Time machine wont backup says backup failed

Hi all . I have had time maching running successfully for 5 years. It is running on mavericks IMAC and using an external MYbook drive - same setup 5 years. My macbok also backing up remotely over wifi to this drive using time machine. Recently my macbook stopped backing up and would not recognise the sparse file even though time machine could find the backups it would not backup. I connected th Mybook directly to my Macbook and it recrreated the backup and now works fine over wifi. However since connecting my Mybook back to IMAC time machine again recognises the Backups and history and the drive - but it wil not backup. It goes through the motion of preparing backup but fails after 45 mins just stating "backup failed" ! I run disk utility on the Mybook adn it is fine. I have deleted the in progress file but still does not work. How can I force Time machine to work - mad that it will recognise the drive, see all my previous backups but not use it as a backup drive and fail the backup with no proper error message. Any deas ?

Mister_E wrote:
Hi:
I have a mac that is about 3 months old. I am using Mac OS X 10.6.3. I am not using Time Capsule. I am using an external hard drive. My Mac's hard drive is 500 G the external drive is also 500 G.
That's almost certainly much too small. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
But of course, it depends on how much is on your internal HD, which you haven't told us.
The message I get says I have 74.74 GB of 499.75 GB available.
Under options I do have "Notify after old backups are deleted" checked.
That means you're running Snow Leopard. PLEASE update your settings (click +My Settings+ at the right of this very page, and select the version of OSX you're running, and be more specific than "iMac" about your hardware) so we know what we're dealing with, as asked before! PLEASE
That's one of the things that changed in Snow Leopard. Having that box checked in Snow Leopard does not prevent deletions.
As I said, it backed up fine for a couple weeks but now what do I do? No matter how small I make the backup, if it just keeps adding backups it will eventually fill the drive.
From your first post: +*"I started getting messages that TM failed to backup because is was full (something like that)."+*
Now that we know you're on Snow Leopard, most likely the message says *+"The backup disk is full,"+* which is simply the notification you asked for by having the "Notify after old backups are deleted" box checked. See #C4 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Next time you get the message, take the time to note exactly what it says, and see #C4 in the Troubleshooting Tip.
And PLEASE update your settings.

Similar Messages

Logic Board replaced, Time Machine wont recognize old backups

I just got my Logic Board replaced and obviously having the problem with Time Machine recognizing old backups. I looked at old forums and found the macosxhints page (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101) on how to fix the problem but when I try to enter cd /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb into terminal it gives me a message saying "no such file or directory" i dont know where to go from here any help would be appreciated thanks for your time

instead of Time Machine in that command you should enter "name of your TM drive" (put the name of your TM drive there and KEEP THE QUOTES). However, as you seem to be unfamiliar with terminal you will very likely have further problems following that hint. Try this one instead
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20081216145458979&query=%2Bfsaclctl

Time Machine wont erase oldest backups

So at work and at home im having issues with my time machine backups. It doesnt seem that time machine wants to erase the oldest backups to make room for new backups. I have a 1TB hard drive in the iMac and i have 1TB backup hard drive with only 1 partition, all dedicated for backup. It keeps saying...
"This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 392.28 GB but only 243.40 GB are available.
Time Machine needs work space on the backup disk, in the addition to the space required to store backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files."
Thing is that if it needs more space it should get ride of older files, should it not?? a 1TB backup drive should be able to backup a 1TB HD shouldntn it??
any help would be much appreciated!

Hi,
I recommend you slide on over to the Time Machine forum and spend a little time reading the TM FAQ. You can locate them at:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
If you still can't find your answer then repost in that forum.
Roger

I migrated info from a hard drive to a new mac under time machine. It says I have shared files, but I don't see the old info on the new machine. Where do I look for it ? How do I make the old backup the base for my new macbook ?

I migrated info from a hard drive to a new mac under time machine. It says I have shared files, but I don't see the old info on the new machine. Where do I look for it ? How do I make the old backup the basis for my new macbook ?
The old OS was Mac X 10.5.8. I think the new one is 10.7.2 Lion.

