Time machine stops when mac sleeps?

I'm considering buying Time Machine. I had tried a few different online backups. I've read when the mac sleeps, Time Machine stops. If that's the case, how will you ever get a good backup? Backups can take several hours and my mac goes back and forth from home to office everyday, and it goes to sleep in transit. How then, does this all work?

In the "Energy Saver" part of System Preferences, you can set your "Sleep" options. I have my options set up to put the computer to sleep when it has been inactive for 10 minutes. I have a MacBookPro connected wirelessly to a TC used for my TM backup.
Before going to bed (we're talking about ME, not the Mac!), I put the screen brightness to minimum (back-light turns off) and leave everything connected. When I return next morning I have a stream of back-ups made each hour during the night. The system works.
Note that it is good practice to leave the Mac turned on all night (at least occasionally) because there is a process that will go and clean up the system very early in the morning. This way I get both the maintenance and the back-ups. Note that after a day or so, TM compresses all the hourly backups into daily, and after a month, into weekly. This series of hourly back-ups don't take more disk space because (apart from system maintenance) little happens ( ) during that time ...

Similar Messages

Time Machine Stops when using External Drive

I recently purchased Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB external drive. It is connected in USB port for MacPro. Unfortunately, Time Machine starts backup, but it is discontinued after several minutes with message "cannot create backup folder." The backup seems to stall before it gives message, since the file count on the backup seems to stop. Any suggestions as to why this external drive will not work with Time Machine? Any suggestions on how to resolve the problem?

The external Seagate GoFlex Desk 2.0/3.0 usb drive starts and runs the backup for awhile, and then after 40-50 gb of backup quits, and I get a message that backup failed. When I restart the Time Machine backup, the prior backup seems to be on the disk, but it will only run for a period of twenty minutes or so, and then it will stop the backup. I thought that there might be a problem with the 2.0 usb capacity as too slow, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that the speed would be the problem. I also have seen that the GoFlex Desk drive has a problem with Lion OS, but the Seagate site seems to say it is compatible. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Time Machine stops due to computer going into Sleep/Hibernation Mode

Time Machine stops due to computer going into Sleep/Hibernation Mode then restarts to try to start the Back up process again and again vicious cycle. I have made sure all settings are turned off. I have done one or two backups since the initial first backup. My HDD is almost full and I want it backed up before I try to clone/mirror the drive to upgrade it to a 1TB HDD. Thank you in advance.

Set the Energy Saver (in System Preferences) to Never. Then reset the NVRAM, as follows:
Shut down your Mac.
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 before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the third time.
Release the keys.

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Mach

I am trying to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard. When I insert the disk and install starts, it states "This disk is used for Time Machine backups" and Mac OSX can't be installed. Does anyone know how to correct this (since Tiger doesn't have Time Machine)?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2986

How does time machine work when being used with a mac pro?

How does time machine work when backing up a mac pro?
Considering the fact that the mac pro can hold 8TB and a external (non NAS) hard drive can hold only 2TB does time machine only backup the OS disk.

macnewcomer22 wrote:
Considering the fact that the mac pro can hold 8TB and a external (non NAS) hard drive can hold only 2TB does time machine only backup the OS disk.
Time Machine will backup everything by default, on every disk in your Mac.
Choose System Preferences > Options to exclude items. You could exclude everything except your OS...but I'd think it is your data that's more important to you, if you have to make choices.
See...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018
While it's true you can store almost 8TB, how much do you think you'll actually store? If you have 1TB of data you want to store then a 2TB drive can do it. Also when your TM drive begins to get full it will begin deleting the oldest backups to make room.
You could also get a Drobo with 8 bays...
http://www.drobo.com/products/index.php
-mj

Time Machine stops backing up external disk

I have 907 GB of backups on my WD 1 TB backup disk. Further backups blocked. Tried unsuccessfully to erase disk with utility. Support item MAC OS X 10.5 ("Time Machine stops backing up on external disk") gave instructions for partitioning the back up disk: "Partition failed could not unmount disk" Ran disk utility again. Verified and ran repair to backup disk. Response is that partition is okay. Have heard that Mountain Lion can cause backup problems. Anybody help please?

