup any more

Been using time machine for a long time now. Backing up 100GB or so to a 300GB external disk for the past few months. The disk in question is used exclusively for time machine.
This morning I get this error:
time machine error this backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 11.7 GB but only 3.4 GB are available.
This is correct, but I thought the whole point was that time machine will just delete previous backups.
Do I have any option other than to re-format the disk, thus losing ALL previous backups?

Do you have the +Warn when old backups are deleted+ box in TM Preferences > Options checked?
If so, un-check it, and TM will begin deleting old backups when it needs room for new ones.
If not, TM may have started a new "sequence" of backups, as if you'd gotten a new Mac. This can leave the old backups "stranded," since TM on one Mac won't delete the backups from (what it thinks is) a different Mac.
Have you done any of the following lately: Had certain hardware repairs, especially a new internal HD or logic board; done a full restore; changed your computer's name via System Preferences > Sharing?

Similar Messages

Time Machine won't do any more backups

I've had TC for about a month now and it was working well and reliably once I installed all the firmware/time machine updates on my Macbook Pro. Now however, TM is unable to complete any backups, even leaving it over night. For two days now I've come back to my machine in the morning to see it "almost" done. This morning it was 570.2 MB/837.2 MB and not moving. TC reports the last backup was 3 days ago (April 1).
Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?
Many thanks.

So this is probably a bug in TC but it worked for me. After scouring this forum for ideas I saw someone had suggested manually changing the 802.11 a/b/g compatibilty channel from "Automatic" to <something>, I chose channel 10 (randomly). Anyway, after doing that my wireless backups seem to work regularly and reliably.
I guess I answered myself

Time Machine refuses to backup

First off, hello .
Second, I'm about to explode. This problem has been irritating me for the past 6 months.
The problem: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume."
My Attempted Solutions (in order...kind of)
1. Erased and reformatted the disk - fail
2. Erased the disk and formatted it as MS-DOS (FAT) and then had the Time Machine application format it for me - fail...
3. Deleted everything to do with Time Machine except the application and re-configured it - fail :/
4. Verified the hard drive (it passed) then tried again - fail -_-'
5. Repaired disk permissions and verified the start up disk and then tried again - fail >.<
6. Rebooted my computer and attempted it again - fail >:(
7. Erased Time Machine completly from my computer and transferred it from another mac via flash drive - fail >:O
8. Yelled at the computer and the hard drive for a couple of minutes - fail
I have no idea what to do. I've been using an alternate backup application, but it will never compare to Time Machine. This is a good little hard drive that I picked up at a store for 20 bucks and I've never had problems with it. I've owned and used macs since the late 90's. I've never had any problems until now. I know there's a solution to this in which a certain file or files can cause the backup to fail. I absolutely cannot remove any of the files I'm backing up. I refuse to re-install my OS. I have to have 24/7 access to Logic 9 . Please help me out.
System and drive info:
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac9,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          2
L2 Cache:          6 MB
Memory:          4 GB
Bus Speed:          1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:          IM91.008D.B08
SMC Version (system):          1.44f0
WDC WD80 0JD-22MSA1 Media (80 GB) (External, via usb)
Thanks in advance!

Thanks, but that didn't seem to do the trick. Time Machine seems to be getting stuck on .wav files. The problem is, I have countless wav files on my computer that are part of Logic, Ableton Live, sample libaries, viynl conversions, and so on and so forth. They must be backed up. I find the solution to exclude these files from the backup extremely pointless consdiering the fact that I need them. Any other suggestions? Anyone else have any tricks? I hope this is fixed eventually; I don't want to upgrade to Lion for various reasons nor do I want to upgrage for something this simple and something that should've been fixed and polished before the OS was released.

Time Machine - Refusing to Backup!!

