Time machine unable to access network disk

I have a USB disk attached to my Airport Extreme, and use it as the target of my time machine backups from my mac book pro (connected via WiFi). For the most part things work fine. But if my macbook goes to sleep, after it wakes up it often (not always) gets the next time machine backup to fail with a message saying that it cannot access the disk. At first I found a brutal method of correcting it: I would disconnect from WiFi, go to my AE and power cycle it. After it came back the macbook never had any problem with the disk. A little more exploration indicated that Lion wasn't unmounting the disk properly. The following works (but sometimes requires a few iterations): I'll go to finder, eject the disk, and disconnect from Airport Extreme, and then go to the terminal and do
sudo diskutil unmountdisk disk1
(I first do a diskutil list to find out the right disk)
and then ask time machine to backup again. Many times I have to repeat this a few more times before it "takes". Has anyone else run into this? It clearly looks like a bug in Lion, since it never happened until I upgraded.
Victor
PS. I understand that Apple says that they don't support time machine backup to network disks. But they do to a time capsule! It isn't really different.

I'm replying because, while I don't have a solution for you, I was experiencing the same issue at home not long ago. My solution has been to backup at the office (), but I'm about to switch back to running Time Machine at home. I think we'll be going through this together.
The difference in my situation is that my backup volume lives in a PowerMac G5, but I'm sure it's the same error.

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Can't install Mavericks, damaged disk, restore from Time Machine, unable to find destination disk. What to do?

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If errors are found and repaired run Repair Disk a second time.
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WD Smartware and time machine error -1 accessing backup disk

I saw a lot of postings in here but didn't see this solution addressed, so I'm documenting it for others.
After I upgraded to Lion, time machine on my MBP stopped working. It gave me an error message window that
Time Machine could not complete the backup
The backup disk image could not be accessed (error -1).
I was getting this message, but my buddy who has the same MBP model, was not having any backup problems.
After calling apple support, it turned out that I had two issues. First, Lion is incompatible with WD Smartware, which I had installed on my MBP (but my buddy did not). You can't even have WD Smartware sitting in your trash bin. I used the WD uninstaller to remove the software and then emptied the trash bin.
Second, a new firmware update was available for my Time Capsule. It was apparently released in the last week or month. I guess I had not run Airport Utility since installing Lion and missed the new version. After installing the firmware update, Time Machine was able to backup my MBP. The support rep said this firmware update also included fixes that may address the intermittent wireless problems we have been having with our TC router since upgrading to Lion.

Spent the whole day speaking to AppleCare on getting this solved.
Migration did not work on the DNS or Doman and the Priviledges were lost.
Look a lot of repair, but backup and running.

Time Machine Backup error - The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Extreme.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1).

I am getting a Time Machine backup error "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Extreme.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)."
Then a Finder window pops up with the backup directory in it. When I open it I see all the backups that were completed successfully and then the one there is simply always shows the data and .inProgress. I thought that maybe if I could delete the one that is perpetually in progress it would start a new one and run fine, but I won't let me delete it.

Reboot the TC.. or go to the 5.6 utility.. and disconnect all users.. to force it to reconnect.
C17 in troubleshooting.. to give more specifics to Kappy's comment.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

HT3275 time machine error says: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Apple 's iMac G5.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1).

While backing up to Time Machine, I receive this message: time machine error says: The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Apple ’s iMac G5.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1).

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
That message is caused by several reasons. Read the Pondini's site to fix the problem > http://pondini.org/TM/C17.html

Time Machine cannot mount remote backup disk (ReadyNAS NV+)