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 stops at less than a minute

Hello all,
I just completed a Time Machine restore to clean Leopard 10.56. As many have reported, the process starts when you turn on the computer for the first time after the HD is replaced. A screen asks you if you want to restore from Time Machine, and when you connect the Time Machine and approve that, off you go.
After the point when I think it said, accessing/restoring Network preferences (which I think is near the end of the process), it seems to hang. The mouse pointer is accessible, and there is a beep if I press Esc. The screen dims periodically. The MaxTor External HD light stays on, and then every 5 or 10 minutes it cycles to a standby, where the light blinks. This kept going on for 30 mins, and I thought it odd.
So I called Apple Support. They recommended waiting another few hours. I did. Still no change. So I called again. Got a high level tech, and when the Time Machine disk cycled to standby we powered down the Mac.
When we powered it up again (well me, since the Apple Tech was on the line), the system came up, all my stuff was there. Only the name of the HD was the default, and its pic was default. EVERYTHING else was transferred back.
I connected Time Machine again and took it through a cycle of back up and stop backup and eject. Again, so far, everything is okie dokie.
This, just to tell you all my first-time experience. I agree with the techs not to touch anything for several hours, since it may be doing something. But in this case, I think it was at the last screen.
But Apple folks, ya need to fix this process. There is no way to know how far you are in the process. The progress bar lies (hehe) and the messages seem not to reflect the state of the machine. Bad design! And there is no graceful way to step away from the process *if the building is closing and you have to git going.*
However, my Apple Tech was wonderful and deserves chocolate.
Best,
Bryan "i" th

bryanith wrote:
Ok.
I am new to this forum. I just wanted to report my experience but ask about the final step hanging, and APPARENTLY the mac being ok. Seeing what other got with this level of a problem. IS it OK? Whups I had to go through several hours of updates, which I was not prepared, but fortunately no inconvenience. Would there have been a screen that advised me that now the restore is complete, the user had better run Updates?
No. Had it completed normally, you wouldn't have needed to do anything more.
That does bring a question to mind, though: had you excluded anything from TM backups?
Not so nice to scold a new user, eh?
Didn't mean to scold you. It seemed you were making a suggestion to Apple, not us civilians.
Anyway, the truth is, the Time Machine mostly went without a hitch after I did get past a few bumps, but I am wondering, would it have been better had I not experienced the glitch
Oh, absolutely. That's why I mentioned that your experience was quite unusual. Browse this forum, and while you'll find several problems, many caused by hardware failures or users doing things they shouldn't, but you'll also find several mentioning how easy it was to restore. Also consider that this is sort of the "ER for Macs", and no more representative of the typical experience than the troubles of the folks in your local "real" ER are of your neighbors.

Automatic Time Machine backups to Mac on local network

Hi,
I've got a headless Mac mini on my network that just runs as a fileserver and doesn't need to be backed up with Time Machine, but it's a convenient place to attach an external USB drive so that my PowerBook and MacBook can back up to it wirelessly.
When I first set up Time Machine on each laptop, the backup disk showed up under 'Change Disk...' in prefs -- I guess the disk was already mounted. The initial backup took forever but worked fine, and subsequent backups have worked fine too. (Everything's running 10.5.2, by the way.)
The problem is that, when the remote drive becomes unmounted (e.g. when I take a laptop to work and back), Time Machine stops backing up automatically until the drive is manually remounted or the "Backup now" option is chosen under the Time Machine menu. When left to its own devices it just sits there forever in "Next backup: When Mac is plugged in" mode, which isn't really what I want -- I was hoping to "set & forget".
So I suppose my question is: can I fix this by actually enabling Time Machine on the Mac mini, rather than just treating the drive as a vanilla network share? I've noticed that the remote drive icon changes when Time Machine is enabled, and maybe there's some other magic going on there too, e.g. to advertise the drive somehow so that Time Machine knows it can automount it at backup time, instead of sitting around waiting for me to do it. I don't want to actually back up any of the Mac mini's files but presumably I can tell Time Machine to ignore (almost) everything on its local drive when performing the backup, just for the sake of having Time Machine turned on.
On the other hand, I don't want to mess around with it if I'm not going to see any improvement, because at least things are working right now. In particular I'm not keen to go through the whole initial backup again, especially for no reason.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Cheers,
-Tom

