Time machine simply doesn't work...

What's my system?
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:          iMac
Model Identifier:          iMac11,1
Processor Name:          Intel Core i5
Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:          1
Total Number Of Cores:          4
L2 Cache (per core):          256 KB
L3 Cache:          8 MB
Memory:          12 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed:          4.8 GT/s
Boot ROM Version:          IM111.0034.B02
SMC Version (system):          1.54f36
External Drive:
Disk Description : Samsung STORY Station Media       Total Capacity : 2 TB (2,000,398,934,016 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB                                                         Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External                                               S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 00000011E0931050017E            Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
OS version:
OSX 10.6.8
What errors do I see?
Time machine always hangs after backing up ~40GB from an expected ~300GB
Glancing at /var/log/system.log highlights things stating to go wrong with messages like this:
Nov 6 18:01:04 iMac-GL kernel[0]:
Nov 6 18:01:10: --- last message repeated 3 times ---
Nov 6 18:01:10 iMac-GL com.apple.backupd[300]: Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Nov 6 18:01:10 iMac-GL com.apple.backupd[300]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/Alex/Music/Alex/FLAC/CD Albums/Delerium - Karma (CD 1)/06-Delerium - Lamentation.flac to /Volumes/TARDIS/Backups.backupdb/iMac-GL/2011-11-06-171903.inProgress/1D3EBFC0- 1CF8-487E-A6C6-40F893C093B1/Macintosh HD/Users/Alex/Music/Alex/FLAC/CD Albums/Delerium - Karma (CD 1)
Nov 6 18:01:10 iMac-GL com.apple.backupd[300]: Stopping backup.
It's not repeatable in as much as the operation never fails at the same file, but the first failure message is always the same, followed by lots of I/O errors and a large number of:
Nov6 18:22:55 iMac-GL com.apple.backupd[300]: Error: (-36) Creating directory iMac-GL <x>
What have I tried...?
At every stage before trying any workaround I have reformatted the external HD, Yes it's HFS+, Yes it's journalled, Yes, it has the appropriate GUID set.
I've removed the external drive itself from being backed up in the time machine preferences.
I've removed system files and applications from the backup.
I've disabled spotlight from monitoring/searching the external drive.
I've verified, repaired, and repaired permissions on all drives - trust me, exhaustiively - including the main HD by booting from the OSX installation disc.
I've tried different external hard drives....
Can anyone offer any advice, or should I stop wasting my time with time machine and just schedule my own rsync????

Hi Pondini,
Many thanks for taking the time to reply. The link you posted is a useful one too - sadly I've tried every step listed there - methodically too.
I've tried (and seen failures with) another Samsung Story 2TB drive, a Toshiba 1TB drive and a Maxtor 500GB drive. All drives have had no other data on them - with a single HFS+ partition dedicated to Time Machine.
I'll try giving it a go with pointing Time Machine to my QNAP NAS (it claims dedicated support for TM) and let you know how that goes - but I really wanted TM to work with a stand-alone external drive.
My suspicions mirrored your own - and I was inclined to blame the external drive. So I tried a few things to try to eliminate it as a culprit:
     - this is one of three 2TB Story drives I have, I soak-tested all of these with my own rsync tasks and had no errors.
     - I've tried different cables, (all that worked faithfully with my rsync jobs), and have ensured that the drive is the only USB peripheral connected (directly) to the machine.
     - Configured a daemon to touch a file on the external drive every 5 minutes (I did this when I suspected that the drive may be 'sleeping' - it wasn't and the daemon made no difference - I disabled it after this experiment).
     - ran the drive off a bench PSU for all of these tests.
After all of this I now suspect the TM software/OSX...

Similar Messages

Time machine still doesn't work with 10.5.2

After loading 10.5.2 I find that Time Machine still doesn't work with a new Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) and USB drive although I was reassured by my local Apple retail store that the fix was in the update. I should have known better. <Edited by Moderator>

Can you explain what archive and install is please?
I am having the same problem. Automator as soon as it starts crashes.
I have tried reinstalling from the OS disk, repairing permissions and none of them work.
Many Thanks
Dafydd

Time Machine Just Doesn't Work Anymore

I was a happy Time Machine (with Time Capsule) user for months. But it just doesn't work anymore. It takes longer than an hour to do every hourly backup so it is backing up 24 hours a day. It finds hundreds of thousands of files changed every hour and tries to back them up. Finders says only tens of files have been modified all of today. I have tried rebuilding my spotlight indexes, repairing my Time Capsule with Disk Utility and starting over with a brand new backup. But it just backs up hundreds of thousands of files every hour. So I am turning off Time capsule since it is clearly broken. If anyone has any suggestions at all I would welcome them.