Hi All,
Really losing my patience with Time Machine now!!
After having issues with my old external hard drive and it failing to complete the very first initial backup (it stopped at 1.44 GB every time and an error popped up) I visited the Genius Bar who advised me I needed a new hard drive and it sounded like the hard drive was damaged.
Today I exchanged my hard drive for another, and guess what! The same problem occurs with this new one. I phoned Apple support and he refused to help me any further unless I pay!! I don't really want to drive 30 miles back to the store to get it fixed either!
I've tried all the support on the website and can't find a solution to my problem here either...
Please help!

Hmmm. Your forum config says you are running Tiger. You need Leopard to have Time Machine.
Did you partition the hard drive using GUID and then format it Mac OS Extended (Journaled?) Did you look in the console.log file for any related messages that might indicate what the problem was? Use the Console application in the Utilities folder. It would also be useful to tell us what the error message was.

Time Machine won't backup ANY files though no error is given

I have a MacBookPro with Mountain Lion which I bought last November. For several months Time Machine worked fine. Then, about a month ago, it stopped writing anything to the External USB Disk I was using but DID continue to create local "snapshots". I have tried all sorts of solutions, read a bazillion forum posts (including Pondini, etc.). There are no exclusions. I even got a new USB drive and tried that. Nothing. The log shows no errors.
I finally turned of TM, removed the preferencs file, reformatted the external disk, rebooted and tried again. Nothing. TM says there is nothing to back up, or more accurately says:
5/15/13 10:45:26.482 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Starting manual backup
5/15/13 10:45:26.499 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Backing up to: /Volumes/GORT Backup/Backups.backupdb
5/15/13 10:45:26.521 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
5/15/13 10:45:26.712 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: D529F94C-4C76-364B-972D-62E8137770E2 eventDBUUID: E69B6460-6ACB-4C50-906F-91D8202C8608)
5/15/13 10:45:52.813 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Backup content size: 203.7 GB excluded items size: 13.42 GB for volume Macintosh HD
5/15/13 10:45:52.815 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Found 1419395 files (190.28 GB) needing backup
5/15/13 10:45:52.816 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: 228.34 GB required (including padding), 999.16 GB available
5/15/13 10:45:52.826 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
5/15/13 10:45:54.917 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Copied 1 files (Zero KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
5/15/13 10:45:54.986 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Created new backup: 2013-05-15-104554
5/15/13 10:45:55.145 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Copying OS X Recovery set
5/15/13 10:46:10.336 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Starting post-backup thinning
5/15/13 10:46:10.336 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
5/15/13 10:46:10.395 AM com.apple.backupd[32]: Backup completed successfully.
So it seems like it THOUGHT there was something to back up then changed its mind? An advice is welcome.

Thanks Linc. Here you go:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
          <key>sourcePaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/</string>
          </array>
          <key>standardExclusionPaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups</string>
                    <string>/MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/.TemporaryItems</string>
                    <string>/.Trashes</string>
                    <string>/.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist</string>
                    <string>/.fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
                    <string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DB</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DF</string>
                    <string>/Network/Servers</string>
                    <string>/Library/Updates</string>
                    <string>/Previous Systems</string>
                    <string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
                    <string>/Users/Guest</string>
                    <string>/dev</string>
                    <string>/home</string>
                    <string>/net</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/com.apple.backupd.backupVerification</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/efw_cache</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/private/var/lib/postfix/greylist.db</string>
                    <string>/Volumes</string>
                    <string>/Network</string>
                    <string>/automount</string>
                    <string>/.vol</string>
                    <string>/tmp</string>
                    <string>/cores</string>
                    <string>/private/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/Network</string>
                    <string>/private/tftpboot</string>
                    <string>/private/var/automount</string>
                    <string>/private/var/folders</string>
                    <string>/private/var/run</string>
                    <string>/private/var/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/var/vm</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/Library/Logs</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
                    <string>/private/var/log</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/cups</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/fax</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/uucp</string>
          </array>
          <key>systemFilesExcluded</key>
          <false/>
          <key>userExclusionPaths</key>
          <array/>
</dict>
</plist>

Time Machine: Can I backup to more than 1 external hard drive?

would anyone know about this: i have a TM at home in boston which i use when i am there; however, now i am in taiwan where i will have a second TM to use here: apart from naming the two TMs differently on the laptop (macbookpro, tiger), is there anything i should look out for? with many thanks, steven totosy

Other users have successfully backed up their Mac to more than one Time Machine drive. As you stated, name them differently. You also need to switch TM drives, but that's only once after you've arrived at your new location. Note that after extended absences, TM may not want to continue with a backup and force you to create a new backup. I don't recall how much time has passed, but someone has stated 10 days, but I cannot confirm that.