Have a read here How do I set up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC?
Stefan

Time Machine wont backup

I bought an external hard drive and put files from my old computer on it before I bought my iMac. Now I want to use it for backing up my iMac but Time Machine wont backup to it without erasing the contents. Is there a way around this? Or will I have to buy a new EHD? Or is there a way to backup to cyberspace?
Thanks

jmhoskin wrote:
I bought an external hard drive and put files from my old computer on it before I bought my iMac. Now I want to use it for backing up my iMac but Time Machine wont backup to it without erasing the contents. Is there a way around this? Or will I have to buy a new EHD? Or is there a way to backup to cyberspace?
The drive is probably set up with the MBR (Master Boot Record) partition map, that Windoze uses. To use it for TM you must completely reformat it, which will erase it. If you have enough space (or can borrow another external temporarily), you can copy the data off, reformat it, then copy the data back.
TM works best with it's own, exclusive space, so you should partition the drive anyway. If you're going to use the other data with a PC, make the other partition MS-DOS (FAT).
For formatting instructions, see item #5 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
Also see #1 of the FAQ Tip for size considerations.

Time Machine Folder Renamed (2) Backups Fail

Hi all,
After updating to Snow Leopard, Time Machine backups would fail with an error (2) displayed by 'Time Machine Buddy'.
On my Time Machine volume within the Backups.backupd folder my computer folder has had "(2)" added to it i.e. computername (2).
When I found this I went straight into the 'Sharing' system pane and change the computer name back to the original name (deleted the "(2)").
This change was not reflected in the Time Machine Backups.backupd folder.
I do not have permissions to change the folder name. I tried adding myself as an owner in 'sharing and permissions' but still could not change the folder name. I logged in as the 'root' user but still could not change the folder name.
Has anyone a solution to this problem other than setting up another external drive? e.g. terminal commands.
Thanks.

xccobrien wrote:
This change was not reflected in the Time Machine Backups.backupd folder.
I do not have permissions to change the folder name. I tried adding myself as an owner in 'sharing and permissions' but still could not change the folder name. I logged in as the 'root' user but still could not change the folder name.
Be glad you didn't make that work. Apple puts special "deny everybody everything" permissions on it's backups for a reason: when we mere mortals fool with TM's backups, we can hopelessly corrupt them.
*Never change, move, or delete anything in a TM backup via the Finder.*

HT3275 time machine could not complete backup because it says a (filename).sparsebundle is already in use. Anyone know what that is?? and who could be already using my file?

Do you understand this error message? Time machine could not complete backup because it says a (filename).sparesbundle is already is in use.
What is the sparsebundle extension?

See here...
The Backup disk image ... sparsebundle ... is already in use.
From Pondini’s excellent Information Here...
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.htm

Time Machine Ejecting Second HD and Failing to Backup

Hey everyone, first time posting after many years of getting great tips and help here!
So I've been dealing with this error for the last 3 days. Basically, I have a 13in Macbook Pro with a Second 2TB HD in place of the DVD drive.
When I run Time Machine, somewhere in the backup process it ejects the 2nd HD and fails to backup. I have done the following:
- Tried backing up to my 6TB firewire drive, used exclusively for Time Machine. Didn't work.
- Tried backing up to a 4tb USB3 drive, used exclusively for Time Machine. Didn't work.
- Reinstalled OS X, tried Time Machine on a new installation, didn't work.
- Tried using console to isolate a problematic file and tried to exclude it from the backup, didn't work and another file immediately became problematic. Here's an example of the error.
- Formatted ALL my drives, reinstalled and restored everything. Still the same error -
11/27/14 12:37:46.859 PM com.apple.backupd[180]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Volumes/Production HD/Komplete/Damage Library/Samples/Damage 001.nkx to (null)
What's strange is that the drive works perfectly fine and when I try to back it up using Carbon Copy Cloner it does so without a glitch.
Any one have any insight on what could possibly be going on here? Below are the details:
MacBookPro9,2
Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10
16GB
System Drive: Samsung SSD 830
Data Drive: Samsung Seagate Momentus SpinPoint ST2000LM003 2TB
Time Machine Drive: WD My Book 1230 Media
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Not sure what to try at this point.

