Time Machine won't automatically back up

A little while ago I had a problem with my audio plug ins preventing some of my music programs functioning properly. I couldn't trace the exact file in the library so decided to overwrite my library with a previous version from my time machine disk. This proved to be a big mistake. All that actually happened was that it deleted my library and then would not replace it with my old library.
Anyway, with a bit of playing about I managed to reinstate my library and re-installed any programs that were still causing a problem.
Everything now seems to be ok except time machine. This will not automatically backup any more. I've tried a few things - my computer name had been lost so I renamed that, re-formatted my time machine disc, renamed time machine disk etc. It will back up the internal drive if I manually do it (although seems to be a lot smaller backup than the size of my internal drive used space?) but ignores all scheduled backups. It also will not backup my other external drive which worked fine before. This is not in the exclude list.
Any ideas?

alanhess wrote:
Everything now seems to be ok except time machine. This will not automatically backup any more. I've tried a few things - my computer name had been lost so I renamed that, re-formatted my time machine disc, renamed time machine disk etc. It will back up the internal drive if I manually do it (although seems to be a lot smaller backup than the size of my internal drive used space?) but ignores all scheduled backups. It also will not backup my other external drive which worked fine before. This is not in the exclude list.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
The first backup after erasing the TM disk should be smaller than the data on your internal HD ), because Time Machine omits some items that aren't needed to restore your system. These include most caches, system workfiles, and trash. Usually the difference is very small, but can be fairly large.
As for not backing-up your external disk, and perhaps not doing automatic backups as well, it sounds like the preferences file may be corrupted.
Go to TM Preferences > Change Disk and de-select your TM drive (select "none"), note any exclusions you want in Options, then quit System Preferences.
Delete the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist (in your top-level Library folder, not your home folder.)
Go back to TM Preferences, re-select your TM disk, re-enter any exclusions you want, and try again.

Similar Messages

Time machine won't automatically start

Hi there, i recently got a new imac running the latest in snow leopard and did a restore off my iomega 500GB EXHD from my old imac. When i decided to do a back up on the HD it was taking way too long so i went ahead and erased the HD, reformat and started new for the newer imac. While it works fine i noticed then when i plug my HD it shows on the desktop but now time machine no longer automatically performs the back up. I have to go into the time machine preferences or press back up now. Also in the options window "Exclude these items from backups:" the actual hard drive is in that list but unelectable. That can not be correct right?

OK. I'm just about done with a moderately complicated shell scripting project that will do what I want. I have two machines backing up to an external drive on a third machine. The only purpose of the third machine (for now) is to host the backup drive. Since I only want to actually back up a couple of times a day, at most, I want the third machine to be awake only when it's needed for a backup. So, I've now assembled all the shell scripting pieces I need to do the following. 1) perform a TM backup on my schedule (a couple of times a day -- doing snapshots in between on my schedule -- taking into account the machine I'm backup up from is a laptop and thus may not be awake when it ought to back up, so, starting a backup as soon as it's awake if appropriate) 2) on another machine, do a CCC backup once a day; 3) wake up the backup machine only when it's needed 4) put it to sleep when neither of the other machines needs it 5) be able to wake it up "manually" if at some other time I want to get to it (and not worry about it going to sleep if neither of the other machines needs it) 6) display some kind of status of what's going on. It's taken me quite a bit of research and stumbling on some nuggets of information to understand all the bits pieces that I'll have to put together to do this. Once I'm done, would anyone be interested in me posting it? (The interesting bits and pieces include as a minimum, learning how to use ssh non-interactively, what pmset does, how to wake up a remote machine, a lot of gory details of shell syntax, and figuring out how to change an app's icon from a command line script!)

Time Machine won't recognize back up after I move external drive to Airport

I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?

Adam1076 wrote:
I have a new 640GB exteranl drive that I bought to back up my Mac using TIme Machine. I plugged in the drive via USB (USB powered drive), then set up Time Machine and did the first back up successfully. I then plugged my exteranl drive into Airport Extreme so I could back up wireless in the future. Airport recognies the drive, and I can see the back up folders on the drive. However, Time Machine doesn't recognize those back up folders as my Mac.
I went into Time Machine SEttings, and repointed it to the same disk, and it tries to back up everything again, wirelessly. Any ideas how to get Time Machine to recognize the back up files made while I was "hard wired" to the Mac?
that's not possible. remote backups are stored differently. directly attached backups are stored directly in a folder on the drive. remote ones are stored inside a sparse bundle. you'll have to start a new backup sequence if you want to do remote backups.

