Time machine unreliable - freezes System Preferences. Any ideas?

Backing up works properly for a little while and then seems to stick on Preparing. Won't obey Stop and freezes system preferences. I usually have to do a hard shut down. Used with Iomega which is a replacement for original that failed.

Time Machine Troubleshooting
Checking Console for clues

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HT3275 When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this?

When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this? My external hard drive is a FreeAgent GoFlex Drive.

Hi, what Format is the external Drive?
They usually come PC Formatted for Fat32/MSdos, or NTFS... is there anything on it now?
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html

Time machine restore crashed system preferences

Hi, just hoping someone can help with the following as my MacBook is not a happy bunny. I recently reformatted my hdd and restored my system using Time machine. This was to allow me to create a new partition so I could run bootcamp. All was fine for a few weeks, buy I have noticed recently that system preferences has become unreliable and fails to load on most occasions, freezing in the process - it shows in the dock, but does not load. I have OSX snow leopard all updates, two user accounts, guest activated. I have repaired disk permissions a number of times - sometimes works for a very limited time, other times not. I have deleted the finder and systempreferences .plist files in both user accounts, emptied trash and restarted, again limited effectiveness. When the sys prefs crashes, i force quit it, then it tends to load fine next time, but 2 mins later its up to its old tricks. On top of this, the Mac is now refusing to shut down - it will get to the spinning wheel phase then nothing, I have to force shutdown by holding the power button.
I've also tried disabling the guest account, but no luck.
Any ideas gratefully received as I'm worried that jts all going crash soon !
Many thanks
Rich.

Hi, just hoping someone can help with the following as my MacBook is not a happy bunny. I recently reformatted my hdd and restored my system using Time machine. This was to allow me to create a new partition so I could run bootcamp. All was fine for a few weeks, buy I have noticed recently that system preferences has become unreliable and fails to load on most occasions, freezing in the process - it shows in the dock, but does not load. I have OSX snow leopard all updates, two user accounts, guest activated. I have repaired disk permissions a number of times - sometimes works for a very limited time, other times not. I have deleted the finder and systempreferences .plist files in both user accounts, emptied trash and restarted, again limited effectiveness. When the sys prefs crashes, i force quit it, then it tends to load fine next time, but 2 mins later its up to its old tricks. On top of this, the Mac is now refusing to shut down - it will get to the spinning wheel phase then nothing, I have to force shutdown by holding the power button.
I've also tried disabling the guest account, but no luck.
Any ideas gratefully received as I'm worried that jts all going crash soon !
Many thanks
Rich.

I recently changed from a Mac Pro to an iMac. A large chunk of emails have disappeared. Time Machine is no help. Any ideas as to how I can get them back?

I recently changed from a Mac Pro to an iMac. Despite using Migration Assistant, a large chunk of my recent emails and nearly all of my wife's emails have disappeared in transit. Strangely, emails from my distant past are still there. Time Machine is no help; the messages may be on my backup disc but they're behind an invisible icon. Any ideas as to how I can get them back?

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data. That means you know you can restore the Mail database, no matter what happens.
Triple-click the text on the line below to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens (command-V), then press return.
A Finder window will open with a file selected. Move the selected file to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have names that begin with "Envelope Index". Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Log out and log back in. Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is corrupt and that Mail has to quit. Click OK.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the file you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

HT3275 I inadvertantly clicked on the time machine in my system preferences and it disappeared. It says there is no disc... Help!

I inadvertantly clicked on the Time Machine icon in my system folder and it disappeared. it says there is no disc when I try to back up. Help!!