Start with Section C in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

I tried to install a new hard drive using Snow Leopard to back up with Time Machine. When I installed the new HD I installed Leopard (10.5) on it and tried to use time machine to restore the backup I had made using 10.6. Kernel panic screen occurred.

I backed up my system using 10.6 Snow Leopard's Time Machine to an external hard drive. I did this because I purchased a new internal hard drive to upgrade my 2007 White Macbook from 80GB to 320GB. When I installed the new hard drive, I installed 10.4 (Tiger) and then 10.5 (Leopard) and once Leopard was in I tried to use Time Machine to restore my backup from 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and received a kernal panic screen directly after the bootup.
The screen had code asking for 10.6, so does this mean that the computer is searching for Snow Leopard? If so, how can I do this? Will a bootable drive with Snow Leopard on it be able to solve the issue or will I somehow need to find a way to wipe out this new hard drive?
-Steve

Booting From Snow Leopard Installer Disc
1. Insert Snow Leopard Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.
Drive Preparation and Installation
1. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. After formatting is complete quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.

Time Machine deleted my old backups and crapped out midstream

I had just gotten my failing hard drive replaced, and restored from Time Machine backup. So far so good.
So a week later, I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but figured I should be responsible and run Time Machine backup again before doing the upgrade just in case something goes wrong.
The Mac has a 4TB drive, which has 2TB free. The backup drive is a 4TB external drive, which has (or had) Time Machine backups going back two years or so. It still had over a TB of space left. I clicked on Backup Now and let it run overnight. I noticed it said "Deleting old backup to make room" or something like that, which I thought was normal.
I woke up in the morning to find that Time Machine had crapped out in the middle, and said that it couldn't complete. I realized that it had deleted all my old backups. It didn't need to do that, since the only files that had changed would have been less than a GB, and it had over a TB of space to work with.
It must have thought that everything on the drive had changed since the last backup, and it wanted to backup the entire drive. As such it tried deleting all my old backups! But it failed, and stopped in the middle.
Now I have a drive that still says there is only 1.2 TB of space on the drive, but I can't see the files! Even with Tinkertool, I can't see anything beyond the one most recent backup.
Can these files be recovered? I am totally ticked that there isn't some kind of confirmation like "Are you sure you want to delete X?"
I actually need to have some of these older backups, as they include files that had been deleted before the latest backup that I may need to retrieve. Any hard drive experts out there? Any terminal commands that can make these files accessible, even if I have to retrieve them manually?

To clarify, this all happened under Snow Leopard as I had said. My profile lists Tiger, since I haven't cared to update my personal profile since using that OS, and in fact I still use Tiger among other versions. I manage a lot of users. And I never got to upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system, as explained in the post above. So I don't see the confusion.
I don't think the model of Mac makes a difference for this type of problem, but in case it does, the incident was on a 2010 Intel iMac with a 4TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. I would have mentioned that if this was a problem with hardware specific to the model of Mac. But this is more of a universal issue.
But to stay on topic, I'm guessing my old backups are toast. But if anybody has any experience with recovering from Time Machine deleting their old backups, I would be happy to hear from them. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some old fashioned file recovery, and see what I can salvage.

Backup disk is full ... Time Machine not deleting old backups

In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
So now TM is failing to backup.
Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
Thanks.
Ramone

ramonekalsaw wrote:
In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
So now TM is failing to backup.
What message does it send? See #C2 in [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).
It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
Do you have other data on the disk, in the same partition? If so, that's not a good idea, and may be the source of the problem. See #3 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).