Can Time Machine perform encrypted backups for more than one computer to the same external drive?

I have two MBPs. The older MBP, with 1TB of storage, now contains two other MBP clones, for a total of 3 user machines on 1 MBP). I'd like to back up both my newest MBP, and the older MBP with the 2 clones, to my new 5TB drive (via wi-fi). I want to encrypt these backups, but am unclear whether it is possible. Does TM first encrypt the drive itself, or is each back up separately encrypted? I understand that if I wanted to encrypt an existing Time Matters backup on a drive, the prior data would be erased and reformatted, but here I am working with a new backup drive, on which one encrypted backup has been performed.
I just don't want to overwrite this existing backup (which was for my newest MBP).
Thanks for whatever help anyone can provide.

You should have prepared the drive better..
The drive should have been partitioned. It is possible to load the backups.. but you can get into trouble.
See http://pondini.org/TM/4.html
Since partitioning at this point would destroy the existing backup.. the best way is to setup a disk image for each of the other Macbook backups and then mount the disk image and use that for the TM backup..
Encrypting the drive or the backup.. that is something I avoid.. backups to me are useless if I forget or lose the key.. apple have warned lose the key.. the backup is useless..
But check pondini FAQ .. you might be able to encrypt a drive image.. or the backup.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
See Q25 and 31.

Time Machine does not backup home/user directory (on separate drive)

I recently installed a SSD into my Mini. Due to size restrictions, my home/user directory has to be kept on another drive. I retained the stock 1TB drive that came with the Mini for this.
Ok, installed the SSD, restored a Time Machine backups (sans user data). Used a different admin user and configured my user to use the 1TB drive for it's home directory (/Volumes/1TB/home/<user>). Restart, log in as my user, all is good. All data, settings, etc is there. Everything looks normal.
Time Machine REFUSES to backup this directory. It will backup the 1TB drive and anyting else I create in it, but not the home directory. I tried every permission trick I could think of or found online. I even tested it further by formatting the 1TB drive fresh, adding a new user, configuring the user to use the 1TB for their home directory and it still won't back it up (this was a test of permissions the OS set, to make sure I didn't change my data perms somewhere along the way). Time Machine would not backup the new user's home directory on the 1TB drive.
Any thoughts? I can't be the first person to have their home directory on a non-OS drive.
If I were to create a folder/file in /Volumes/1TB/<test file> ... Time Machine gets it perfect. It just will NOT touch /Volumes/1TB/home/<anything here>
Thanks!

Open the Time Machine preference pane and unlock the settings, if necessary. Click the Options button. If there is one particular folder with items that are not being backed up reliably, add it to the list of excluded items. If there are many such folders, add your home folder to the list, or add a whole volume (i.e., what Apple calls a "disk.") Save the changes.
Start a backup, or wait for one to happen automatically. When it's done, open the preference pane again and remove the exclusion(s) you made earlier. Back up again and see whether there's a change.

Time Machine stopped doing backups

All of a sudden, Time Machine won't do any more backups. I'm not getting any error messages or anything like that - it's just not backing up automatically. My last backup was OVER an hour ago. I can do a 'Back Up Now' manually, and it will work. But the *automatic* backups simply will not happen. Why is it doing this, and how can I fix it?
Yes, I've read that Pondini thing, but nowhere in it does it mention what to do if TM just decides not to automatically back up anymore.

