Time Machine Stuck (Incremental backup, not Initial)

Hey...me again.
I was finally successful yesterday backing up 160GB of data with Time Machine.
However, this morning, the incremental backup is taking forever. It's been stuck at "3.6MB of 6.7MB" for over 20 minutes. It would seem to me that 6.7MB should be pretty quick to backup.
I have received these messages from TM Buddy:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 279.56 GB available
Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
Copied 305079 files (49.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 279.31 GB available
And Console shows this:
Aug 25 10:23:53 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: Backup requested by user
Aug 25 10:23:53 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: Starting standard backup
Aug 25 10:23:53 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Aug 25 10:26:21 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 279.56 GB available
Aug 25 10:27:51 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
Aug 25 10:41:06 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: Copied 305079 files (49.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Aug 25 10:42:21 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[254]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 279.31 GB available
Any idea on how to resolve?
Thanks,
K

kieranroy wrote:
Hey...me again
Hi again. You seem to have really angered the god of TM, haven't you!
However, this morning, the incremental backup is taking forever. It's been stuck at "3.6MB of 6.7MB" for over 20 minutes. It would seem to me that 6.7MB should be pretty quick to backup.
Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
This usually doesn't cause a real problem, as long as it's occasional.
Copied 305079 files (49.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
This we see on occasion -- the crazy high file count, and very slow backup.
Aug 25 10:42:21 Kieran-Roys-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd254: No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 279.31 GB available
Normally, TM will make a second, "catch-up" pass if changes were made during it's first pass. Usually this is very quick, but since the first one way very slow, this one may be worse.
Do you have any folders, particularly email mailboxes, with a very large number of files (thousands), that are actively being added-to or changed? There was a similar situation recently where an app named SpamSieve was putting messages into a "spam" folder, and the user never cleared it out. Clearing it out helped, but excluding it from Time Machine solved the problem.
Click here to download the TimeTracker app. It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.). I think it will only show completed backups, so you may not be able to find anything. But look at what's being backed-up to see if any of the files, even if there's only one, are in extremely large folders. If so, try excluding the folder (TM Preferences > Options).

Similar Messages

Is Time Machine a incremental Backup system???

Dear community,
i have a 500GB HD in the Notebook, and a 500GB HD as a External USB-Drive for the Time Machine Backup. For 1 Jear i had the same problem. I formatted the external Disk, made a Time Machine Backup everything is OK. Than i connectet the HD after 1 Week and the Error cames, that no Backup can be made, because the place on the Time Machine HD is to less.
I had a 60 GB free space on the Notebook. How can it be? I searched in the net, and there was a known issue with the snow leopard. Ok. Than i taket my Credit Card, an bought Lion. nice... now is the same problem... 500GB Bakup HD, 500GB internal Notebook HD... Second Backup to increment the first one and the error: No enought space on the Time Machine HD....On the Internal dist 43 GB Free, on the external HD 100 GB free.
How can it Be? Is the Time Machine a incremental Backup System or a cheap xcopy from DOS-Times?
Pleas Help
Thanks a lot
Bye

To do what you want to do, you may want to consider a cloning program. Some have trail versions.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

Time Machine making full backups--not incremental

Hi,
I just installed Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro a couple of days ago, and have been using Time Machine to make backups (never used it before now). I have TimeMachineEditor installed, and have it set to make a backup daily at 3:30am. It backs up data from my 500GB main hard drive to another internal 500GB hard drive.
The first backup went without a hitch, and did a full backup as expected (everything). But the second, third, and fourth backups all were full backups as well....not incremental as they should've been. The fourth one was actually a manual backup I did to test it...I chose "Back Up Now" to see if it did full or incremental. It did a full backup.
So, after four backups, each a little over 100GB, I'm already running out of space Has anyone else run into this behaviour? Is this a consequence of TimeMachineEditor having screwed it up somehow? Even if it has, shouldn't a manual backup still do an incremental backup?
Very strange....

canadavenyc wrote:
V.K. wrote:
yes, well, if Toronto ever gets a team in any sport worth rooting for, I might stop posting on apple forums and start watching them.
lol...well, seeing as how you'll clearly be here a while then... ...perhaps I can prevail upon you to answer one last question that just occurred to me.
Let's say I have tons of TM snapshots on my backup drive, and at some point I want to delete a few to clear some space. I know TM automatically goes after the earliest ones when the drive fills up,
You should know that TM also constantly thins recent backups. It keeps hourly backups for 24 hours and then deletes all but one for every day; it keeps daily backups for 30 days and then deletes all but one for every week. it keeps all weekly backups till the TM drive gets full at which point it starts deleting the oldest ones.
but let's say I manually want to delete a few snapshots that contain, say, a massive cache file or something totally useless to keep around, which I could afford to delete and would gain me a lot more drive space.
When I go into the TM interface to do the removal, how can I figure out which snapshots to get rid of? How would you do it?
TM offers two options. you can delete an entire backup corresponding to a time point or it can delete all backups of a given file/folder. to do that enter TM and scroll back in time to some time point. select something and click on the "gears" action button in Finder toolbar. you'll see options "delete backup" (deletes the entire backup for that time point), and 'delete all backups of this item". deletes all backups of the selected item from all time points. I use the latter sometimes to get rid of backups of very large files.

