Time Machine wont go past "Preparing Backup"

For some reason today the time machine is stuck on "preparing backup" I've read some other posts and tried their solutions but noting yet. This is ridiculous. I have an important paper to write and I cant afford to lose it due to a computer crash and an unresponsive Time Machine. The computer itself has been acting up too much. This is off topic but does anyone notice if you have AIM for your computer if you put more than one finger on the trackpad it crashes the program. Also if you insert a long web address in microsoft word then hit enter it also crashes the program. Is it just mine or anyone else having these problems. But anyways I need to focus on Time Machine
Thanks

Ok I just let it run for 10 to 15 minutes and it ended up backing up and now its fine. Problem solved!

Similar Messages

My Time Capsule/Time Machine has been showing Preparing Backup for past 48 hours continuously!

My Time Capsule reported Full the other day. I now have only 26.8MB of 497.96 GB available. Since then it seems to backing up continuously. The Time machine preferences window shows "Preparing Backup" andnothing else, and it has been doing so for at least past 48 hours. Any ideas as to the problem?
Stuartyboy

Yes, the problem is the drive is full.
If you have other files or TM back from other computers, TM on your computer having issues will not be able to delete enough to get sufficient space to backup.
Read how to clean up and delete parts of backups.. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Not a good idea though.
Solution.
1. Buy a new bigger TC.. cheaper (Than the original 500GB at least), faster and now the smallest is 2TB.
2. Plug in a USB drive.. archive the TC.. then erase it and start a fresh set of backups.. April 1st great day to do it.
3. Open up your old TC.. remove the 500GB drive and install a 2TB (if Gen1 a 3TB might even work). Google for how to do a hard disk upgrade.
Problem.. old power supply could die the day after and then the total cost would approach 1. Better to backup, wipe the 500GB and sell it on ebay and buy a new TC with 2 or even 3TB (2TB is better value IMHO).
4. Plug in a USB drive .. formatted to HFS+ and use that as the target.
Very slow. much slower than the same drive plugged into your computer.

When i try to use time machine it locks up preparing backup

when i try to use time machine it locks up preparing back up.I have used this back up for a year with no problem and it has 900gb of unused space

Trocker
Thanks for the follow up.
I think that we need to fine tune the exchange of information.
When you mentioned "capture", my first impression was that you were doing a DV and HDV capture firewire into the Premiere Elements Capture Window.
Premiere Elements 12 Capture WIndow.
With your additional information, what I suspect you are doing is the following:
1. Attaching your camera to the computer via USB (USB Mass Storage On) setting the computer AutoPlay for
Organize and Edit
Premiere Elements 12
which opens the Elements Organizer - Photo Downloader dialog.
2. If I am guessing correctly so far, in this dialog what are you setting as the Save Location? And, what is being transferred photos or videos or both.
(I have done a run through with my camera, and this path can do both. I left the Save Location as "Pictures" and did not run into any "Insert Disc" messages.
3. Again, if I am guessing correctly on this one (based on your "automatically Organizer opening", what happens if you transfer from camera to computer hard drive location, perhaps a folder on the computer desktop?
We will be watching for your follow up to confirm details.
Thanks.
ATR

Time Machine Locks up at "Preparing backup..."

Using a 1 TB Time Capsule for Time Machine Backup of my MAcBook Pro (MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 8GB Ram, 2.2GHz Intel Core i7, 1TB). Occasionally, it stops backing up properly. In Time Machine Preferences, it finds the disk but seems to get hung up "Preparing backup..."
In the past when this happened, I rebooted my cable modem and then rebooted my Time Capsule and the next backup started working fine. That no longer seems to work. It just keeps "Preparing backup...."
Any suggestions?

Do a verify of the backup.. it could be stuck with inprogress file from previous failed backup.
A5 and A10 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Load the widget.. A1 to get the logs from the TM so you actually know why it is stalling.

Since upgrading to Mavericks, my Time Machine is stuck on "Preparing Backup".

Since upgrading to Mavericks, every time I attempt to run a Time Machine backup, I can only get it to go as far as "Preparing Backup". I've left it like that for hours just to see if it's slow. I've also stopped and restarted Time Machine multiple times to no avail....it just gets stuck at that point. Please help.

Since upgrading to Mavericks, every time I attempt to run a Time Machine backup, I can only get it to go as far as "Preparing Backup". I've left it like that for hours just to see if it's slow. I've also stopped and restarted Time Machine multiple times to no avail....it just gets stuck at that point. Please help.