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out these instructions.
Launch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the icon grid.
Triple-click the line below to select it, then drag or copy into the Terminal window — do not type — and press return:
sudo launchctl list | grep backupd
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command.
Post any lines of output that appear below what you entered — the text, please, not a screenshot.

Doesn't Time Machine delete old backups when it needs more space?

I've had time machine running for a long time now. It worked flawlessly for quite some time.
Today it gave me the error that there was not enough free space on the disk to complete the backup (the error message says something like there is 360 GB of data on the Time Machine drive already, 140 GB of free space and it would require more than that to complete my backup). I have a 500 GB Time Machine disk and my Mac has a 500 GB hard drive, so I should technically never run out of space.
The Time Machine almost acts like this is the first time I've ever backed up, which is not true. Shouldn't Time Machine delete old backups to make space for the new? What's even weirder is that if I open the "Star Wars" window of Time Machine I only see one backup from March 31, 2011, but I have been running Time Machine for well over a year now. I'm totally confused as to what happened. Any advice on how to get my Time Machine back up and running (without buying a new drive) would help!

You see only one backup in the Time Machine window because Time Machine has deleted the older backups to make space to do the current backup.
Time machine needs some working space to do its backups, and so backing up a 500GB drive onto a 500GB time machine volume is not ideal.
However, I do essentially the same thing, and what I do, when I have this problem, is exclude things from the backup.
First off, figure out what you changed. If you moved things from one partition to another, then that will cause a backup of the size of the thing that was moved. This may be why you have a large backup.
When I have this problem, I exclude large things that have changed recently from the backup. This makes the backup smaller, and means that there is less working space needed. I do this until I get a successful backup. Then I remove things, one by one, from the exclusion list, and back up after each one.
So, for instance if you just put 4 new folders on your drive, each of which s 20GB of data and they are named A, B, C and D, add all four to the exclusion list, do a backup, then remove A from the exclusion list (leaving B, C & D on it) and do a backup, and continue like this, adding 20GB of backup data each time until none of the new data is on the exclusion list and you get a completed backup.
Another possible issue, if you use multiple partitions, is that Time Machine may be keeping an obsolete backup of a partition that you previously reformatted. To see if this is the case, go into time machine (The universe interface) and go back to the most recent backup it shows. Click on your computer and see what partitions show up-- are any of them old ones that have been reformatted and renamed? You may be storing a duplicate backup because Time Machine does not realize that the disk that went away isn't coming back (because it has been reformatted as a different partition)
You can right-click on these items and remove them from your backup by sleecting "Delete all backups of...." This will free up space as well.

Time machine makes 30 backups for the last two days, no backups for any earlier times: is there a way to control it?

I've been running Time Machine in the background for as long as I've owned my current Mac--- a few months. It is a completely generic set-up: it's a desktop (rarely shut off or asleep) connected to an external hard drive that is much larger (1 TB) than my internal hard drive (0.5 TB), and Time Machine is configured to save backups of my whole internal drive to the external drive. The external is half-full, and the internal is a little more than half-full. I often hear my external crunching away, working on something.
I recently needed to access an old file, so I went into Time Machine mode on the folder where it had been deleted a few weeks ago. While I'm not upset that it isn't available (it's my own fault for deleting it), I didn't expect the Time Machine to have such a bad distribution of saved backups. There are 30 backup snapshots of the past two days, and nothing earlier. I was expecting something more like a few from today, a few from this week, a few from this month, and a few going all the way back in time--- a broader distribution.
I don't see any way to control this in the Time Machine Preferences (in fact, very little control at all). Is there a secret way to control it, or some tip to ensure a more useful distribution of saved snapshots?
Thanks,
-- Jim