Time Machine stuck during backup

From December 28 to January 13 my Time Machine functioned without issue, using an external Seagate Free Agent Drive (300 GB) with a 150 GB partition devoted to TM. For whatever reason I didn't happen to connect the drive from the 13th to the 16th, and now it appears to be freezing during the preparation process or very early in the backup.
I've looked at some of the non-complete packages to try and ascertain the problem - so far it appears to always hang while backing up the Applications folder. Why it is re-backing up this whole folder at once is beyond me, as I'm only aware of one program I've recently updated - Flip4Mac. Incidentally, this was the program is was halting on initially - so I added that to the exclude list. Next go at it, and its stuck on a different program. Then another. Then another.
Do I really need to exclude my whole Applications folder? That seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

I've discovered the culprit after some additional searching here. Apparently Time Machine does not function correctly while the iSight is enabled. In the past I've had no trouble with Time Machine running in the background with a variety of other processes ongoing, but apparently this one is problematic. After quitting Skype I've found that backups completed quickly and painlessly. Hopefully this post is helpful to others as well, and hopefully Apple addresses this - at least through improving Time Machine's dreadfully horrible Help files.

Time Machine - lost incremental backup

The preferences panel for Time machine says it keeps
* hourly backups for the past 24 hours,
* daily backups for the past month,
* weekly backups until your disk is full.
I notice that the reduction of hourly backups to one backup for a day appears to keep the earliest (incremental) backup for that day and deletes the rest.
To test this, I created a small file on the desktop on 13th Oct 2008 at 18:30, let time machine back it up at 18:45 and I then moved the file from the desktop to the trash at 19:00.
I checked that the file existed in the time machine backup for 18:45.
As I suspected, Time machine has only kept one backup for 13 Oct timed 12:01 am. The file is not in the backup for the 13th or 14th Oct (it is now 15th Oct). The original file is still in my trash.
If this had been an important file that I had deleted accidentally, I would not be very happy.
For the record I am using a MacBook running OS 10.5.5 using a 500Gb Seagate FreeAgent drive connected via firewire.
Shouldn't Time Machine consolidate all the incremental backups for one day into the one backup that it keeps (and eventually consolidate the daily backups into the weekly one that it keeps) so that files are not 'lost' in this way?
Arthur L.

Welcome to Discussions.
[This|http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archives/2007/12/howleopardtim.html] explains it well:
"As Apple presents the Time Machine filesystem view, you can see your system approximately:
As it was at the top of each hour today
As it was each day for the past 30 days, starting yesterday
As it was each week, starting 31 days ago, going back as far as disk space permits
A distraught user might only be interested in the amount of data he may have lost:
If you accidentally deleted a file today, you lose up to an hour's work
If you deleted it between yesterday and 30 days ago, you lose up to a day's work
If you deleted it more than 30 days ago, you can lose up to one week's work, or all of it."
Hopefully the file you've lost took longer than an hour to create than the example you tried.
/p

Time Machine won't backup notes

Notes.app in the new Mountain Lion stores its data in a very deeply hidden set of files NotesV1.storedata-wal and NotesV1.storedata-shm found in Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes.
Running Time Machine with Notes in the foreground switches to Finder. When navigating to the path of the actual files, only today's versions with today's date appear in the directory although we are looking at a state saved in the past.
Notes is essential and backup of notes is a vital function, especially for people with hundreds of notes they rely upon.

Make sure that the first Mac is not backing up at the time....then....
Pull the power cord from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cord back into the back of the Time Capsule
Try a backup again from the second Mac in a few minutes
Post on your results

Time Machine Just Churns; Backups Not Performed

Time Machine, which is connected to Time Capsule, has not completed a backup for about 3 weeks. It just says "Preparing to Backup," the clock icon spins for hours, and no backup is ever completed.
I tried to to a manual backup but got a message that the disk is full. Tried to delete stuff off it to free up space and got error messages there, too.
Any idea what's going on and how I can fix?
Thanks!

Try powering off both the TC and your Mac
Wait a minute
In addition to the connection from the modem, make sure that you have another Ethernet cable connected from one of the LAN <-> ports on the TC to the Mac
Start the TC first and let it run for a minute
Then start up the Mac and wait a minute
Open AirPort Utility again to see if the TC will appear.
If yes, click on the TC icon, then click Edit on the next window that appears. Then click the Disks tab to see the Erase Disk button.
By the way, you are not using the OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 as your profile indicates. You are using Lion 10.7.4. Please update your profile to include that important information.

