TimeMachine backup volume about full

My backup volume for TimeMachine is getting full.
What can I do to get more free space back?

Deleting from the saved backups is the only way to free space. Selecting items to not be backed up will slow down the space being used up again.
Time Machine should automatically delete backups (oldest first) as needed to keep going. You could choose to delete backups manually (use the contextual menu in the Time Machine browser to do this) or indeed all backups of particular files (ditto).

Similar Messages

Time Machine will not complete a system backup and terminates with "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. This follows a problem when Time machne terminated when the volume was almost full.

On 11/1/2011, Time Machine (TM) terminated with an error message I did not record. I noted that the drive was full and decided to do a separate complete bootable system backup using Carbon Copy Clone (CCC), before clearing the TM volume and trying to start it over clean. Part way through the full system backup CCC put up a message that there was a Physical Problem "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16". That was about the time that TM malfunctioned, so I assumed they were related. After starting CCC over a couple of times, and getting the same error message, I let it go through to completion of the backup, which took three or four hours. I then ran tests using Disk Utility and verified that there was nothing physically wrong with both the internal hard drive and the TM volume. I also erased and reformatted the TM volume. However, every time I started Time Machine, it would record a few GB and terminate with "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume". I restarted the computer with no change in results. Note that prior to starting the CCC backup, I "Repaired Permissions", "zapped the PRAM" and "re-set the SMC", hoping to have a clean bootable system on the backup. I ran Techtool and no problems were found.
I'm running this on an Intel iMac under 10.5.8 and recording to a 500GB My Passport drive. My hard drive is only about half full at 246 GB. My assessment is that something happened at 16-28-16 on 11/1/2001 to screwup the Backup Directory in the file at "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16". My question is, how do I fix it?
I had just completed writing everything above here, explaining the problems I had been encountering for the past 24 hours. I had the Time Machine window standing open on the desktop where I could see it, having recentlycleared it after the last termination. As I was proofing what I had written, I looked at the window and noted that the clock had started a new run for a full back up, since all prior efforts had failed and the TM volume was empty. As I watched and waited for it to fail again, as it had been doing at about 13 GB, it kept going and going until it just finished a complete backup, about 4.5 hours later, with my having done nothing. Now my question would have to be - what could possiibly have happened to make it perform this way? It will be interesting to see if it continue to operate normally, or if the problem will return, in a later backup run.

jcm21 wrote:
CCC put up a message that there was a Physical Problem "Library/Application Support/Techtool Protection/McIntosh HD/Directory Backup 2011-11-01-16-28-16"
You should not keep those files for long, and probably shouldn't back them up (if you need them at all -- since you do regular backups, I'm doubtful just how worthwhile that feature is).
"Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume".
One of Apple's maddeningly incomplete messages. Most likely, there's a problem with a file (quite possibly the one CCC didn't like). See #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details and instructions on finding and fixing it.
If you continue running the Directory Protection app, be sure to exclude your Time Machine drive from it (as it will just take up lots of room, and won't help repair your backups if there's a problem); and exclude the folders it creates from being backed-up by Time Machine (as they'll create large backups, and you probably can't use the backed-up folders anyway), per #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Feedback from users who have hit disk full on their TM backup Volume

I'm very curious about user experiences whose TM backups have encountered a disk full condition.
For example...
How did you handle it ?
Where you informed of oldest backups being deleted before or after they were actually deleted by TM ?
Did you restart TM backups on the same Volume ?
Did you switch TM to backups to another Volume ?
Did you attempt to copy the TM backups from the full Volume to another larger Volume ?
Did TM backup behave sensibly or did it cause severe issues like hanging or just spinning and spinning or aborting without any error message displayed ?
If it failed and you saw the red "Failed" and the "i" icon that can be clicked for more information on the failure, did the extra informative information help you dealing with the disk full situation ?
If extra information was displayed for the failure did you fully understand the various options provide to you ?
Did you simply give up and stop running TM backups ?
Did you go into the TM backup folder and delete some of the backups and if so, how did you decide which ones to delete ?
Did you use the TM browser to find some files/folder to completely erase from the backups ?
Thanks....