Thanks, but it doesn't exactly address my question. TimeMachineEditor allows me to set the intervals or times when backups occur, but it doesn't control the algorithm that decides which snapshots should be deleted. My problem was that Time Machine chose to delete all of the old snapshots and keep only the most recent ones: I'd like it to keep more of the recent ones than the old ones, but still keep some old ones.
In fact, the (unmodifyable) text on the Time Machine control panel says that it keeps:
hourly backups for the past 24 hours
daily backups for the past month
weekly backups for all previous months
That would be perfect if it were true.
Perhaps the algorithm did the wrong thing because the size of my internal hard drive varied quite a lot a few days ago: a process got out of control and used up all of my internal disk space. I killed the process and deleted its output (several times), so my internal disk eventually went back down to normal. Perhaps in the intervening hours, Time Machine made a backup, once an hour, and used up all of the external drive space. When it had to choose between keeping "weekly backups of previous months" and "hourly backups of the past 24 hours", it chose to keep hourly backups of the past 24 hours. This was the wrong choice in my case (it was the unwanted output) and is probably the wrong choice in most cases.
Is there a way to control the algorithm that decides which backups to keep and which to delete? I would have it delete the hourly, daily, and weekly backups in a way that preserves their relative distribution.
By the way, while I have made it sound like my problem was a runaway log file (something that would be easy to put in an excluded directory with Time Machine's "Options" button), it was a VirtualBox snapshot merge. The data in question are precious, but were unnecessarily copied many times while VirtualBox failed to merge them properly. I can't simply exclude a directory: I'm talking about a more general problem.
Thanks!
-- Jim

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?

I use Time Machine with an external hard disc which has worked perfectly for some years. Recently Time Machine has aborted backups if the screen saver starts when back-up is in progress. I use a Maxtor OneTouch4 back-up system. Any ideas?
Has Apple recently up-dated my OS (Lion) such that every time the screen saver starts it disables Time Machine. I have to switch-off the computer and re-start in order to undertake a back-up. I have now switched of all screen savers.

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 this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. 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:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
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 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(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

If i do a backup on 10.5.8 on time machine will there be any problems if I have to restore from an older OS?

Running 10.5.8 on my iMac - aiming to upgrade first to 10.6.3 and then to Lion. if i do a backup on 10.5.8 on time machine will there be any problems if I have to restore once I get to Lion?

I think a bootable clone is a far better/safer way to go.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

Time Machine fails to backup home space.

Summary:
I've been having problems with Time Machine since I enabled it. For some reason it refuses to backup any file in my account (/Users/ritchiem/). I have spoken with the an Apple 'Genius' and they were dumb founded. So I ask here in the hope that someone has had this issue occur and know what the cause is and how to fix it. I'm not really looking for work-arounds, though I will cover that later.
*Problem Description:*
A new 500GB external drive was erased and formatted HFS+ Journaled.
TimeMachine was then opened and enabled on this drive.
Back Up Now was selected and left to run assuming it would take a while on the 500Gb internal drive that had a around 200Gi-250Gi of used.
It ran successfully.
When entering TimeMachine, history shows the top level drive and navigating down the Users folder shows only my 'test' user account. My user account 'ritchiem' is not listed.
There was no error presented from Time Machine an the System Preferences panel reported it was successful.
Console.logs shows that backup was performed successfully.
Steps already taken to address issue:
I have verified/repaired permissions on my boot drive, a few files were changed but none in /Users/ritchiem
I have deleted the Time Machine preferences: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
I have tried a second external hard drive, in this case it was more interesting:
It was reported as being to small to perform the backup. So I added some exclusions such as my large iTunes library.
This allowed the Time Machine to proceed but again there was no backup performed of any file in home space.
This is where I thought I must be doing something wrong and went to the Apple Store the genius tried all the usual suspects, permissions, preferences. But no success.
It was only then that one of his colleagues picked up on discussion that it was only my user that was being skipped and suggested the risky move of renaming my user. He showed me the 'Advanced' panel in the Account System Preferences. (I never realised you could use a nice gui to do the renaming of a user in all the right Apple places.)
So I swapped users and renamed my account, and moved my home space to a new user name. mv /Users/ritchiem /Users/martin
I then logged back in to my account to verify the rename all worked and it had.
_*Time Machine now worked!*_
HOWEVER, that is a total hack. I use the username 'ritchiem' all across my local network and it was not recommended to have a user ritchiem but a home space in /Users/martin.
I renamed my account back to 'ritchiem' and Time Machine again is blocking backups of /Users/ritchiem
Somewhere on my drive there MUST be an exclusion that is preventing the first user that I created on my 2008 MacBook from being backed up. So far my grep-ing of the filesystem for 'ritchiem' has not shown any likely suspects. If anyone here knows where the mystic plist/file is that I need to zap then that would be great.
If of course you have another work-around that does not require me to rename either my account or my home space then that would be great.
Oh and I also tried to trick TimeMachine by creating a symbolic link in /Users to my home space (ln -s /Users/ritchiem /Users/martin). It resolves the link and refuses to backup the contents of my home space just as before.
Please remember here that in all backups that Time Machine performed there was no error, console.log and the UI all report success.
Now if I had a new blank machine and some time I could test out the theory that it is always the first user of a freshly installed machine. However, if other people have it working then it is perhaps not that simple.
TIA
Martin