Time machine won't restore back to lion

Mountain Lion is causing me big problems. My external firewire 800 hard drives will not stay mounted and my fans are running at full speed after waking from sleep. Restarting fixes these problems until it sleeps again. Sometimes it takes several restarts.
So I am trying to revert back to Lion the day before I foolishly upgraded to ML and Time Machine will not allow me to restore any of my old backup prior to ML. How can I get rid of ML without loosing data and taking up tons of my time?

Time Machine will not allow you to go back to a previous OS version, unless you are running that version. So if you are running Mountain Lion, it will only restore to ML back ups.
Others have done what you want to, if you have a OS X LION install disc/usb. You will have to manually copy over data as you should always back up your system regardless.
Source; Derek Currie https://discussions.apple.com/message/19105493#19105493
"Time Machine does not provide bootable backups. Therefore, this is not the solution.
If you bought Lion, you should be able to re-download it from the Mac App Store. (Sadly, Apple pulled the ability to actually buy Lion off the store). You should be booted to another volume other than the one you will be installing to. You may have to disable the installation on the disk you wish to move back to Lion. I'm not certain, but suspect that trashing the ML System folder would do the job. The Installer will probably notice the missing OS and allow the Lion install. If not, then you'd have to go to the root directory of that volume, make invisible files visible and trash the 'Kernel' files and try again to install Lion.
Ideally you can use the Time Machine backup to restore just about everything else. But you may find everything works fine after the install.
I beta tested 10.8 Mountain Lion and know that it had a couple remaining bugs upon release. That's what updates are for. I expect there will be a rapid release of 10.8.1 update via the Mac App Store. It may well be worth hanging in there with 10.8. It is most definitely an IMPROVEMENT over Lion, whose Finder bugs I absolutely hate. (But that problem may soon be solved with the 10.7.5 update coming soon).
If you look around the net you'll find there are instructions for creating a bootable Lion installer DVD or USB thumb drive as long as you have the Lion Installer on a hard drive. Here are a couple with illustrations:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/21/mac-os-x-lion-clean-install-explained/
http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/lion-clean-install-guide/"

After Full System Restore, Time Machine Won't Complete Back Up

I successfully did a full system restore using Time Machine. The Restore worked but Time Machine has not worked since I completed the Restore.
It says "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.." Please help. I don't know what to do. The TM Widget Activity Log is posted below:
Starting standard backup
BStarting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 529.6 MB requested (including padding), 30.58 GB available
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to (null)
Copied 5546 files (34.6 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 526.8 MB requested (including padding), 30.54 GB available
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Akili Nickson’s iMac/2011-03-17-080109.inProgress/25E02D47-EB07-4E59-B2D8-0A9CF26A0042/Macintos h HD/private/var/CheckUpAgent
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Akili Nickson’s iMac/2011-03-17-080109.inProgress/25E02D47-EB07-4E59-B2D8-0A9CF26A0042/Macintos h HD/private/var/CheckUpAgent
Copied 57 files (23.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11

Akili wrote:
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /private/var/CheckUpAgent/data.float.net.sent.ca_history
There seems to be a problem with that file. See the blue box in #C3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Note that the /private folder is normally hidden, so you'll need to click the +Show inisible items+ box.

Time Machine won't back up onto Time Capsule

I upgraded to Mountain Lion last week, and Time Machine won't back up to my Time Capsule. When it fails, I get the message:
Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Tom's Time Capsule".
The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 60)
I sometimes get the same message, but with "error 17"
I also get the following error message popup (even though the disk is the one in my Time Capsule):
The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.
The popup offers three choices: Initialize, Ignore, Eject.
My local Apple Store Genius concluded that the problem must be with the Time Capsule, so I bought a new one. That didn't fix the problem.
Time Machine Buddy messages:
Starting manual backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Tom%[email protected]/Data
Creating disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle
Error 60 creating backup disk image
Failed to create disk image /Volumes/Data/TomsMac.sparsebundle, status: 60
Backup failed with error: 20
Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Data (FSVolumeRefNum: -108; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
I did Repair Disk Permissions and Verify Disk and everything's OK.
I erased the Time Capsule using AirPort Utility and did a hard reset on the Time Capsule.
I did a re-install of Mountain Lion and that didn't fix anything.
My MacBook Pro is accessing the Time Capsule wirelessly, as it always has.
Help!

Just to be sure, we're talking about a Time Capsule -- not an AirPort Extreme connected to an external hard drive. Right?
If so, proceed as follows.
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).
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, you can’t boot in safe mode.
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) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up. I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?