Time Machine directory locked - backups not working

My Time Machine directory is locked - that is, when looked at in info, the directory icon shows a silver padlock at the bottom left-hand corner. Also, in Finder, it has a lock too. If I try to get into the volume, even as owner and/or admin, I have the message 'The folder "Time Machine" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges'.
I've researched this and it seems to be because there are access control lists applied to the volume. Running the command xattr -l Time\ Machine in a Terminal shell shows that the comp.apple.metadata"kMDItemFinderComment is set to say 'bplist00_ Backup disc for {machine name}'.
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What is going on here? I've tried, to unlock the drive, using 'chmod -R 777 {volume}', but this doesn't work as the command fails on a number of entries.
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That's not how you access Time Machine backups.
TM uses special "deny everybody everything" permissions to keep us mere mortals from changing, moving, or deleting it's backups, thus corrupting them.
Use the "Star Wars" interface, via the +Enter Time Machine+ option from the TM icon in your menubar, or the TM icon in your Dock.
Changing the machine name might mean you need the (badly named) +Browse Other Time Machine Disks+ option instead. It's available by holding down the Option key while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar, or by control-clicking (right-clicking) the TM icon in your Dock.
You'll see a selection screen showing all the disks/partitions that have TM backups on them. Select the one you want, and you'll be taken to the normal TM "Star Wars" interface, where you should see all the backups on that disk/partition.

Time Machine stuck verifying backup at 70%

Time Machine is continually verifying my backup. It gets to about 70% and then gets stuck at that point.
I have left it for hours, including overnight, to complete and it remains at 70%.
It looks like it is using fsck to verify the backup.
I am unable to determine why it is getting stuck at this point and am looking for suggestions.
I am going to try the basics first such as re-starting the computer and the time capsule.
Thank you for your courage.

I was able to get my time machine verification to complete. The solution was actually pretty simple.
When I noticed it was once again 'stuck' at 71%, I increased the wait time for my computer to go to sleep from a duration of 1/2 hour to 3 hours.
This allowed the verification process to churn away without interruption. It took several hours but it did eventually complete.
Thank you for your courage!

Carbon Clone and Time Machine: developing a backup plan

Howdy all!
This is a second post that sort of flows on from another I have written today
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4649740
I initally put them all together, but they were too rambling and disconnected, so it seemed better to seperate them. The question I have here is how best to organise my backup plan? I have a few ideas, but, basically, want to make sure I get the whole setup right the first time and would appreciate any advice from others that have been down the path before. As I am still waiting for some parts to arrive in the mail, I have a little time to think about how to go about setting up my Mac.
Basically the setup is:
Mac Mini 2012, boot drive is a Samsung 256GB 830 series SSD, seconday drive for data is a 1TB mechanical disk. I plan on having all my data on the seconday mechanical disk (photos, movies, music etc) and only the OS and Applications on the SSD. To this end, I understand I only have to move /Users to the mechanical disk to achieve this. I then also have 2x 2TB Western Digital MyBook Essential USB 3 disks for Time Machine backups. I plan on rotating them on a weekly basis (storing the disk not in use in a safe or offsite), and then, depending on costs a cloud backup service for some data (music, photos etc) which I might want to access when im not at home.
So I have been thinking for a few days now on the benefit of having a Carbon Clone bootable recovery drive. The thinking goes along these lines. As my data is on a seperate drive, and is backed up to Time Machine, in the event of an OS disk failure, I can replace the disk and then point /Users to the new drive, and I can be up and running once I have reinstalled the apps i need. Now, I understand the idea of the Carbon Clone backup is such that it speeds up the time to rebuild the OS disk, but I have to question, how useful is this in reality?
Consider, I can sit down now and write down all the apps I have needed in the past, install Mac OS, set it up (possibly with a generic admin password), install the apps I need from the App store and DVDs etc and then take a Carbon Clone at this point before any setup of Apps are done. If the apps configuration is backed up in the Time Machine backup (i.e.: the config files exist under /Users) then this is almost workable - in a recovery situation, the CC clone is used to rebuild the OS drive, the config files are pulled from the TM backups, and we're back up and running. Where this fails, is if I have installed (or removed) apps since the CC clone was made. At this point then, is it best to (a) make a new clone when a new app is added/removed or (b) make a note of apps added/removed, which will then have to be reinstalled if a recovery is required. I tend to think the (b) method is best here, as it preserves the integrity of the clone. If the machine has been compromised (malware etc) then remaking the clone, causes the clone to be compromised and hence the reinstalled machine as well. Though this method could be a pain if the machine state has changed somewhat over time. Also, it means that the reinstalled system will be missing updates etc which could be time consuming to apply anyway, so the usefulness of a clone is slightly reduced anyway.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Some days I think having a clone will be useful esp. as most of my software was delivered on CD (Adobe Creative Suite, Office) or are large install bases (XCode), but other days I think, "its not a mission critical machine", i can survive a day without it while I rebuild the install, and so I dont achieve much by having a clone which is likely out-of-date by the time I go to use it.
Also, in this backup plan, is it best to rely on TM for things like email backup or a dedicated mail backup utility? can a Carbon Clone exist on the same disk as Time Machine uses, or do I need to invest in a new disk or two for the CC clones?
As I say, I want to make sure I have this machine setup right from the start, and would really appreciate any pointers, tips or advice.