Thank you for all your advice and suggestions. Apologies for the delay I had difficulty locating my original install DVDs.
Summary
I have performed all the steps and checked items as requested however backups are still not including my home space (/Users/ritchiem)
What I do find interesting is the output of the TimeMachine backup log (at the very end of this VERY long post) which states that 84.8 GB should be backed up but only 24.3 GB is actually backed up.
Would love to know why TM decided 60.5GB of data should not be backed up but not explained in any of the log files and a successful backup reported.
Before I go on to the details of what i've done, I should also mention in case it is important that I have of course been logged in with my user (ritchiem) whilst performing all of these backups. I assume that is normal and that you shouldn't have to log out for TM to actually backup your data. To verify this previously I have logged out user ritchiem and logged in as a test account. The path /Users/ritchiem still failed to backup. I have not tried this recently, however, I would be really surprised if you had to log out of your user account for the data to be backed up.
Detail
So to answer V.K. first: My drive did indeed have some items that it said I should repair. Hence the search for the install DVDs. I ran the Disk Utility from the Leopard installer and it repaired the drive. The verify now runs green.
As I had just rebooted the machine and it was all fresh I repeated Pondini's previous steps as well.
* Disabled TM
* Exited System Preferences
* Deleted /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
I then also deleted the Backups.backupdb from my external drive so everything was fresh and new. I would have just formatted it (which would have been waaay faster, but I have some copies as backups on there for now.)
I started the TM prefs panel and added a few items to the disabled list to a) speed up the backup but also b) I have a 320g internal drive and only a 250g external. My total disk usage is 288 which won't fit, especially with the breathing space TM likes to have.
Here is the data from console.log from the first two backup runs:
*The first automated run that occured whilst I was still disabling items*
Jul 9 00:05:28 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup requested due to disk attach
Jul 9 00:05:28 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Starting standard backup
Jul 9 00:05:28 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Red-5/Backups.backupdb
Jul 9 00:05:52 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: ramaII
Jul 9 00:05:53 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup content size: 288.2 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume ramaII
Jul 9 00:05:53 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 347.15 GB requested (including padding), 134.18 GB available
Jul 9 00:05:53 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jul 9 00:05:53 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Jul 9 00:05:53 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup Failed: unable to free 347.15 GB needed space
Jul 9 00:05:59 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
*The second much smaller backup run*
Jul 9 00:06:29 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup requested by user
Jul 9 00:06:29 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Starting standard backup
Jul 9 00:06:31 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Red-5/Backups.backupdb
Jul 9 00:06:32 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: ramaII
Jul 9 00:15:57 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup content size: 288.2 GB excluded items size: 203.4 GB for volume ramaII
Jul 9 00:15:57 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 103.06 GB requested (including padding), 134.18 GB available
Jul 9 01:10:18 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Copied 191916 files (24.3 GB) from volume ramaII.
Jul 9 01:10:19 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.75 GB requested (including padding), 108.05 GB available
Jul 9 01:10:25 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Copied 114 files (93 bytes) from volume ramaII.
Jul 9 01:10:25 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jul 9 01:10:25 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jul 9 01:10:26 ramaII /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[371]: Backup completed successfully.
What I find interesting is that only it only copied '191916 files (24.3 GB)' It said it was going to backup '103.06 GB requested (including padding)'.
As requested here is the hidden .exclude.plist file, I printed the contents using the Terminal rather than TinkerTool.
.exclude.plist
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ sudo cat /Volumes/Red-5/Backups.backupdb/ramaII/2009-07-09-011025/.exclusions.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>sourcePaths</key>
<array>
<string>/</string>
</array>
<key>standardExclusionPaths</key>
<array/>
<key>systemFilesExcluded</key>
<false/>
<key>userExclusionPaths</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/Music</string>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/dev</string>
<string>/Applications</string>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/Desktop</string>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/Downloads</string>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/Movies</string>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/ritchiem.sparseimage</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
This content mirrors what is in the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist I resaved this to my desktop as a xml plist so I could print it for copying:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ cat Desktop/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>AlwaysShowDeletedBackupsWarning</key>
<true/>
<key>AutoBackup</key>
<true/>
<key>BackupAlias</key>
<data>-snipped-</data>
<key>ExcludeByPath</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/ritchiem/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache</string>
<string>/Users/cristina/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache</string>
</array>
<key>MaxSize</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>RequiresACPower</key>
<false/>
<key>SkipPaths</key>
<array>
<string>~ritchiem/Music</string>
<string>~ritchiem/dev</string>
<string>/Applications</string>
<string>~ritchiem/Desktop</string>
<string>~ritchiem/Downloads</string>
<string>~ritchiem/Movies</string>
<string>~ritchiem/ritchiem.sparseimage</string>
</array>
<key>SkipSystemFiles</key>
<false/>
</dict>
</plist>
*Other Steps*
Whilst running TM I also setup dtrace to log every file open: (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071031121823710)
Looking for any files in my home space that it might have opened returned none:
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ grep "/Users/ritchiem" tm.dtrace |grep "entry backupd" |wc -l
0
Yet looking for all the files backed up from the /Users directory there were 458!
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ grep "/Users/" tm.dtrace |grep "entry backupd" |wc -l
458
Dtrace also highlights the files that backupd uses unfortuately the only files it opened before it started its backup were:
0 17720 open:entry backupd /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
0 17720 open:entry backupd /var/db/.TimeMachine.Cookie
0 18506 open_nocancel:entry backupd /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Res
ources/StdExclusions.plist
The only file on that list I haven't seen mentioned before is the StdExclusions but I'm sure that is the same on everyone's machines... just incase though:
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ cat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>