Time Machine won't recognize backups

I have two external RAID 5 units. One for content, one for backup of said content. Both are 10TB. Content to be backed up is 5.27TB.
Time machine completes the first backup, but fails to do any subsequent backups, saying there isn't enough space. It says it needs 5.27TB to backup, but it's already completed one backup and should only be adding changes, correct? When I go into Time Machine, it doesn't give me an option to recover from any backups. It looks like there are multiple snapshots, but I cannot scroll through them and the RESTORE option is greyed out.
Checking the drives contents shows it has 5.27TB. If I navigate the backup folder, all my content seems to be there. So is it simply not seeing my previous backup?
The Backup drive (and content drive) do go into sleep mode, does that possibly break Time Machine's link?
Super frustrating.
I've read a few posts here but they are all trying to backup with drives that are too small. I'm using identical drives.
This is my console window from the failed backup event:
2015-01-14 9:21:05.232 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backing up to /dev/disk1s2: /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb
2015-01-14 9:21:06.123 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:06.123 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:15.609 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:15.609 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:24.580 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:24.579 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:33.579 AM sharingd[11320]: 09:21:33.579 : Starting Handoff advertising
2015-01-14 9:21:40.497 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Will copy (Zero KB) from PromisePegasus
2015-01-14 9:21:40.497 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Found 351422 files (5.27 TB) needing backup
2015-01-14 9:21:40.499 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: 5.29 TB required (including padding), 4.72 TB available
2015-01-14 9:21:40.500 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Deleted backup /Volumes/BACKUP/Backups.backupdb/SeanMacPro/2015-01-14-092119.inProgress/A909D1 F1-2818-40E7-A24C-9E9A1A8C9B12 containing 16 KB; 4.72 TB now available, 5.29 TB required
2015-01-14 9:21:40.500 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Removed 1 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
2015-01-14 9:21:40.501 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Deleted 1 backups containing 16 KB total; 4.72 TB now available, 5.29 TB required
2015-01-14 9:21:40.501 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Jan 14, 2015
2015-01-14 9:21:40.505 AM com.apple.backupd[46640]: Backup failed with error 7: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.

Start with C4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time machine Deleted old computer backups

Hey,
I have been using a mac pro for about a year and a half now and as all computers get it has become slow and full of garbage. So i used my time machine back up and successfully backed up all my files. I put in the OS disk and wiped the computer clean and reinstalled the OS. I plugged the time machine back up in and began to copy over only the files that i wanted. A few days later I had not yet copied over all of the files that I needed, i was prompted me to set up this computer with a time machine back up. I began the process thinking that it would create the backups in a new file on the drive or append it to the current list of back up images. It stopped half way though saying there was not enough free disk space. on the 1 TB HD there was only 5 GB remaining. So I just canceled it and was going to finish copying over all of the files i wanted and they delete the old backups. However when I went to get my old backup files, they had all been deleted.
I was using this hard drive to store other media files as well as time machine backups. taking the HD into the local computer shop i was informed that that is a terrible thing to do and perhaps the reason that my backups have been lost. the tech said there was nothing to be done but reformat the drive and start again. I am hoping this is not the case. the drive still says there is only 5GB of free space however I can only fine 300GB of files on the drive. so i believe that the files are still there. Does anyone know a solution to this issue. There are many valuable things on this hard drive that i would hate to loose.
I have tried holding the option key and clicking on the icon to view other backups, but my original backups are not there.
Thanks in advance.

Before I make any reply, note that you are responding to a topic that has been inactive for more than two years, on a system two versions out of date. In the future, you would do better to start your own topic in an appropriate forum, specifying what system you're running and what hardware you're running it on, among other things.
this exact thing happened to me as well and I must say that I find it totally unacceptable...
Well, without more information, it's impossible to say what might have happened or how you can recover. You may find some answers on Pondini's excellent site:
http://pondini.org
However, it's important to understand that this may or may not have anything to do with Time Machine. Perhaps your backup drive is dying, perhaps its directory structure became badly corrupt, perhaps one of any number of other things could have happened. Because there is no such thing as storage that is completely stable, it's important to keep more than one backup, as noted previously on this topic.
Carbon Copy Cloner seems like a much better solution at this time.
Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent solution. Is it better? No. It is simply different, and that makes it better in some aspects and worse in others than Time Machine. The best backup strategy will involve two different backup programs. I frequently recommend using both Time Machine and CCC. I use TM with a Time Capsule for one backup, which has certain advantages over CCC. I use CCC for a couple other backups, one of which is in a safe deposit box at all times, and that has some advantages over TM. Using both, with multiple backups, means that I'm extremely unlikely to lose much data, if any at all... unless a meteor hits and destroys both my home and my bank, in which case I've got bigger problems!
Anyway, with regard to recovery, take a look at Pondini's site. If that doesn't help, or you need assistance with something, start your own topic in the appropriate forum for your system and provide additional details that may help us better assist you.