Time Machine is stuck on "Preparing Backup"

My Backups have not worked for about a month.....and have been in a perpetual "preparing" state.
I have Imac with OS version is 10.7.5, Build is 11G63
Have got this from console logs if it help shine any light on the nature of my issues, and how to fix?
Sep 8 19:10:27 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[211]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Sep 8 19:11:28 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[211]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Sep 8 19:12:30 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[211]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Sep 8 19:13:31 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[211]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Sep 8 19:24:44 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[4061]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Sep 8 19:25:21 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[4061]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Sep 8 19:25:23 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[4061]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Sep 8 19:26:23 unknown-d4:9a:20:ed:4a:c6 com.apple.backupd[4061]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Thanks in advance

Does your computer have a name in System Preferences > Sharing? If not, that may be at least part of the problem. Give it one -- make it short, and use only numbers and letters -- no punctuation.
Then cancel the backup and try again.
It sounds more like a problem with the index, so if that doesn't help, cancel the backup and try to repair them per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

What to do when time machine seems stuck on "Preparing Backup"

This issue is happenning on my macbook pro, mid 2010. My drive setup is that I have a partition which I dedicated to time machine backups. The total size of my drive is 500GB, and I partitioned about 100GB for time machine. The reason for that is I only needed a few space since I setup time machine to include only the system and the apps, and NONE of the libraries such as itunes or photos. This means that the only backup will be for the system, profiles, and the app. I have been running this for a few months andhas been doing OK until up to now.
My problem is that my time machine seems to get stuck on "Preparing Backup". The latest backup was done last Nov 8, 2011, whcih is about 11 days from now. I am also aware that the time machine drive has only about 200 mb space left, but I am not worried at all because I've always TM to delete the oldest backup to free up space. My oldest backup was still Sept 8, and I'm ok if that will be deleted.
So I'd like to find out why it still stuck on "Preparing backup" ,and I am wondering if deleting a backup can solve it. Can it? what do I do to solve this?
Also, I use my computer alot , so it is basically running for about 18 hours a day, but still time machine didn't quite work well. I have tried reparing the disk using disk utility, but that didn't help.

Comments inline below.
Pondini wrote:
joshua raphael wrote:
This issue is happenning on my macbook pro, mid 2010. My drive setup is that I have a partition which I dedicated to time machine backups. The total size of my drive is 500GB, and I partitioned about 100GB for time machine. The reason for that is I only needed a few space since I setup time machine to include only the system and the apps, and NONE of the libraries such as itunes or photos.
You may want to revisit that strategy:
A backup on the same drive isn't very secure -- when (not if) the HD fails, you risk losing everything.
In most cases, if there's a problem with OSX the best way to fix it is to just install a fresh version. But you can't do that from that backup.
Indeed!
Backing-up apps that way will also be useless in some cases. 3rd-party apps that came with their own installers put other files in other places (and sometimes "helper" apps as well). Unless you know what and where they all are, and restore them, too, the restored app won't work properly, if at all.
I think you're confusing each other with terminology. iTunes music and iPhoto pictures are NOT "Libraries", which has a specific meaning when it comes to OS X. "Libraries", in OS X normally refers to /Libraries and ~/Libraries folders. This is not where iTunes music and iPhoto pictures are stored. iTunes music and iPhoto pictures are stored within ~/Music and ~/Pictures, respectively.
I have tried reparing the disk using disk utility, but that didn't help.
Disk Utility changed a bit in Lion. When you select an entire disk, it only repairs the partition map, not all the volumes. You must repair each one separately.
Wow, good to know. (What a stupid change to make, for backwards compatibility, if for no other reason!)
See #D1 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting to figure out why the backups are hanging.
Whew. This editor makes it so hard to make comments inline. The key thing when time machine seems stuck is patience. Sometimes it needs to be left to run overnight. Unfortunately, it doesn't log or report it's progress very well.
Opening Time Machine settings in Preferences plus a command like this left running in Terminal.app is how I monitor progress. And even so, there is very little logging indicating progress.
sudo tail -f /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/My\ Computer/2012-07-11-133352.inProgress/.Backup.363731632.496216.log
The parts in italics will need to be adjusted. Tab completion makes this easy, e.g type
sudo tail -f /Volumes/
and hit tab, type the first few letters of the relevant volume name, hit tab...
Also, I have a hypothesis which needs testing.
I know that Time Machine gets confused if one deletes large files from a backup - specifically, Time Machine doesn't recognize that the size of the backup has changed.
I know because this made restoring a thinned out time machine backup ("thinned out" by deleting files from within the GUI while inside the Time Machine) to a small SSD harder than it should have been. I had to restore to a big disk and then clone that volume to the SSD - even though the SSD had enough space, Time Machine didn't think so; it didn't "understand" that it had been thinned.
My hypothesis is that Time Machine also gets confused if the Time Machine partition is resized. I shrunk a Time Machine partition (no it wasn't on my main disk!) and about that time, Time Machine stopped working. After thinning the volume, it started working again.