BilFish II wrote:
I have a similar problem, but didn't quite understand the solution...
time machine/capsule backs up my macbook. Just got an imac, and copied the image to it. Didn't realize it REALLY copied the image to it... so Time Machine decided the new imac was the macbook.
No. Time Machine always knows which Mac is which, via an identifier that's embedded in the hardware on the logic board.
But it did copy the +Computer Name,+ which you can change via +System Preferences > Sharing.+
And it did copy the Time Machine preferences file (with the backup location you specified), so it backed-the new Mac up to the same destination.
Now Time Capsule backs up the imac... but not the macbook anymore.
There is still a 425GB sparsebundle for the old macbook on the Time Capsule...
Depending on how you answered this prompt, there may be two sparse bundles:
|
|
See #B5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.
If you said +Create New Backup,+ there should be two sparse bundles, one for each Mac.
If you said +Reuse Backup,+ there should be one, containing the backups from both, and as it says, the MacBook can no longer use the same set of backups.
Question: Is there a way to reattach to that sparsebundle for backing up the macbook or do I have to start all over?
Probably. First confirm whether there's one sparse bundle or two, and roughly how many backups of the iMac you've done.

Time Machine stopped backing up but doesn't give warning/error

Hi,
by chance I noticed, that Time Machine doesn't backup up any more, but still doesn't give errors. In Console I see the following for a now typical run:
21.04.15 09:58:11,493 com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
21.04.15 09:58:12,043 com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/drosera-backup-02/Backups.backupdb
21.04.15 09:58:41,729 com.apple.backupd: 5.18 GB required (including padding), 96.84 GB available
21.04.15 09:58:55,149 com.apple.backupd: Copied 23 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
21.04.15 09:59:04,385 com.apple.backupd: Copied 36 files (93 bytes) from volume DATA.
21.04.15 09:59:06,100 mds: (Error) Volume: Could not find requested backup type:2 for volume
21.04.15 09:59:06,102 com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning
21.04.15 09:59:07,668 com.apple.backupd: Deleted /Volumes/drosera-backup-02/Backups.backupdb/drosera/2015-04-20-183344 (24.0 KB)
21.04.15 09:59:07,668 com.apple.backupd: Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
21.04.15 09:59:07,762 com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully.
The 5.18 GB are never backed up. The backup drive (drosera-backup-02) is attached by FireWire. I have checked the disk with First Aid, I have disconnected and reconnected it. I removed the backup disk from Time Machine, stopped TM and reconfigured. I stopped mds, ran backups and reenabled mds. All to no avail.
I am at a complete loss and I'd appreciate to get this running w/o having to remove all existing backups. Any ideas or pointers?
I'm running Mac OS X 10.7.5 on a Mac mini
Cheers
Frank

Thx. I had already tried the hints from mds: (Error) Volume: Could not find requested backup type:2 for volume to no avail. Your tip to rebuild the Spotlight index would probably helped, too. But just before getting yout comment and after reading http://pondini.org/TM/Works.html and http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69054/force-time-machine-to-perform-a-d eep-traversal I had simply removed /.fseventsd and reran a backup. That seems to have fixed the problem (at least for the time being).
Interesting side note: During the non-backup phase I created a new account on the Mac and ran TM. This triggered a one-time working backup of the whole system, but all subsequent backups again failed silently. Additionally the externally attached FireWire harddrive was always backed up correctly, only backups of the local drive failed.