Marcia,
Consider the following, it might give you some ideas:
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412)
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can created major changes in the structure of your directories. Time Machine will backup every file that has changed since the installation.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
*Backups WAY Too Large*
If an initial full backup or subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups.
This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude itself by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Prefs “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
Let us know if any of this helps.
Cheers!

Restore of time machine backup doesn't work

Hi all,
im having trouble trying to restore backups made with time machine.
Every time i try to restore a file i there is none available. I do backups about once a week. As soon as i select a file to restore time machine shows no backup available. Only the first backup on the timeline is selectable. What has happened?
On the external harddisk all files are available and i can use the finder to copy the necessary files onto my harddrive. But i doubt thats how it's meant to work.
I'm not sure but i think it all startes with the 10.5.5 update, but i have no definite proof of that.
HELP PLEASE
Thank you

Hi -(,)^(,)-
(hope i spelled that right )
Backups are made from system disk as well as the user data disk. So the process of saving works well!
Your tip gave me a hint. I have two disc. Systemdisk (named MacPro) mounted as / and a user disk,
(named UserData) mounted as /Users
I can browse all files chonologically using the timeline on Disc MacPro. When i select a folder on UserData the timeline greys out and only the initial backup is visible and selectable. I mounted the second disc as
/dev/disk1s2 /Users hfs rw,auto 0 2
in /etc/fstab. I'm now positively shure that it all began with 10.5.5 update last week.
Any idea how to solve this problem?
Thanks for your help so far

Time Machine/AirPort Doesn't Work.

When I try to backup my computer it says that it cant find any wireless devices.

You will have better luck posting in the Time Capsule area. Please attempt to explain more so you are drawing a picture. Remember people helping can't see what you have nor can they read your mind.
I would recommend restarting your computer or doing a SMC Rest to see if can now see your Time Capsule.
The link to the correct site is: https://discussions.apple.com/community/wireless/time_capsule
and instructions for an SMC Reset:
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Roger

HT4527 How on earth do you get Home Sharing to work properly? We have tried multiple times and it simply doesn't work for us!

How on earth do you get Home SHaring to work? We have tried numerous times and it simply doesn't work for us!

Turn it on.
Honestly, if you want help it is generally a good idea to ask a specific question and give some details of what problem is occurring.
If trying to move media, using home sharing is simply a bad idea. Follow some of the other instructions in the article from which the question was posted to move media.

Yeah. Got a time machine backup, should that work? Thanks.

Yeah. Got a time machine backup, should that work? Thanks.

You can schedule backups in CCC for whatever you like. I run two CCC clones on separate disks - a weekly backup and a daily backup. You could have an hourly backup too, if you wish. You can choose to back up on some days and not others (e.g., you might not do any work on the weekend, so see no point in having a backup schedule run on those days. In this regard, CCC is far more flexible than TM.
It's also more versatile in the backup options it will allow you. Once you've restored your system to the good, I would forget about only cloning your User account, and clone your entire internal disk. This is what most people do I believe, because not only will this copy everything (literally, clone your disk) unlike Time Machine (which skips certain items), it will also make your backup bootable (again unlike Time Machine).
That menas if your internal disk ever goes kaputt, or you wreck your system with an update or upgrade, you can simply boot back into your system in minutes by connecting the clone.
About the only advantage I see that TM has over a bootable clone is the 'star wars/versions' type interface, which makes restoring individual files much simpler and user friendly than a clone (but since it's not that hard to do it with CCC anyway, that personally doesn't bother me too much). Others on this board will argue that TM is faster (not in my experience) and causes less wear on your drive (mines happily going 3 years later, but there's no way to empirically test this claim, AFAIK).

Time machine automatic backup not working.

I have just setup my time machine backup and it works fine when I initiate manual backups. but i have noticed that, after every hour auto backup doesn't start. i can always do a manual backup, but for some reason next backup time is increased by an hour every time for auto backups. there are no error messages. Can you please help me with this. I am on os X mavericks.
I also checked the system logs after seeing some other topics and I only see messages about manually started backups there.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the 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.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. 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 to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

My phone is stuck on apple screen and i've tried to reboot it and connect it to my computer many times but it doesn't work. Can anybody help me?

My phone is stuck on apple screen and i've tried to reboot it and connect it to my computer many times but it doesn't work. Can anybody help me?

This is covered in the basics section of the manual:
iPhone User Guide (For iOS 5.0 Software)

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.

Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can;t see a symbol for address book.

Where are addresses kept on MAIL? I don;t like the new format at all. Frances
Begin forwarded message:
From: Frances Topping <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: - Old computer I had is OSX Snow Leopard with Entourage. New one is OSX Mavericks. Using Mail where are my addresses and old address book. Transferred old computer backup by Time Machine and other things work? Can't see a symbol for address book.
Date: August 25, 2014 at 9:46:01 AM EDT
To: discussions-replies <[email protected]>
Old Entourage is POP and new Mavericks MAIL is IMAP I believe. I don;t know how to export in the forms you mention. Frances

Backup Assistant Plus simply doesn't work, how do I disable it?