Thank you Barry for such a detailed way to ask.
This will help a lot (once again...) for future enhancements and improvements!
_How did you handle your disk full condition ?_
No problem.
_Were you informed of oldest backups being deleted before or after they were actually deleted by TM ?_
Before. I could choose between this or switching to another volume.
_Did you restart TM backups on the same Volume ?_
Firstly tried this. It worked.
_Did you switch TM to backups to another Volume ?_
Then I chose this. It works too.
_Did you attempt to copy the TM backups from the full Volume to another larger Volume ?_
No. I wish this was feasible from within TM preferences, so waiting for a new feature, rather than tinkering with hidden files will be my choice. Until then, this drive is "not available".
_Did TM backup behave sensibly or did it cause severe issues...?_
Sensibly I guess. I just don't care whether TM is done, I just sleep my Mac when it's time and all is well so far.
_If it failed and you saw the red "Failed" and the "i" icon (...) did the extra informative information help you (...) ?_
No. I was just testing a volume that I knew already was too small. Seemed to me it just reacted the correct way, quite late/slowly though.
_If extra information was displayed for the failure did you fully understand the various options provide to you ?_
I guess not because I don't remember it, as when usually I can not learn anything useful from it.
_Did you simply give up and stop running TM backups ?_
TM works fine here. No reason to give up (but I'm waiting for future enhancements for sure).
_Did you go into the TM backup folder and delete some of the backups and if so, how did you decide which ones to delete ?_
No, I didn't. I would like this to be handled from within some feature or command in the Preference pane. I don't dare to mess with some special indexing or such smart thing TM does.
_Did you use the TM browser to find some files/folder to completely erase from the backups ?_
I don't know how to do that.
~
Thanks to you...

TimeMachine refuses to make backups (backup volume could not be found)

Let me start by saying that I'm new to Macs, so if you're going to make suggestions involving strange and arcane steps in Terminal (which I'm completely open to trying), please try to be as clear as possible
When I set up my new iMac, everthing worked beautifully for a few weeks, and then inexplicably, TimeMachine started failing to make backups. I have a 200g external Maxtor HD that I was using as my backup drive. TimeMachine had no problems backing up to it for a few weeks, and then suddenly it stopped. I don't know why.
I have searched these forums for a solution to my problem, and none of the suggestions work. Here's what I've tried:
-- Going into preferences, unselecting the volume, then reselecting it.
-- Turning off TM, unplugging the EHD, restarting the iMac, plugging in the EHD, and following the wizard prompts to enable TM.
-- I have verified the EHD. It reports no errors. I have tried repairing the EHD. No errors reported.
-- I have erased, formatted, partitioned, formatted again. TM still fails.
-- Following the suggestions in this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1480141 I have done the following:
1. Quit all applications, open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and type in the following commands:
# sudo mv /Library/Preferences /Library/Preferences.old
# sudo mv /Library/Caches /Library/Caches.old
# sudo reboot
Time Machine still failed.
2. Deleted: com.apple.TimeMachine.plist, then went through all the steps above again. Time Machine still failed.
I have tried every single solution on this forum I could find, and TimeMachine simply will not work. I would prefer to not have to spend an additional $300 on a TimeCapsule when I already have a wireless router and an EHD that TimeMachine previously had no problem making backups to.
Here's what I find in Console:
5/29/08 7:06:11 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[160] Starting standard backup
5/29/08 7:06:11 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[160] Volume at path /Volumes/Untitled does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
5/29/08 7:06:16 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[160] Backup failed with error: 18
Untitled is the name of my drive after all the formatting, partitioning, erasing rigamarole. I'm incredibly frustrated right now, because it USED TO WORK. Now it doesn't. There's no reason for it not to work for what I can tell. What else is there left for me to try?