<key>PathsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
<string>/.Trashes</string>
<string>/.fseventsd</string>
<string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
<string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
<string>/Desktop DB</string>
<string>/Desktop DF</string>
<string>/Network/Servers</string>
<string>/Previous Systems</string>
<string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
<string>/Users/Guest</string>
<string>/dev</string>
<string>/home</string>
<string>/net</string>
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string> 
<string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string> 
</array>

<key>ContentsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>/Volumes</string>
<string>/Network</string>
<string>/automount</string>
<string>/.vol</string>
<string>/tmp</string>
<string>/cores</string>
<string>/private/tmp</string>
<string>/private/Network</string>
<string>/private/tftpboot</string>
<string>/private/var/automount</string>
<string>/private/var/log</string>
<string>/private/var/folders</string>
<string>/private/var/log/apache2</string>
<string>/private/var/log/cups</string>
<string>/private/var/log/fax</string>
<string>/private/var/log/ppp</string>
<string>/private/var/log/sa</string>
<string>/private/var/log/samba</string>
<string>/private/var/log/uucp</string>
<string>/private/var/run</string>
<string>/private/var/spool</string>
<string>/private/var/tmp</string>
<string>/private/var/vm</string>
<string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
<string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
<string>/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/Library/Logs</string>
<string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
<string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
</array>