Upgraded from 10.6 to 10.8 and time machine is stuck on 'preparing backup'

I am running a MBP, purchased in 2011. I upgraded on Sunday from 10.6 to 10.8 and everything seemed to be working fine. Thought I would do a backup but the drive has just been stuck on 'preparing backup' for ages. Does anybody have any ideas of what I can do?
Thanks.

I was going to suggest a restart - glad that I didn't. When upgrading OS's, there's usually a lot of data to back up, but I'm surprised that it took 'ages'!
Clinton

Time Machine stopped backing up, "preparing"

Hi,
I recently moved and backed up an imac I left behind as well as my macbook using Time Machine.
Everything was fine until Feb 27 when I was hit by a car and spent the next several weeks away from the computer. When I did get the laptop back, I didn't have the backup drive. Until a few days ago.
So I reconnect and the backup starts with no problem until it finally tells me that I am out of space on the drive. I decided that I should just dump the imac time machine folder since I had a duplicate on another drive. That was much more complicated than I expected but I finally reclaimed a lot of space.
The problem is that now when I connect time machine, it just says preparing backup. I can enter time machine and see my last date before the accident, even going back into last year. But it won't back up any more.
I've looked at the forums and on one suggestion deleted the com.apple.TimeMachine.plist file after disconnecting the drive and then reconnecting everything but to no avail.
Here is the message on the Time Machine Widget buddy
Starting standard backup
Backup requested by user
Backing up to: /Volumes/2TB BB/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
My first thought would be that the backup I trashed was the one for the macbook and not the imac but the last saved dates would all be wrong and it wouldn't explain my ability to enter time machine and look back at my computer's history.
Anyway, At this point I really want to just have a complete back up that I can use to wipe my drive and reinstall everything. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
bb

Bruce Bridges wrote:
Starting standard backup
Backup requested by user
Backing up to: /Volumes/2TB BB/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
Those are all normal. The last two mean that TM has to compare everything on your Mac to the backups, to figure out what's changed and needs to be backed-up. That takes longer than a normal backup, but shouldn't take hours, unelss there's a problem with one of the drives, or the port, cable, etc.
I'd recommend Verifying the internal HD, and Repairing the TM drive, per #6 in Using Disk Utility.

How does one get Time Machine out of a "Preparing to Backup" loop to actually doing a backup? thanks, AR

How does one get Time Machine out of a "Preparing to Backup" loop to actually doing a backup? thanks, AR

Hi..
Thanks for the reply..
My original I Phone 5 was running IOS 6.12
My I phone 5S currently runs IOS 8..When I upgraded it, it had IOS 7 on it which made the I Photo app compatible with everything below IOS 8...( which the photo app is not compatible with ) so I just connected the I Phone 5S to my computer and thinking the new phone had IOS 7 on it that these was nothing to worry about..I thought all 900 + pictures in the photo stream would transfer but somewhere in the process, I Tunes decides to just go and install IOS 8 which requires that you run a " Photo Migration App" to transfer photos from IOS 7 & below. The problem was is that I didn't want IOS 8 on my new 5S so I thought I wouldn't have to do that part..
Anyway the phone emerged with IOS 8 on it and the only photos that remained were the ones that were actually on the phone..The 900 + I had in the stream didn't transfer because the Photos that works on IOS 7 and below isn't compatible with IOS 8..I guess you have to use the photo migration app that comes with IOS 8 & I phone 6..But I didn't ask to upgrade to IOS 8...It just did it on it's own!
I still have the I Phone 5 Back up that I did just before giving it back to Verizon but if I try to restore the I Phone 5S running IOS 8 those photos in the stream will not go back on the phone because IOS 8 isn't compatible with the I Photos" that ran on IOS 7 and below..
So I have an I Pad mini that runs IOS 7..should I try and erase it...and put that I Phone 5 backup on it and pray the photos that were in the stream come back on it so I can transfer them back to my computer...then erase the I pad mini again and restore it using it's original backup that I have on the computer and the in the cloud?
I know this sounds confusing but I'm at a loss as to what to do..This is what I found ...http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201386
but it doesn't help me..
Steve

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.