I bought a new external hard drive for backups, but time machine won't do a full back up.
I think it is remembering backing up onto previous external hard drives, which I don't own anymore. How do I do a new full backup?
When I bought the new (used) iMac, I also bought an external hard drive for backups. It worked fine, but my husband stole it.
Then I bought a new external hard drive (Seagate) and it worked fine for three weeks, then died.
So I just got a new external hard drive, which was put together from an internal hard drive and a hard drive enclosure.
Time machine did the first backup today, and it should have taken 9 hours like it did on the previous first time full back up. Instead, it took 30 minutes. That can't be right. I want to start over and do a full backup to make sure everything gets onto my new external hard drive, but I can't figure out how to do that. Please help.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:
tmutil compare -E
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal 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 Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Time MAchine won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time Machine won't back up after system restore

I just restored my system after a failure, and now Time Machine won't back up my hard drive. It gets about 40 out of 90 Gigabytes done, and then gives me an error message that just says that there was an error while backing up, and doesn't give any other information. I ran a Verify Disk with Disk Utility, and there is nothing wrong with the backup drive, and there is more than 200 Gigabytes of space left on that drive.
Thank You.

zhoffmanster wrote:
Ok, so here's the thing: I tried backing up again today, and it worked just fine. Before, what would happen is a message would pop saying "an error has occurred during backup" (or something close to that). The point is, the message didn't give any detail.
No, the point is, you seem to have ignored this:
See the Time Machine - Troubleshooting post at the top of this forum.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

My Time machine won't back up. Recently updated to OS x 10.7.5. Error message is as follows: "The backup disk image "/Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Scott's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use." What is wrong and how do I fix it? Thanks.

My Time machine won't back up. Recently updated to OS x 10.7.5. Error message is as follows: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Scott’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use." What is wrong and how do I fix it? Thanks.

Have you tried restarting the computer? Also, see Time Machine Error from this pages sidebar under More Like This.

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

After installing Mountain Lion, my Time Machine won't back up ... says the sparsebundle is in use

Standard problem in ML.. apple do not seem to want to recognise.
Reboot the TC .. if that fails restart the whole network in correct order.. modem.. router/TC... clients.. with 2min gap.
There are other suggestions like changing the password.. all they do is the same as reboot.
Read C12.. most quoted Q in pondini website history. This is asked 10 times a day.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Here is another way to get a useful utility in ML.. rather than toyland version.
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. it is very simple.. drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. drill down.. applications utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall 6.1 so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. so just ignore the toyland version.. the plastic hammer.. and start using 5.6.. a real tool.

Time Machine won't back-up. Why?

Time Machine won't back-up to LaCie external drive (OS 10.7.4) after I disconnected and reconnected for a road trip.
Why? How can I correct?

What is the error message?

Time machine won't back up my music drive

When I use time machine to back up my music my external drive with my music on it called "music" won't back up. When I attempt to re add it to the items to be backed up, from the "Exclude these items from backups", in the time machine preferences, it at first moves over to the items to be backed up, but when I exit the preferences and reopen it the music external drive shows up again as an excluded item. I've even named two drives music and neither will time machine allow me to back up. In the past I've successfully backed it up but can't now.

See C10 in the first linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

I moved files off my computer to an external hard drive now time machine won't back up like it used to. It says there is not enough room.

My hard drive was completely full (mostly with pictures) so I moved several years worth of photos from the hard drive to an external hard drive I regularly use with the laptop. (Basically my master copies of all my photos back to 1997) I have always had Time Machine set up to back up both the laptop AND that external drive. It's always worked seamlessly until I moved those files. Time Machine has been full for a while now and regularly gives me a message that the oldest files will be deleted. That's fine.
I don't understand why moving files from the laptop to the external hd would now cause the following message (not an exact quote): Time Capsule cannot complete backup. You need 233 gb to backup and time capsule only has 107 gb available. If time capsule was already set to backup up both the laptop and the external hd, why would moving those photos from one hd to the other cause a space issue? It should equal out. And now when I look at the files on the time capsule, it only shows me a recent backup and a partial incomplete backup. None of the older backups are visible anymore. I have not deleted anything directly from the time capsule so I'm thinking somehow the index got damaged. How can I fix this? The error message says to change the settings but I really don't know what settings to change. Help!!

It does not immediately delete the files that are missing.. it merely tries to backup the new files it has discovered on the external drive. Since you moved the files there, the backup at least for a while will contain both copies.. and that is why it doesn't have enough space to backup.
Fixing the problem.. hmm pondini is the expert.. you should be able to delete the backup of the photos in existing backup.. there are instructions to do it.. but it is a very poor way to do things.
Much better. .archive off the existing backup.. this is long and slow but worth it. you need a usb drive of the same size as the TC drive. Then erase the TC and start a fresh set of backups.
The alternative is to use the USB drive as a new target.. but it is much slower than the TC internal drive.
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

Time Machine won't automatically back up

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