Couple of things I spotted right off ... diagnostics still don't show me as an administrator but I told it run as administrator. When it asked to insert a prerecorded CD and then choose which drive to use, I have no drives in the menu to choose from but yesterday I had 2 and shows no external plug-ins installed. Hmmm. Fresh diagnostics below ...
Microsoft Windows 7 x64 Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
IBM 8114W2C
iTunes 10.5.2.11
QuickTime 7.7.1
FairPlay 1.13.37
Apple Application Support 2.1.6
iPod Updater Library 10.0d2
CD Driver 2.2.2.0
CD Driver DLL 2.1.3.0
Apple Mobile Device 4.0.0.97
Apple Mobile Device Driver 1.57.0.0
Bonjour 3.0.0.10 (333.10)
Gracenote SDK 1.9.5.502
Gracenote MusicID 1.9.5.115
Gracenote Submit 1.9.5.143
Gracenote DSP 1.9.5.45
iTunes Serial Number 00D4AB7C099BA9C8
Current user is not an administrator.
The current local date and time is 2012-01-18 19:18:55.
iTunes is not running in safe mode.
WebKit accelerated compositing is enabled.
HDCP is not supported.
Core Media is not supported. (16005)
Video Display Information
Intel Corporation, Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Intel Corporation, Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
**** External Plug-ins Information ****
No external plug-ins installed.
Genius ID: b7d08a26c0b28e9f17d324690b8df8ca
iPodService 10.5.2.11 (x64) is currently running.
iTunesHelper 10.5.2.11 is currently running.
Apple Mobile Device service 3.3.0.0 is currently running.

HT203796 I don't have the iCloud icon in "SYSTEM PREFERENCES" , any ideas?

I could synchronize my iPad with my Mac Book Pro before replacing the hard drive and recoveing data from my Carbonite backup.
Now I don't see the iCloud icon in SYSTEM PREFERENCES.
Is this a common occurence?

Welcome to the Apple Community alapan.
Which operating system are you now using, OSX 10.6 and earlier do not have iCloud.

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

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

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

Time machine backup freezes on initial backup attempt - any ideas?

I just purchased a Seagate 3 TB USB 2.0/3.0 external drive to use as my time machine backup drive. I have a MacBook Pro that was purchased about 3-4 years ago. The MacBook Pro has a 120 GB hard drive and is currently running MAC OSx 10.6.8. I also have another WD 1 TB FireWire external drive that I use to store all of my media files.
After I followed the instructions for installing the new Seagate drive for use with the MAC OSx, I initiated a time machine backup. It very quickly determined that it needed to back up almost 900,000 files totaling just about 400 GB. It started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. In a little less than an hour it reach 53 GB and remained there for an additional two hours before I decided to stop the backup.
Once I got the backup stopped, I deleted the backup and decided to look at my energy saving settings. I noticed that the "Put drives to sleep whenever possible" check box was checked, so I unchecked that option and restarted the MAC. I then initiated the time machine backup again. Like the first time it quickly determined that it needed to backup the same amount of data as before and started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. Before going to bed at around 11 PM last night it was at about 60 GB so I thought I was out of the woods (having gotten further than the 53 GB earlier). When I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM it was sitting at 69 GB.
I am really frustrated at this point and don't know why the time machine back up would be failing on a brand new hard drive. Does anyone have any ideas?
PS - I was previously using a Seagate 1.5 TB USB drive as my time machine backup and never had any issues with it. I decided to use the 1.5 TB drive for a different purpose, which is why I have the new 3 TB drive to use as a backup. And I still have the full backup on the 1.5 TB drive just in case anything were to go awry.

Your best bet is probably to deal with the kernel panics first; whatever's causing that may be part or all of the cause of the other problem.
They are usually caused by hardware problems, but can be software, especially kernel extensions.
Start by running this: Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test. Run the Extended tests(that may take an hour or so, depending on how much RAM you have). Write down any error code(s) it shows.
If that doesn't show a problem, see this Apple article: If “You need to restart your computer” appears
If that doesn't help, post a new thread about the kernel panics, with as much detail about what's running (or not running) at the time, etc.

After using Time Machine-Computer Freezes on startup and will not sleep.

I've narrowed down my iMac issues to Time Machine.
After I back up with Time Machine, my iMac freezes on start up ( I have to turn it off and turn it back on again for normal start up) every time I turn it on and it will not sleep.
I reset the SMC, startup in safe mode, and do all of the troubleshooting to get it back so it starts up without freezing (sometimes my troubleshooting works). I've even reinstalled SL a couple of times and that seems to have helped but...
...when I back up with Time Machine, the freezing issues and non-sleeping issue return.
I've just installed the 10.6.2 update and my iMac is now working perfectly, no freezing on start up and it sleeps.
I'm afraid to use Time Machine for fear of the problems returning.
Any ideas on why Time Machine would corrupt my system? Any thoughts on how I can remedy the situation?