Hello,
I own a ReadyNAS NV+ which I use as an external backup. It has a "Time Machine" backup daemon, so the iMac see's it over network. I used it for a couple of months without issues.
A couple of days ago I had to change the physical location of ReadyNAS. Now there are 2 switches between my iMac and the readyNAS.
Since I changed the physical position of the ReadyNAS I try to backup using time machine but it's not possible. Time machine hangs up when trying to up at "Making Backup Disk Available". Using the terminal I can clearly see that AFP has issues mounting the disk:
afp_4pcsta0oyhi62C4wJd3Bx6yh-1.2e00000b on /Volumes/ReadyNAS (afpfs, nobrowse)
angel:log root# dmesg
6a800!
jnl: disk3s2: journal_open: Error replaying the journal!
hfs: early jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
disk3s2: 0x5 (UNDEFINED).
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [ErrType IO] [ErrNo 5] [IOType Read] [PBlkNum 2] [LBlkNum 2] [FSLogMsgID 1814855696] [FSLogMsgOrder First]
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode devfs] [MountPt /dev] [Path /dev/disk3s2] [FSLogMsgID 1814855696] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
AFP_VFS afpfs_unmount: /Volumes/ReadyNAS, flags 524288, pid 285
AFP_VFS afpfs_mount: /Volumes/ReadyNAS, pid 872
jnl: disk4s2: replay_journal: from: 8247296 to: 4564992 (joffset 0x962000)
ASP_TCP dothreadread: no reqInfo found for reqID 5
ASP_TCP Disconnect: triggering reconnect by bumping reconnTrigger from curr value 0 on so 0xa258660
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect started /Volumes/ReadyNAS prevTrigger 0 currTrigger 1
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 22 error 89 reqID 3256 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x3D so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 23 error 89 reqID 3257 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 24 error 89 reqID 3258 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 25 error 89 reqID 3259 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 26 error 89 reqID 3260 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 27 error 89 reqID 3261 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0xB so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 28 error 89 reqID 3262 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
ASP_TCP CancelOneRequest: cancelling slot 29 error 89 reqID 3263 flags 0x29 afpCmd 0x22 so 0xa258660
0 [Level 5] [com.apple.message.domain com.apple.afpfs.reconnect] [com.apple.message.signature Reconnect failed - socket failed to start reconnect] [com.apple.message.value 1297443679] [Message afpfs_DoReconnect: socket failed to start reconnect 61 /Volumes/ReadyNAS
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: posting to KEA to unmount /Volumes/ReadyNAS
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [ErrType IO] [ErrNo 6] [IOType Write] [PBlkNum 8] [LBlkNum 8] [FSLogMsgID 1662666978] [FSLogMsgOrder First]
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode afp_4pcsta0oyhi62C4wJd3Bx6yh-1.2e00000a] [MountPt /Volumes/ReadyNAS] [Path /Volumes/ReadyNAS/angel.sparsebundle/bands/0] [FSLogMsgID 1662666978] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
disk4s2: 0x5 (UNDEFINED).
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [ErrType IO] [ErrNo 5] [IOType Read] [PBlkNum 11744] [LBlkNum 11744] [FSLogMsgID 1726805554] [FSLogMsgOrder First]
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode devfs] [MountPt /dev] [Path /dev/disk4s2] [FSLogMsgID 1726805554] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
jnl: disk4s2: updatefsblock: error reading fs block # 11744! (ret 5)
disk4s2: 0x5 (UNDEFINED).
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [ErrType IO] [ErrNo 5] [IOType Read] [PBlkNum 27379] [LBlkNum 27379] [FSLogMsgID 1933006271] [FSLogMsgOrder First]
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode devfs] [MountPt /dev] [Path /dev/disk4s2] [FSLogMsgID 1933006271] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
jnl: disk4s2: dojnlio: strategy err 0x5
jnl: disk4s2: replay_journal: Could not read journal entry data @ offset 0x46a800!
jnl: disk4s2: journal_open: Error replaying the journal!
hfs: early jnl init: failed to open/create the journal (retval 0).
disk4s2: 0x5 (UNDEFINED).
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [ErrType IO] [ErrNo 5] [IOType Read] [PBlkNum 2] [LBlkNum 2] [FSLogMsgID 800265459] [FSLogMsgOrder First]
0 [Level 3] [ReadUID 0] [Facility com.apple.system.fs] [DevNode devfs] [MountPt /dev] [Path /dev/disk4s2] [FSLogMsgID 800265459] [FSLogMsgOrder Last]
AFP_VFS afpfs_unmount: /Volumes/ReadyNAS, flags 524288, pid 285
AFP_VFS afpfs_mount: /Volumes/ReadyNAS, pid 933
jnl: disk5s2: replay_journal: from: 8247296 to: 4564992 (joffset 0x962000)
angel:log root#
Finally Time Machine exists with error "Backup disk cannot be accessed. error 109".
Can someone give me a hint or two on how to solve this issue?
regards

Not a NAS-specific issue. The OS is trying to read a block of the sparse disk image, and the read is failing. Basically, the sparse bundle is damaged. You'll need to rename it and then try backing up again to a clean sparse bundle.
That said, make sure you're running a version of the ReadyNAS firmware that actually supports Time Machine. There are several AFP commands that were added for Time Machine that *must* be supported for correct operation, and older AFP implementations did not implement them. The reconnect errors suggest to me that maybe the firmware you are running doesn't support the Reconnect UAM, in which case it probably also doesn't support the replay cache, etc. If that's the case, then things probably won't work correctly without a firmware update even after you fix the corrupted sparse bundle.
Edit: actually, on further searching, it might be a NAS-specific issue. Certain buggy network switches do not properly support jumbo frames in mixed networks, which can cause read errors similar to what you are seeing when working with AFP. (This might have been your post on the other board.) In the Network prefs pane, choose Ethernet, click "Advanced", click the Ethernet tab, change Configure to Manually, and set the MTU to Standard (1500).