I believe I have isolated the problem as a permissions issue which I have logged as bug 5990628:
Summary:
Unable to backup over network after upgrading to 10.5.3.
Steps to Reproduce:
Configure Time Machine to back up Leopard machine over AirPort to another Leopard machine (with external drive and .Mac account configured in this case)
Expected Results:
Backups complete as usual.
Actual Results:
Backups are 'Delayed' with errors like this in the console:
6/6/08 4:25:57 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2334] Volume at path /Volumes/Time Machine-1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Regression:
Yes
Notes:
There are many threads on the subject:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1538633
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1543033
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1547134
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1546079
The problem appears to relate to being unable to read the cookie:
6/6/08 4:20:23 AM System Preferences[2315] Failed to create remote cookie file at path: /Volumes/Time Machine/.001b63abcdef
And this appears to be because the cookie was owned by a different user (likely due to it wanting to connect using a .Mac username instead of a local one), per my explanation below:
I only ever used Time Machine after upgrading to 10.5.3 so my first experience with it has been fairly ordinary, as the backups were constantly being 'Delayed' with this error in the Console:
6/6/08 4:25:57 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2334] Volume at path /Volumes/Time Machine-1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
The first thing I discovered from a blog post was that my .Mac 60 day trial was causing it to connect using my .mac username (which appeared in the username field in the UI as a string of hex characters); disconnecting and reconnecting using a local user seemed to work but the issue remained.
I then spotted this in the console:
6/6/08 4:20:23 AM System Preferences[2315] Failed to create remote cookie file at path: /Volumes/Time Machine/.001b63abcdef
The 'random' characters are your MAC address and the binary inside is likely this 'cookie' - a random value used to transparently and reliably link backups to machines. Curiously I couldn't modify this file over the network despite apparently owning it (in Terminal):
$ cd /Volumes/Time\ Machine
$ ls -la .00*
-r-------- 1 samj staff 16 Jun 6 04:33 .001b63abcdef
But when looking at it on the Mac Mini 'server' I saw that the owner was in fact another user:
-r-------- 1 otheruser staff 16 Jun 6 04:33 .001b63abcdef
So I ran these commands:
sudo chown samj .001b63abcdef
sudo chgrp staff .001b63abcdef
And sure enough I was able to configure Time Machine as expected and it is as we speak backing up my MacBook over Airport to a USB drive attached to my Mac Mini.
Cheers,
Sam
Sam Johnston
Australian Online Solutions
http://www.aos.net.au/

I am running a MacBook Pro with 10.7.5 and I downloaded the OS X 10.10.2 Update Combo, however when I try and open the package the error message "This volume is used for TimeMachine-backups". Which is not true. I´m using TimeCapsule.

I am running a MacBook Pro with 10.7.5 and I downloaded the OS X 10.10.2 Update Combo.
When I try and open the package after accepting the lincence-agreement and upon choosing the install-volume the error message appears: "This volume is used for TimeMachine-backups".
Which is not true. I´m using a timecapsule for backups.
How can I proceed?

I am using a MacBook Pro (2010) with 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB, 1067 MHz, DDR3, Startvolume Macintosh HD.
After downloading the package and starting upgrading it asks acceptance of the license-agreement. After that it asks for the volume were to install. And when I click on the Startvolume Macintosh HD (which is the only available on the machine) it says: "The volume is already being used for Time Machine-Backups".
It doesn´t offer to skip that point or to reconfigure the Time Machine settings.
The point is that my Time machine is not and has never used the Mac HD for Backups. In the past I have used an external drive and since 05/2014 I am using a Time Capsule which is appropriately addressed in the Time Machine settings.

Full backup volume on RHEL5

Hi Guru,
I want to do a full backup volume (OS + Application Server + DB + File system) on my RHEL5 server to the tape drive. I use SAP 6.0 EHP5 and Oracle 11g Database on one machine.
On IBM AIX we can tools "Smitty", what tools can be used for full backup volume on RHEL5?
If using a 3rd party, what recommendations?
Thanks and Regard,
Ali Marjan

Hi,
For taking of backup....
OS-----Tell u r OS team they will take necessary files on Tape.
Database------Take full offline tape backup.
Application------If it runs on different server take the "root,sapmnt" on tape.
That's enough.
Regards,
Anil