I have a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S III and when I set up my contacts, I added them as "Phone" entries with the expectation that the Backup Assistant Plus app would allow me to back them up. Except that it doesn't and, from what I've seen online, it is a miserable piece of junk that simply doesn't work for many people.
Soooo....
I sent all my contacts as a big V-card to my Gmail account, sorted things out in Gmail, unjoined them all on the phone, and deleted the Phone entries. Now I only have Gmail contact entries and they synch with no issues.
My only question now is, how do I disable/stop Backup Assistant Plus so that it doesn't constantly give me notifications about how incapable it is? I've tried clearing it's data and forcing it to stop. But it comes back from the dead, like a demonic zombie! It appears the only thing the app can do is resurrect it itself for the sole purpose of notifying me that it will fail to do anything useful.
Any and all help with this issue is greatly appreciated.

greblaws wrote:
I have been trying to disable Backup Assistant Plus since it is a BATTERY and PERFORMANCE HOG! I have a lowly Droid3, and it has been really causing issues.
Your instructions above DO NOT WORK, under Manage Applications I get "Uninstall updates" - I cannot uninstall it. It is a "system application" and I am locked out of that control. GRRRR. Clear data does not do anything for performance.
Even when on wifi, this app's backup of data is slower than TAR in January. Biggest issue is the
The reason the steps to uninstall the app didn't work is because the DROID 3 is running Gingerbread (Android 2.3). The instructions above were for the Samsung Galaxy S III running either ICS (Android 4.0) or Jelly Bean (Android 4.1).
You can however "Clear the Data" for the app and from that point never use the app. The phone will learn to not load it into the RAM in case you ever use it.

I signed up for a free trial. I want to convert a Word document to a PDF document. I've signed in and been through the process a dozen times. It doesn't work.

I signed up for a free trial. I want to convert a Word document to a PDF document. I've signed in and been through the process a dozen times. It doesn't work.

Hi kemtnilion,
What did you get a trial of? Adobe doesn't offer free trials of the Acrobat.com online services; did you get a free trial of Acrobat, perhaps? If so, you can save a PDF directly to Word from Acrobat, by choosing File > Save as Other > Microsoft Word > Word Document.
Please let us know if you have additional questions.
Best,
Sara

After change to Mavericks my Mac become too slow e I can't use it because stays asking passwords for "talagent" and "messages agent" as icloud keys. I got changed the icloud password many times and still doesn't work. I can't open any program.

After change to Mavericks my Mac become too slow e I can't use it because stays asking passwords for "talagent" and "messages agent" as icloud keys. I got changed the icloud password many times and still doesn't work. I can't open any program.

Back up all data.
Launch the Keychain Access 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 Keychain Access in the icon grid.
Select the login keychain from the list on the left side of the Keychain Access window. If your default keychain has a different name, select that.
If the lock icon in the top left corner of the window shows that the keychain is locked, click to unlock it. You'll be prompted for the keychain password, which is the same as your login password, unless you've changed it.
Right-click or control-click the login entry in the list. From the menu that pops up, select Change Settings for Keychain "login". In the sheet that opens, uncheck both boxes, if not already unchecked.
From the menu bar, select
Keychain Access ▹ Preferences ▹ First Aid
If the box marked Keep login keychain unlocked is not checked, check it.
Select
Keychain Access ▹ Keychain First Aid
from the menu bar and repair the keychain. Quit Keychain Access.

Time Machine options are not working. I am unable to schedule automatic backups.

Time Machine options are not working. I am unable to schedule automatic backups. The On-Off button is grayed out. I can perform a backup manually.

Thanks for responding. I have an external disk with plenty of room. It is used only for backup of my computer. I get a backup by clicking on the Time Machine icon at the top of the page and select "Back Up Now." When I click on Time Machine Preferences, there is a box labeled "Options" which allows me to exclude items from backup and notify after old backups are deleted. There is no option to schedule a backup. The "OFF/ON" box is gray. For "Next Backup:" it says "Automatic backups off." I would like to turn it on.

I am running Windows XP, SP3. I have tried to run Firefox 4 several times but it doesn't work properly. The main page comes up showing the logo, below that is the search box, and below that is another box with nothing in it.

I am running Windows XP, SP3. I have tried to run Firefox 4 several times but it doesn't work properly. The main page comes up showing the logo, below that is the search box, and below that is another box with nothing in it.

The external DVD/CD Writer will Not appear on your desktop when you attach it to your iMac. It will appear in "Finder", which is in your Dock.
Hope this helps

Time machine simply doesn't work...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for