My time machine does not want to save any more the data from my powerbook 13" Snow Leopard; i get the message "Time Machine could not suppress the disk image of saving "Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/PowerBook _2011_03_21_123627 sparsebundle" What should I do?

My time machine does not want to save any more the data from my powerbook 13" Snow Leopard; i get the message "Time Machine could not suppress the disk image of saving "Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/PowerBook _2011_03_21_123627 sparsebundle" What is the problem? What should I do?
Thanks !!
Alain

Could that read " . . . could not access . . ."? If so, try repairing your backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If not, or if that doesn't help, see #A1 there. Use the TM Buddy widget it details to copy and post the messages here.

Best approach for Time Machine / Entourage / FileVault / sparse bundle disk

I am looking to set up Time Machine belatedly on my G5 to provide hassle-free backup for me and my family. I use Entourage. I also want to provide a small amount of encrypted storage. I’ve scoured the obvious places which have plenty of ideas, but nothing which pulls it all together.
My thoughts so far have been:
1. Time Machine doesn’t work well with Entourage as Entourage uses a monolithic single file (which in my case is several GB big) – backing this up every hour will bring my machine to its knees, fill up the backup disk and will possibly give a corrupt backup as the file could be accessed by Entourage or the MS daemon process during the backup.
2. I thought of turning FileVault on which would automatically contain the Entourage file. This would mean:
a) the sparse bundle format (8 MB bands) of FileVault would limit the volume of changed Entourage data which would be backed up each time by Time Machine and
b) the backup would only occur during logout (which is fine with me) when Entourage and the MS daemon are not running so that the backup won’t be corrupt.
3. However I am not hearing good things about the reliability of FileVault (comments?) and don’t want all the data in my Home folders lost – I don’t need that much encryption anyway.
4. So I thought about setting up a couple of encrypted disk images made of sparse bundles – one for the Entourage data (symbolically linked to the right place for Entourage to pick the folder up) and the other for the other small number of files I need encrypted. This could be auto-mounted at login.
5. However I think that using disk images rather than FileVault loses the automatic backup by Time Machine at logout. Maybe there is a way to get Time Machine to automatically backup these disk images during logout.
6. Perhaps there is another way to get the disk images backed up at logout other than using Time Machine.
So my questions are:
A. What is the best overall approach to providing a low-maintenance reliable backup which deals appropriately with Entourage and provides a small amount of encrypted space?
B. Can Time Machine be made to backup disk images other than FileVault disk images at logout? (for example is there a particular location / filename format for FileVault images which I could emulate with the other disk images to fool Time Machine into backing them up?)
C. When Time Machine runs at logout, have MS Entourage and the daemon process already been shut down and the disks unmounted, to prevent corruption?
D. Is there another way of backing up the sparse image disks at logout?
C. Is this all going to get magically fixed in Snow Leopard?
D. Will MS come up with a sensible storage format for Entourage?
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

I don't know if there is a complete solution, but here are some things you could consider.
1. TM does not run automatically at logout unless FileVault is enabled.
2. You can change the backup period using third-party utilities like TimeMachineEditor - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
3. You can exclude the Microsoft User Data folder from the TM backup and back it up separately using third-party backup software.
4. You can use third-party backup software instead of TM, such as:
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
10. Tri-Backup (Commercial)
11. Apple Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Third-party backup utilities can run backups on schedules you set up. Thus, you can schedule your backups to occur at a time when you do not use the machine such as early in the AM for example.