Time machine does not recognize backups

I need to do a restore because after a logic board replacement my apps are not showing as registered, in other words they are all asking for serial numbers. I would like to see if I can use time machine to restore these apps. I don't want to do a full restore using the OS X install CD because it says it erases the contents of the volume. I'm assuming that means teh system and apps will be restored but I'll lose my files.
I can;t get time machine to recognize backups and I found this...
Symptoms
In the Mac OS X 10.5 Time Machine "time travel" window, past backups may not appear if your computer name includes certain characters.
Products Affected
Resolution
Check your computer name in Sharing preferences. Make sure the computer name only includes ASCII characters from following set and is not blank (no matter which Mac OS X language version you are using):
0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
so I changed my computer name accordingly but the backup folder in Backups.backupdb still has the old name with a character not allowed. Nothing I do to change priveleges allows me to rename the folder!
Advice needed! Thanks!

It is not a simple matter of the computer name. A simple rename of the backup doesn't do it. It my be necessary but its not the obstacle.
The MAC address of the old board is in the Extended Attributes (EAs -"invisible" metadata) for the old board backups and the MAC address of the new board is in its EAs. If they MAC address in the EA doesn't match the MAC address of the machine that Time Machine is trying to backup it won't do it and it will start a new backup. That certainly appears to be the situation you face.
You can see this by a simple check in terminal. Below is a sample I have two machines name Juvenal and Pliny. The xattr command with the -l option lists all the extended attributes of a file. For the backups of my systems it returns a value that is, in fact, the MAC address of that machine. If the MAC address of the target and source don't match Time Machine won't do the backup and will start a newbackup'
~ $xattr -l /Volumes/Backup\ of\ Juvenal/Backups.backupdb/Juvenal
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
0000 30 30 3A 31 64 3A 34 66 3A 34 61 3A 66 31 3A 64 00:1d:4f:1a:f4:d6
0010 36 00
~ $xattr -l /Volumes/Backup\ of\ Pliny/Backups.backupdb/Pliny
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
0000 30 30 3A 31 62 3A 36 33 3A 33 66 3A 66 64 3A 37 00:1b:63:3f:fd:76
0010 36 00
The actual path to your backups will depend on your configuration and whether or not the backup is on a locally attached drive or not. Mine - in the example above - are on a TC and the results occur after opening the sparse bundles.
The solution I pointed you do is trying to deal with this and change it so the MAC addresses match.
I agree this is a known problem and warrant an official fix which should not be complicated.

HT3275 Time machine cannot complete my backup

Time machine cannot complete my backup because 'an error occurred while creating the backup folder'. How do I solve this problem?

Failed again this morning. I checked my logs and one thing it showed was, "Error: (-50) Creating directory..." I saw this...
ssls6
Re: Time Machine Issue-Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.
Jan 29, 2012 10:42 AM (in response to HMR529)
one thing you can try
Open system prefs and go to spotlight, in the privacy section add your Macintosh HD and any other drives you back up. Give it a few seconds then remove your Macintosh HD and any other drives you added. Close system preferences. Watch the spotlight symbol on the top menu bar "looks like a magnifying glass". It should have a dot in it as in is indexing all your drives again. When the indexing is over (it can take a long time of your drive is big) now try to create a new backup with time machine...."
As usual, it's gonna take a couple days to see if it works. I'll let y'all know...and y'all should try it also, and let us know.

Time machine wont backup says backup failed

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