Timemachine - Backups have gone

Hi All,
This is my first post, so be gentle!
I backup to a Western Digital MyBookWorld 2TB NAS drive. Since upgrading to ML I've twice experienced a total loss if my timemachine backups.
On each occassion I've noticed because TM starts doing a full backup - which I stopped. Going to TM preferences showed no previous backups the first time it happened. Today I went into TM (trying to find a backup of my iPhone in an attempt to get my iOS5 back after discovering the joys of the new Maps app - but that's another story) there were no backups before today, though TM preferences showed a backup from last night.
Anyways, I don't really understand what has happened so I looked at the TM logs - which I also don't understand, but it looks like something went wrong. Do any of you folk know what has happened and do you have any advice? My goal is to have dependable backups. Would I be better off buying a TimeCapsule?
Thanks,
Marc
Log follows!
Starting automatic backup
Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/WD_Backup using URL: afp://[email protected]/WD_Backup
Runtime corruption detected on /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle (fsck_hfs -q termination status: 3)
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/WD_Backup
Recovery backup requested by user.
Deleted backup image: /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.purgeable. 1.21 TB available on host volume.
Creating disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle
Failed to hide extension on /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle, error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4 "The file “Jazzbook.sparsebundle” doesn’t exist." UserInfo=0x7fa553101bd0 {NSURL=file://localhost/Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle/, NSFilePath=/Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fa553101530 "The operation couldn’t be completed. No such file or directory"}.
Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/WD_Backup
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: 95006285-5C79-3F83-A602-7E1F34A880A8 eventDBUUID: B9F80CBA-6506-4FFA-A542-44247E5038FF)
Disk image already attached: /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle, DIHLDiskImageAttach returned: 35
Disk image /Volumes/WD_Backup/Jazzbook.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backup content size: 414.6 GB excluded items size: 8.65 GB for volume Macintosh HD
Found 936300 files (405.95 GB) needing backup
487.14 GB required (including padding), 1.21 TB available
Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Copied 4.64 GB of 405.95 GB, 1 of 936300 items
Copied 7.88 GB of 405.95 GB, 90085 of 936300 items
Copied 10.65 GB of 405.95 GB, 244278 of 936300 items
Copied 13.99 GB of 405.95 GB, 327686 of 936300 items
Copied 17.93 GB of 405.95 GB, 438898 of 936300 items
Copied 21.94 GB of 405.95 GB, 469320 of 936300 items
Copied 25.93 GB of 405.95 GB, 482815 of 936300 items
Copied 29.55 GB of 405.95 GB, 507353 of 936300 items

Hi there,
I had the same problem yesterday on my old MacBook Pro 15". I have a 2TB Western Digital harddisc connected to my Airport Extreme, so it is actually nearly the same as the Time Capsule, with the only difference that my hdd's are external and not built in. This 2 TB disc is divided into two partitions, one is the time machine partition from my newer macbook pro 13" and the other one for the older 15".
This configuration was working perfectly via WiFi for nearly two years now, at the beginning with Snow Leopard, then with Lion and now with Mountain Lion.
So to cut a long story short, yesterday the old MacBook reported, that the last update is already more than 11 days ago and that it has todo a full backup with over 120GB. As this surprised me completely I checked the backup disc and noticed that it was nearly empty. It seems that the complete image file (in case of WiFi backup the backups are placed in an image file) for the time machine backup was deleted and a new one was started.
I even checked the console logs and it was stated there, that there was a partially deleted file found, which was afterwards deleted and then a one was created. I haven't got the logs here now, but it was nearly the same as in the log from maz100 with the only difference that it did no report me "runtime corruption" on the image file, it reported me a "partially deleted file" found.
I checked also the other partition on that disc and the backups from my 13" book are still there. So I got no clue why the complete image file of my 15" book has been deleted and a new one has been created, it's running now since yesterday to make the new full backup.
For me it seems as the image file of the TM backup got currupted somehow and was replaced by a new one. It is a bit strange for me, that this is done without stating any information to the user as you actually loose all your backups. Till now I felt quite secure with the backups, it was good to now that there are still backups, when you delete something accidentally, but if complete backups are disappearing I'm loosing my trust in these TM backups a bit, not speaking about the time it takes to perform a complete new backup via Wifi.
....and it seems, I'm not the only one around here. I'm afraid it has to do with my recent Mountain Lion Backup as it did not come up for years with SL or Lion.
Greetings
Bernhard