Hello m:
The preference file (plist) tells OS X what default and/or user preferences to apply to a device or a program. They rarely become corrupt, but if they do they cause all sorts of odd behavior.
After you trash the preference file and restart, OS X will rebuild the missing file with default values. If you have some personal preferences, you would need to enter those.
Barry
P.S. The preference file I mentioned is located in Macintosh HD>library>preferences
Message was edited by: Barry Hemphill

Time Machine causing slow system

I have been experiencing a problem since starting Time Machine. The system becomes very slow to come out of sleep mode (20-30 seconds). Every application becomes slow, but the slowest of these seems are the applications that have anything to do with the drives (mounting DVD, system preferences, Time Machine, Activity Monitor, Disk Utility, Finder).
I have tried connecting the external drive (Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus 500GB) via both Firewire 400 and USB, but neither connection method solves the problem. I have used Disk Utility to verify both drives, repair both drives and repair permissions of both drives, but nothing has helped.
The slow response can be corrected by restarting the system, but the problem comes back and gets progressively worse the longer that the Time Machine is allowed to run.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Let it run, is what I have to say. Time Machine works well with some external hard drives, and poorly with others. I suggest either getting a new external hard drive (which I personally am too cheap to do), or just do time machine back ups at night when I'm asleep. It would save the frustration of slow back up time and still get the job done. Also, you might want to check your time machine preferences. There could be some settings that you could change to help out.

I have two imacs in different rooms and Safari started crashing immediately after opening on both machines. latest version is installed.Any ideas?

I have two iMacs in different rooms and Safari started crashing immediately after opening on both machines. latest version is installed.Any ideas?

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.
Step 1
For this step, 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 name of the crashed application or process. For example, if Safari crashed, you would enter "Safari" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ 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. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
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.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

Energy Saver Freezes System Preferences

I am unable to put my G5 Power Mac to Sleep. I have attempted to make adjustments through Energy Saver but any changes freezes System Preferences. The spinning wheel begins and I need to Force Quit System Preferences. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

First, Try using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk.
You could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.
 Cheers! DALE

Help! Time Machine recovery freezes at 5.3%

Hi everybody. I'm in it now. I decided to reinstall Leopard since Boot Camp told me that I had to do it in order to partition my 250 GB hard drive to use with Windows XP.
Anyways. I've tried to recover several times with different Time Machine backup dates, and all of them stops at 5.3% in the recovery. I've tried to let it be, to see how long it froze, and I gave up after over an hour. At the most Time Machine told me the ETA was almost 14 hours!!
Now what am I going to do? When I backed up in OS X using Time Machine I didn't get any errors, but now it suddenly won't work backup up.
I KNEW I couldn't trust Time Machine....

This doesn't help, but I have the same problem. Not including the part about Boot Camp, partitioning my drive, or running Windows XP.
I did a clean install of Leopard and bought a brand new drive for Time Machine to play on. It seems to enjoy backing up without problem every hour.
Now that I need to recover, however, it freezes. Even pressing Cancel doesn't do anything and the only way to get out of it is to hold down the power key on the computer until it shuts down and restart.

Is there any way of exporting a clip (example 1 hour) into 4 seperate 15 min clips at the same time? Or does anyone have any ideas along the same lines to save time? Add my skype baconhousevidz if you can help or are unsure of what im asking

Is there any way of exporting a clip (example 1 hour) into 4 seperate 15 min clips at the same time? Or does anyone have any ideas along the same lines to save time? Add my skype baconhousevidz if you can help or are unsure of what im asking
thanks everyone

BaconHouseVidz wrote:
… at the same time…
in hope to speed things up?
no, no effect.

I have tried to update my iPod Touch 4G to the latest update. After the 4 hours an error message appears saying iTunes had lost connection even when I am fully connected to the internet. I have repeated the update 4 times now with not luck. Any ideas?

I have tried to update my iPod Touch 4G to the latest update, I currently have iOS 4.1. After the 4 hours an error message appears saying iTunes had lost connection even when I am fully connected to the internet. I have repeated the update 4 times now with not luck. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Adam

If you get a network timed out error, try disabling the security software on the computer during the download and install.
You can also try a direct download andinstall by:
iPod, iPhone and iPad Firmware Download
Nera the top of the page aretheinstructions for selecing the download for the install.

Time machine unreliable - freezes System Preferences. Any ideas?

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