Time Machine Stopped Working After Update

I updated the most recent OSX 10.6.3 and disk utility etc. then suddenly my time machine stopped backing up to external disk attached to Airport Extreme. I have a Seagate drive attached to the AE. I can see the drive and I can see the time machine folders. If i go to TM preferences I can select the drive. But when it goes to back up error message says "backup disk not available." Itunes library is also on same disk (partitioned) and works fine.
Any help would be very, very appreciated!

EnergyExec wrote:
I updated the most recent OSX 10.6.3 and disk utility etc. then suddenly my time machine stopped backing up to external disk attached to Airport Extreme.
As Jolly Giant says, this is +*not supported by Apple.+* It does work, sometimes, for some folks (including me), but is not especially reliable. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you keep secondary backups, probably to an external HD, via CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or the like. Also note that your iTunes library on that disk is not being backed-up by Time Machine.
It's possible your backups are corrupted (that happens on occasion via an Airport, and may be why Apple doesn't support it). Try repairing them, per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.
If Disk Utility can't repair them, it's possible +Disk Warrior+ or a similar app can. DW costs about $100, and is probably a good investment for the future, but there's no guarantee.
Otherwise, your only choices are to delete the sparse bundle or erase the partition and start over, or back up to a directly-attached disk (a much better solution).

Time Machine backs up Mac HD but fails on firewire HD

I have a 120 gig internal HD for my system plus a 280 gig firewire drive for media. I bought a 1.5 TB drive for Time Machine. Time Machine has no problem backing up the Mac HD, but if I add the media HD, I get an error:
"time machine error"
"unable to complete backup. An error occurred while linking files on the backup volume."
Eh? How do I solve this?

No, the media drive isn't excluded from the backups. I definitely want its contents backed up by Time Machine. When I first got the error, I DID try excluding it from the backups to see if Time Machine could successfully back up my Mac HD, and it did successfully back it up - but - when I removed the media HD from the list of excluded drives, Time Machine gave me the error each time it would try to do a backup.

When attempting to upgrade my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I receive the message "This disk is used for Time Machine Backups" when I try to select the lone available hard drive.

When attempting to upgrade my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I receive the message "This disk is used for Time Machine Backups" when I try to select the lone available hard drive. I have ensured that Time Machine is turned off. Upon some Google research, some who reported this problem were told to delete the folder backup.backupdb, but I do not have this folder on my Mac. Any suggestions?

The folder would be at the root of your hard drive. Double-click Macintosh HD and look there.
If it isn’t there, I’m not sure what it is seeing.

Can't access Time Machine settings when AirPort (WiFi) is on.

Problem:
My iMac (2.66 MHz Inter Core Duo) with 10.5.8 needs an upgrade to Maverick...it is connected to my home network with AirPort
I have a NAS on my home network (Verbatim MediaShare 2TB) wired connected, which I have had working as a drive for TM-backups. It stopped working with TM about 1,5 year ago, did never figure out why, backups just failed.
Now I want to get it going again for a fresh backup prior to the OS upgrade.
The issue I am facing now is that I cant access the settings for the backup drive in TM settings as the AirPort is on.
I need AirPort on to be able to mount the drive of the NAS, but then I cant access TM-settings. If I switch of AirPort temporarly to access TM-settings the drive which I need to select is dismounted.
I am kind of stuck. Why is this happening?
BRG
/Johan

BDAqua wrote:
Got me really confused, sorry...
Can't access Time Machine settings when AirPort (WiFi) is on.
the NAS Volume for backup "COMPUTERSBACKUP$" can be mounetd as it should when AirPort is on.
Hi, label explains the problem pretty much...
That is: The dialog in TM where the disk for TM to put backuped data is not accessable when the iMac has connection to my home network. The button is there, but when i press it notheing happends. If i deactivate the network interface, the dialog opens.
I hope this claryfy my problem.
BRG
/Johan