Time Machine fails with "error while linking files on the backup volume"

One of my drives was nearly full. I moved some folders from that drive to one that had more space.
The next TM backup failed with "error while linking files on the backup volume". A full backup is about 620 GB, although this backup shouldn't have been a complete one. There was 570+ GB free on the drive.
A Disk Verify reported "Drive appears to be okay." Earlier TM backups appeared to be fine (at least accessible). I swapped the TM drive for another, initialized it, and TM used that drive with no complaints.
What does the message mean?
Thanks,
harv47

Pondini wrote:
harv47 wrote:
The Time Machine Buddy widget shows no messages. None of the buttons do anything.
What am I doing wrong?
See #A1 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Your user account may not have permission to see the logs.
The sentence beginning "If the message area is blank ..." shows how to figure out if that's the problem, and how to fix it.
Post back if it's not clear, or doesn't work.
The Tip had the answer. It was permissions.
What follow are the messages for the last unsuccessful TM backup (on v.3), followed by
the successful TM backup on the replacement drive (v.1). The line
"Copied 11 files (0 bytes) from volume Bay 3 HPFS+." was odd.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine v.3/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Bay 3 HPFS+
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/Volumes/Bay 3 HPFS+ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustSc
(Finished May 4, 2010 9:31:21 AM-- Status unknown)
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/TimeMachine v.1/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Bay 3 HPFS+
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Bay 2 HPFS+
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 169.1 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume Bay 3 HPFS+
Backup content size: 305.5 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume Bay 2 HPFS+
Backup content size: 145.7 GB excluded items size: 7.5 MB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 744.36 GB requested (including padding), 931.15 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)
Copied 1951 files (169.0 GB) from volume Bay 3 HPFS+.
Copied 4999 files (474.3 GB) from volume Bay 2 HPFS+.
Copied 410304 files (612.4 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 712.2 MB requested (including padding), 315.09 GB available
Copied 11 files (0 bytes) from volume Bay 3 HPFS+.
Copied 20 files (1.1 GB) from volume Bay 2 HPFS+.
Copied 1103 files (1.1 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
(Finished May 4, 2010 2:38:17 PM)
I hope this is useful. Thanks for your help.
harv47