There is one big advantage of a clone. You can immediately reboot
to it and continue working and deal with the regular boot drive faiure,
what ever it may be, later. Especially since all your data and such
is on another drive. If you use your computer for work and time
critical projects, this is a major plus!
In the case of a hard drive failure/replacement, copying the clone
to the drive is the fastest way to get the system and all your settings
back.
Time Machine and incremental backups have a place as well. It is best
suited for "incremental" problems. Examples are installing an upgrade to
software that doesn't work or just don't plain like. With Time Machine it
is easy to just restore back to the point before the install.
Something else I do is backup current project files to USB memory sticks.
If you are using your computer for business, you can never have too many
backups. Coralllary 456 of Murphy's Law is the "number of backups that
you need will be one more than what you have!"

Does time machine do incrementals backups or full backups each time?

does time machine do incremental backups or full backups each time? in other words, is it only backing up changes or everything that itis told to backup?

+is it only backing up changes or everything that it is told to backup?+
Time Machine makes physical copies of new and changed files for each backup but it just establishes hard links to files previously backed up that still exist on the source rather than making new copies of them.
This Ars Technica article explains how the hard links work.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14

Time machine won't backup, yet plenty of space & not much used on Mac HD

Well, this is yet another "Time machine won't backup becuase there is not enough space" thread. I have searched Google and threads here but it's still a mystery why this error is occurring and it seems there is no clear solution. I also looked at the Apple Time Machine errors FAQ as well.
Here are my specs and what I have tried so far.
2010 Mac Pro Quad Core with 1 TB hard drive with 12 GB RAM. (137 GB used so far on internal Mac hard drive disk, so about 863 GB free space).
- New external 1 TB hard drive initialized as Time Machine backup disk when inserted for the first time.
The exact error I am getting is this: "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 1.80 TB but only 999.20 GB are available."
I have tried deleting the Time Machine system preference, reinitializing the external disk, clearing the system caches with Cocktail, restarting and letting Time machine ask me all over again if I wanted to use the external drive for Time Machine. Still the same error.
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?

danomatic12 wrote:
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?
Two possibilities:
There's another disk (or disks) connected to your Mac. If they're formatted HFS+, Time Machine is trying to back it/them up as well. You can exclude them per #10 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). The 1.8 TB includes 20% for temporary workspace on the TM drive, so TM is estimating the backup at about 1.5 TB.
Something on your internal HD is corrupted, causing an incorrect calculation. Verify your internal HD, per #6 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

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.

I baught Seagate Backup plus 2T hard drive to use as my Backup time machine. But its not working when i connect to time machine its not coping files, it keep saying preparing files. Can someone help me please...

i baught Seagate Backup plus 2T hard drive to use as my Backup time machine. But its not working. when i connect to time machine its not coping files, it keep saying preparing files. Can someone help me please...

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 the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login 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?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

I am trying to confirm the time at which a particular backup occurred using an external hard drive that I have since misplaced. Although time machine lists the backup times for some backups, it does not list them for all. Can someone help?

I am trying to confirm the time at which a particular backup occurred using an external hard drive that I have since misplaced. Although time machine lists the backup times for some backups, it does not list them for all, including the one in question. Can someone help?

Okay, I've sussed it. I saw a link to another discussion that hadn't turned up in any of my searches before I posted the question above.
My Tosh HDD was formatted to FAT 32 and therefore would not be backed up by Time Machine. I removed all data from it - nightmare as I hadn't enough space to put it on the macbook HDD, but, after trawling through numerous photos and deleting rubbish for hours, I finally made enough space and copied all data across. Then, after clearing the data from the Tosh HDD, I used disk utilitity to reformat it to Mackintosh OS Extended. Chose the option without kournalling because I'm not baking up onto this disk and so don't need it - according to some other discussions I found.
When it was done I check on time machine in system prefs and once I selected options, I was able to remove it from the excluded from backups list. Hey presto. Now I'm moving my photo library and my music library onto the Tosh HDD and my macbook should start to breath again. Hurray.

Time Machine Stuck (Incremental backup, not Initial)

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