TIme Machine crashes my Mac

iMac 2006, running OS x 10.5.8 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR1 SDRAM. Of the 152.23 Macintosh HD, 56 Gig is free
External 500 Gig WD USB2 HD for Time Machine.
When Time Machine is running and the TM icon at the top of the Mac is revolving, my iMac crashes or just hangs and won't do anything if I try to open a new prog. This can happen with just the TM running and doing a backup, nothing else apart from Finder running and then I try to open Activity Monitor from Utilities.
The ONLY way to get the iMac back is to switch it off (I know- NOT a good idea!!!), relaunch the iMac as an external Firewire drive from my Macbook, run Disc Utilities from my Macbook and then repair the iMac's HD then reboot the iMac.
Any suggestions as to what is going wrong? For months TM gave me no problems and then this has started over the last three weeks...
Thanks in advance
Chris

chrisasha wrote:
Pondini,
Thanks for the advice.
I repaired my iMac hard disc by booting it as an external Firewire disc using my Macbook as the parent machine and the iMac connected via Firewire as the target, rebooting the iMac with the T button on the keyboard pressed then launching Disc Utility from the Macbook and repairing the HD of the iMac.
I then rebooted, repaired disc permissions on the iMac then rebooted again.
I then used Disc Utilities on the iMac to verify the iMac's HD which came back with the message that the disc appears to be fine.
That's a bit of overkill -- for the internal HD, all you needed to do was run a +*Verify Disk+* while booted normally.
I then ran Disc Utilities from the iMac, repaired Time Machine disc (that took ages and whilst the repair was happening, all sorts of errors were found) and then rebooted again.
I then used Disc Utilities to verify the Time Machine disc and that came back fine as well.
Again, overkill. Just run +*Repair Disk+* on the TM drive while booted normally.
I then ran Cocktail and selected the monthly maintenance scripts - nothing else was opened on the iMac. At this point, I went to bed!
Not needed.
Having just returned to my office this morning, I find the iMac hung once again!!! Whilst Cocktail was running, Time Machine started (the icon at the top of the screen started to revolve) and my iMac is hung and completely non-responsive.
I don't use Cocktail, so don't know if there may be a conflict there, but it seems unlikely.
The only way I could get the iMac back was to power down, remove ALL the cables, wait for a minute or two, power up the iMac as an external Firewire drive from my Macbook, repair the iMac HD from Disc Utilities running on my Macbook (as above), then reboot the iMac, repair disc permissions on the iMac using the iMac's Disc Utilities, then verify the iMac HD, then repair the Time Machine disc again using the iMac's Disc Utilities - i.e. EXACTLY the same process that I when through yesterday evening.
Again, far more than you needed to do.
I just can't afford to buy a new iMac.
Huh? Who suggested that? There's no indication of any dire hardware problem on your Mac (your external HD may be failing, though).
Do you have any other suggestions???
Yes. CALM DOWN and SLOW DOWN.
Read my suggestions a bit closer, please. #A5 in the Troubleshooting Tip explains clearly how to repair your TM drive without all the extra work and drama. I didn't even suggest repairing your internal HD (although it does rule that out as a problem). And again, it's much easier to do if you follow #A5 -- that's why I took the time to write it!
Did you try doing a backup with Activity Monitor already running and onscreen, as in the next to last paragraph of my last post?
I don't know how to find the error log files on the iMac and would it help if you told me how to find them and then I posted them up on here?
Yes. See the last paragraph of my last post (or #A1 in . . . yes, the Troubleshooting Tip).

Continue time machine with new Mac

I just replaced my old 2006 macbook pro with a nice shiney new 15 inch running OS 10.7.2. I have a 1T external firewire drive that I have been using for time machine backups for a couple of years. Since most of my data is unchanged except for applications, is there a way to continue time machine backups using the existing backup data set?

If you used Setup Assistant (preferrred) or Migration Assistant to transfer your stuff from the old Mac or it's backups, you should get the prompt in #B5 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting when the first backup begins.
If you use another method, like restoring from a clone or dragging and dropping, you won't, but you may be able to "persuade" Time Machine to let the new Mac "inherit" the old backups. See #B6 in the same link.

Time machine stops when mac sleeps?

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