Time machine on local WiFi network - OS Extended (Journaled) format error

Hi guys,
I did an initial Time machine backup of my Macbook Pro via Firewire to an external hard disk. Everything went smoothly and later Time Machine did regular backups without any problem.
When I attached the external Time Machine hard disk to one of the Macs in my local WiFi network the troubles began.
My Macbook could still see and mount the Time Machine drive via the network but didn't want to backup to this drive any longer. It came up with this error message: "The backup volume is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required..."
When I connected the Time Machine drive back to my Macbook directly via Firewire, it resumed its backup duties without complaining. Very strange...
Whenever Time Machine tries to excess the drive via the network (AFP shared) I get the format error message. Attached directly to the Firewire port it works flawlessly. Any suggestions how to solve the problem?
I really want to do my backups via the wireless network and without having to plug-in the drive directly into my Macbook, which wouldn't be a very mobile solution for a laptop
Would an Airport Extreme station with an attached USB drive behave differently?

read this:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/04/02/exploringtime_capsule_time_machine_over_the_network_vsusb.html

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine.

Snow Leopard Time Machine - Backup to a Network Drive is it possible?

I have a MacBook Pro 17" 2.5Ghz, with a 250gb harddrive, running Snow Leopard 10.6.1. I want to do a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard and I want to run a backup first. I don't have any external drives big enough for the job, but I do have network drives that have enough space. Can anyone give me directions on how to set up Time Machine to work with network destination drives? I read an online article that it was possible to do this with Leopard, though I never got it to work. If all else fails, I'll have to buy a new external drive. (Money's tight right now though.) If any of you have recommendations for good fast external drives, I'd appreciate your opinions on that too. (But I really hope I can get the network drives to work.) Thanks!

Time Machine does not back up to network drives, except Time Capsules or a drive running Leopard or Snow Leopard on another Mac on the same local network. It will often back-up to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme, but even that is, technically, unsupported, and may require running a special Terminal command to make it work.
Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
You may find some hardware or "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.
First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.

How to use Time Machine with newly cloned source disk?

I've got an iMac (10.6.8) which I'm using with a Time Capsule and Time Machine.
Recently, the iMac's internal disk started to fail. Instead of going through the effort and expense of replacing it in a fairly old computer, I added an external FireWire disk, cloned the internal disk onto it using Carbon Copy Cloner, and then unmounted the internal disk. Now I'm running the exact same system off the external FireWire disk (with no obvious performance loss, I'm happy to say).
When Time Machine saw the new disk, it started to prepare to copy everything on it. I don't know if it was going to treat it as a separate set of backups (like a separate computer), or treat it as a massive update to all the files on the same computer.
Here's what I want to happen, in order of preference:
(1) Get Time Machine to treat the new disk as the same filesystem as the old disk, and update only the files that have changed.
(2) Have Time Machine start a new backup folder. The initial backup will be slow of course.
(3) Time Machine treats the new filesystem as continuous with the old one, but with 300GB of sudden "changes" (because all the files are "different"). This is my least preferred option.
Can anyone advise me as to what my options are, and to what Time Machine will do if left to its own devices?

I think that the way that Time Machine works, you will either have to go with your option (3) [inefficient from the perspective of disk space usage] or simply erase the backup drive and start anew with a new Time Machine backup process [efficient from a space usage perspective but you lose all the verisoning info from previous backups].
Time Machine will see the cloned drive as a physically different drive with lots of files that it has never backed up. I think the only way it could tell that they were the same files content wise as what you had backup up earlier would be to do a bit by bit comparison (which Time Machine does not do). I think Time Machine might look at some file meta data and there might be a way to spoof it so it thinks what you want it to think, but imagine the work required to do this for hundreds of thousands of files. Some disk clone software claims to try to do this and some have bit by bit cloning options, but Time machine will still see that external drive as a physically different (never backed up) drive from the internal one that it has backed up. It might be nice to have a Time Machine option so you could tell it what you want it to assume and do, but Time Machine has a fairly simple interface and doesn't present the user with such an option (to my knowledge).
If it were me, I would buy a new Time Machine backup drive and use that to backup the external cloned drive (now your primary drive), while saving the original Time machine backup drive as an archive with all its versioning, which provides you with additional backup redundancy and history. After some time has passed, you could eventually decide to erase that (by then, older) Time Machine backup drive and use it for some other purpose.

HT3275 Can some HELP, I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image "/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle" is already in use.

Can some one HELP me , I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image “/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle” is already in use.

See > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

I am getting this error message on my iMac. Time Machine unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the back up folder. Any ideas on how to fix???

i am getting this error message on my iMac. Time Machine unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the back up folder. Any ideas on how to fix???

See Pondini's TM FAQs

Keep getting this message when trying to back up iMac to time Machine: Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.

Keep getting this message when trying to back up iMac to time Machine: Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. tried everything.

Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Time Machine- Troubleshooting backup issues

Time machine unable to access network disk

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