<key>UserPathsExcluded</key>
<array>
<string>Library/Application Support/SyncServices</string>
<string>Library/Caches</string>
<string>Library/Logs</string>
<string>Library/Mail/Envelope Index</string>
<string>Library/Mail/AvailableFeeds</string>
<string>Library/Mirrors</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Database</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Downloads</string>
<string>Library/PubSub/Feeds</string>
<string>Library/Safari/Icons.db</string>
<string>Library/Safari/HistoryIndex.sk</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
Finally here is the backup log that was generated incase you spot something I haven't
Backup.log
ramaII:~ ritchiem$ sudo cat /Volumes/Red-5/Backups.backupdb/ramaII/2009-07-09-011025/.Backup.log
2009-07-09-00:06:32 - Starting backup
Previous snapshot:
None
Will traverse "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
=== Starting backup loop #1 ===
Will use FirstBackupCopier
Running preflight for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/Music: 36.1 GB (6083 items)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/dev: 20.8 GB (488641 items)
Excluding /Applications: 9.6 GB (15070 items)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/Desktop: 26.3 GB (2444 items)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/Downloads: 3.8 GB (1127 items)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/Movies: 79.6 GB (167 items)
Excluding /Users/ritchiem/ritchiem.sparseimage: 27.2 GB (1 items)
Should copy 2853633 items (84.8 GB) representing 22223169 blocks of size 4096. 35174679 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Time elapsed: 9 minutes, 25.000 seconds
Processing preflight info
Space needed for this backup: 103.1 GB (27016262 blocks of size 4096)
Finished processing preflight info
Copying items from "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Finished copying items for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Time elapsed: 54 minutes, 20.000 seconds
Copied 191916 items (24.3 GB)
Gathering events since 390504228.
Needs new backup due to change in /Library/Preferences
=== Starting backup loop #2 ===
Will use IncrementalBackupCopier
Running preflight for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Calculating size of changes
Should copy 4 items (0 bytes) representing 0 blocks of size 4096. 28325806 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Time elapsed: 1.243 seconds
Processing preflight info
Space needed for this backup: 1.8 GB (459904 blocks of size 4096)
Preserving last snapshot /Volumes/Red-5/Backups.backupdb/ramaII/2009-07-09-000552.inProgress/79ECBD8C-12 BE-4067-A202-B7033190FD82
Finished processing preflight info
Copying items from "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Finished copying items for "ramaII" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 3E4CD731-945C-3BA3-85D5-67B401082442 eventDBUUID: FDD41B79-8CEF-4F57-810C-B1C56476640B)
Time elapsed: 6.147 seconds
Copied 114 items (93 bytes)
Gathering events since 406201626.
Finalizing completed snapshot
Finished finalizing completed snapshot
Backup complete.
Total time elapsed: 1 hour, 3 minutes, 54.000 seconds
*Next Steps*
I've been thinking about what i could try next and not having many ideas. So I'm really hoping someone here will have a flash of inspiration.
If I find some time at the weekend then I will try renaming my account again and verifying that it does backup under a new name.
Just incase there is something odd about the first user account created, i.e. UID:501 I will make a new 'ritchiem' account (which will have the next UID, UID:504) and see if that gets backed up, I can try this while my current account has been renamed. If that does work then I can copy my files back in to that account and verify it isn't something in my home directory that is upsetting TM. Although I doubt this is the case as it never read any files from home space during the backup process.
Here's hoping there is something in the above logs etc, that give a clue to what might be going wrong.
Cheers
Martin

TimeMachine not backing up, as hard drive is full. Can the time machine clear old backups and replace them with new?

Time Macine not backing up.
As the harddrive is full, Can the time machine clear old backups, and override them with new backups. For example 5 - 6 days +++ old. Backups were proformed dayly
Any help much appreciated
Many thanks,

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 refuses to backup any more

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