Lion's Time Machine - Can't create a backup?

Time Machine can't make a backup... I even went ahead and wiped out the drive and tried to create a new backup.
All it says is that it couldn't complete the backup and to try later as it might only be temporary.
This is critical for me and a not at all light in importance. Had I known this along all the other issues with Lion existed I wouldn't have upgraded. For now I am keeping my MBP safe from Lion...
I guess I just have to suffer the damage on my 27" IMAC..
I would use a BR Disk to do a back up of my files, but NO.... MACs don't support Blu-Ray disk drives, STILL!!
Apple you need to fix this and other issues.

Apple's ingenuity in their advances can be hailed by millions as I myself give them credit where credit is due, such as devices like the iPad and iPhone/iPod. But when a company only bothers to alert you to a couple of apps that Lion can't run and moves them to a folder for the user to delete or update but leaves devices and other industry standard software packages rendered useless with no warning when they have extensively tested their OS against 3rd party manufactured devices and software, whom they are partnered with, then yes they can share in the blame just as Microsoft takes the blame for operating systems that do the same such as VISTA.
I am sure that with enough time all of the 3rd party companies will undoubtedly get on board at some cost that will get pushed down to the end users. They will either update, upgrade or conform.
Apples mentality in the past hurt their stock prices, they used to only use their own Risc based processors and they refused to adapt and incorporate to the needs of their users desires for better faster chipsets and industry software such as Office. They adapted!
Refusing to incorporate the ability to use Blu-Ray technologies when companies such as Pioneer,LG, and Cyberlink are prepared to release the software for the Mac, Apple just has to give the go ahead, then yes, its their fault again. The industry in general isn't blind, they have a reason. Manufacturers want to create things that work with Apples Operating system and do, but they aren't allowed to release it without approval from Apple. They need Apple's support and acceptance for something like Blu-Ray to make it. Otherwise its just another hack and shunned by any cautious person that wants to make sure that their purchase won't cause them more problems than its worth. Blu-Ray is a matter of licensing and a major reason that Microsoft won't incorporate it into their own media player, but they leave it up to 3rd party software companies to absorb that cost and create their own players that can play back Blu-Ray movies within the Windows platform. Apple wants to keep Blu-Ray off of their machines as they can't obtain an exclusive license to the codec for Blu-Ray movies for Quicktime. The same mentality that they had before with their processors. So even the ability to read and write to the medium is out of the question.

HT1338 Time Machine wont boot!

Time Machine wont boot although it still is backing up and works in the preferences. How can I fix this? Any ideas?

Please try each of the steps below that you haven't already taken.
Step 1
From the menu bar, select
 ▹ System Preferences ▹ Time Machine
and make sure that at least one backup destination is selected and available.
Step 2
If you're entering Time Machine from the Finder, make sure no Finder windows are open in other Desktop spaces in Mission Control. You must enter from a window open in the current space.
Step 3
If you're backing up to an external hard drive attached to your Mac, open the backup volume in the Finder. You should see a folder with the name "Backups.backupdb". If you instead see a file with a name ending in "sparsebundle," the backup was created over a network. You have to mount the backup volume manually when you want to restore from it by double-clicking the sparsebundle file.
Step 4
Select the "Backups.backupdb" folder and open the Info dialog. Either "staff" or "everyone" should have Read onlyaccess. If not, click the lock icon to unlock the access settings and make the necessary change. If you're not sure how to do that, consult the built-in help or ask.
Step 5
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard (command-C):
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V) and press return.
A folder will open with a file selected. Move the selected file to the Desktop, leaving the folder open for now.
Relaunch the Finder by selecting  ▹ Force Quit from the menu bar, then selecting Finder and pressing return. Your Finder settings will be lost.
Try again to enter Time Machine. If you still can't, put back the file you moved to the Desktop, replacing the newer one that will have been created in its place.
Otherwise, close the folder you opened and delete the file you moved to the Desktop. Recreate your Finder preferences.
Step 6
Do as in Step 5, but with this line:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
This time you may be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot, recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane, and run a backup to test.
Step 7
Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the backup drive in the pane on the left (not any of the volume icons below it.) At the bottom of the window, you should see this:
Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
If the partition scheme is anything else, the drive has to be repartitioned (with the loss of all data.)
Step 8
Skip this step if you're backing up to a network device, such as a Time Capsule.
Boot in safe mode. Try again to enter Time Machine.
Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Step 9
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.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Try again to enter Time Machine. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).

"Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not availab

I have a Seagate 750 MB external disk connected to the USB port of my Airport Extreme Base Station. It worked fine with Time Machine under Leopard but it's not working the way it was under OS X 10.6.2. I'm hopeful someone can help me solve the problem.
Let's say the name of my Airport Extreme Base Station is "Airport." If I remember correctly, under Leopard time machine would start a wireless backup not long after I turned on the Seagate drive. That no longer happens.
I've erased and re-formatted the Seagate drive with 2 GUID partitions, one for my 24" iMac and one for my 17" MacBook Pro. Both computers are about 3 years old. In order to do the re-partitioning, I had to unplug the Seagate drive from the base station and plug it into one of the iMac's USB ports. If I didn't do this, nothing other than the iMac's drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility, although the name of my base station, i.e, "Airport" does appear in the Finder and PathFinder (a replacement for Finder that I use).
In fact, Time Machine works under 10.6.2. as long as the Seagate drive is plugged into the iMac's USB port. As soon as I plug the Seagate drive into the USB port of the base station, Time Machine no longer works. The backup is "delayed." When I click on "Back Up Now" a few seconds go by and I get the following dialog box: "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
In my Airport Extreme Base Station setup (Airport Utility version 5.4.2), the "Disks" pane sees both partitions on the Seagate drive. File sharing is enabled on the "File sharing" pane and "Secure Shared Disks:" is set to "With a disk password." "Airport Disks Guest Access:" is not allowed, nor is "Share disks over WAN."
When the Seagate drive is plugged into the base station and I click on "Airport" in the Finder or PathFinder, I'm prompted for the password I mentioned above because the shared disks are secured with a password. Once the password is typed, both partitions on the Seagate drive appear in Finder and PathFinder. When I try a Time Machine backup at this point, I get the same error I described above, i.e., "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
One last thing, I did an "Archive and Install" when I upgraded to Snow Leopard since I thought the changes were relatively minor as compared with past OS X upgrades. Normally, I do a clean install but didn't feel like it this time. I also tried deleting the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to no avail and restarted my iMac to no avail.
At this point I'm completely stumped. As I said, Time Machine works as long as the Seagate drive is plugged directly into one of the iMac's USB ports as opposed to the base station's USB port. But doesn't this defeat the purpose of having wireless backup? Once again, the wireless backup worked fine under 10.5.8.
I hope my message is clear and a solution would be most welcome.
Thank you,
Richard

I'm having the same problem. If my TimeMachine drive is not connected, I'll get the "Time machine could not complete the backup" "The backup disk is not available" warning a couple times a day. This is extremely problematic if I'm giving a presentation. I have tried changing my TimeMachine drive, removing that drive, repairing permissions, and have not been able to solve the problem.
Please help!

Time Machine Error "Unable to complete backup"

I have not backed up my hard drive for about 30 days. When I plug my external hard drive in, Time Machine "prepares backup" for a while, then gives me the following message:
*Time Machine Error*
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.
I tried unplugging and re-plugging, rebooting my computer, trashing the ".inprogress" backup file and restarting. It did not help. While it time machine is preparing the backup, my computer runs crazy slow, with the rainbow pinwheel spinning for about 5-10 seconds just about every time I click the mouse, in any program.
Per someone's suggestion, I put "sudo grep backupd /var/log/system.log" into terminal, and this is what came up:
"No pre-backup thinning needed: 4.98 GB requested (including padding), 70.16 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (906 > 0)
Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
Indexing a file failed. Returned -12 for: /Applications/iChat.app, /Volumes/Time Machine Backups 1/Backups.backupdb/My Computer (2)/2011-01-13-113417.inProgress/CB0D491E-EF04-48A0-9AE9-32AE43E9209C/Macintosh HD/Applications/iChat.app
Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Stopping backup."
This time, it was apparently iChat, but in each of the three times I've tried to backup and gotten this error message, a different file has been the culprit for the indexing error.
Any suggestions?

orchestr wrote:
Indexing a file failed. Returned -12
see [this_|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/C3.html] user tip by Pondini.
JGG

Time Machine wont go past "Preparing Backup"

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