"No such file or directory" errors on Time Machine backup volume

I remotely mounted the Time Machine backup volume onto another Mac and was looking around it in a Terminal window and discovered what appeared to be a funny problem. If I "cd" into some folders (but not all) and do a "ls -la" command, I get a lot of "No such file or directory" errors for all the subfolders, but all the files look fine. Yet if I go log onto the Mac that has the backup volume mounted as a local volume, these errors never appear for the exact same location. Even more weird is that if I do "ls -a" everything appears normal on both systems (no error messages anyway).
It appears to be the case that the folders that have the problem are folders that Time Machine has created as "hard links" to other folders which is something that Time Machine does and is only available as of Mac OS X 10.5 and is the secret behind how it avoids using up disk space for files that are the same in the different backups.
I moved the Time Machine disk to the second Mac and mounted the volume locally onto it (the second Mac that was showing the problems), so that now the volume is local to it instead of a remote mounted volume via AFP and the problem goes away, and if I do a remote mount on the first Mac of the Time Machine volume the problem appears on the first Mac system that was OK - so basically by switching the volume the problem switches also on who shows the "no such file or directory" errors.
Because of the way the problem occurs, ie only when the volume is remote mounted, it would appear to be an issue with AFP mounted volumes that contain these "hard links" to folders.
There is utility program written by Amit Singh, the fella who wrote the "Mac OS X Internals" book, called hfsdebug (you can get it from his website if you want - just do a web search for "Mac OS X Internals hfsdebug" if you want to find it ). If you use it to get a little bit more info on what's going on, it shows a lot of details about one of the problematic folders. Here is what things look like on the first Mac (mac1) with the Time Machine locally mounted:
mac1:xxx me$ pwd
/Volumes/MyBackups/yyy/xxx
mac1:xxx me$ ls -a
. .DS_Store D2
.. Documents D3
mac1:xxx me$ ls -lai
total 48
280678 drwxr-xr-x 5 me staff 204 Jan 20 01:23 .
282780 drwxr-xr-x 12 me staff 442 Jan 17 14:03 ..
286678 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 21508 Jan 19 10:43 .DS_Store
135 drwxrwxrwx 91 me staff 3944 Jan 7 02:53 Documents
729750 drwx------ 104 me staff 7378 Jan 15 14:17 D2
728506 drwx------ 19 me staff 850 Jan 14 09:19 D3
mac1:xxx me$ hfsdebug Documents/ | head
<Catalog B-Tree node = 12589 (sector 0x18837)>
path = MyBackups:/yyy/xxx/Documents
# Catalog File Record
type = file (alias, directory hard link)
indirect folder = MyBackups:/.HFS+ Private Directory Data%000d/dir_135
file ID = 728505
flags = 0000000000100010
. File has a thread record in the catalog.
. File has hardlink chain.
reserved1 = 0 (first link ID)
mac1:xxx me$ cd Documents
mac1:xxx me$ ls -a | head
.DS_Store
.localized
.parallels-vm-directory
.promptCache
ACPI
ActivityMonitor2010-12-1710p32.txt
ActivityMonitor2010-12-179pxx.txt
mac1:Documents me$ ls -lai | head
total 17720
135 drwxrwxrwx 91 me staff 3944 Jan 7 02:53 .
280678 drwxr-xr-x 5 me staff 204 Jan 20 01:23 ..
144 -rw-------@ 1 me staff 39940 Jan 15 14:27 .DS_Store
145 -rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 0 Oct 20 2008 .localized
146 drwxr-xr-x 2 me staff 68 Feb 17 2009 .parallels-vm-directory
147 -rwxr-xr-x 1 me staff 8 Mar 20 2010 .promptCache
148 drwxr-xr-x 2 me staff 136 Aug 28 2009 ACPI
151 -rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 6893 Dec 17 10:36 A.txt
152 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 7717 Dec 17 10:54 A9.txt
So you can see from the first few lines of the "ls -a" command, it shows some file/folders but you can't tell which yet. The next "ls -la" command shows which names are files and folders - that there are some folders (like ACPI) and some files (like A.txt and A9.txt) and all looks normal. And the "hfsdebug" info shows some details of what is really happening in the "Documents" folder, but more about that in a bit.
And here are what a "ls -a" and "ls -al" look like for the same locations on the second Mac (mac2) where the Time Machine volume is remote mounted:
mac2:xxx me$ pwd
/Volumes/MyBackups/yyy/xxx
mac2:xxx me$ ls -a
. .DS_Store D2
.. Documents D3
mac2:xxx me$ ls -lai
total 56
280678 drwxr-xr-x 6 me staff 264 Jan 20 01:23 .
282780 drwxr-xr-x 13 me staff 398 Jan 17 14:03 ..
286678 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 21508 Jan 19 10:43 .DS_Store
728505 drwxrwxrwx 116 me staff 3900 Jan 7 02:53 Documents
729750 drwx------ 217 me staff 7334 Jan 15 14:17 D2
728506 drwx------ 25 me staff 806 Jan 14 09:19 D3
mac2:xxx me$ cd Documents
mac2:Documents me$ ls -a | head
.DS_Store
.localized
.parallels-vm-directory
.promptCache
ACPI
ActivityMonitor2010-12-1710p32.txt
ActivityMonitor2010-12-179pxx.txt
mac2:Documents me$ ls -lai | head
ls: .parallels-vm-directory: No such file or directory
ls: ACPI: No such file or directory
... many more "ls: ddd: No such file or directory" error messages appear - there is a one-to-one
correspondence between the "ddd" folders and the "no such file or directory" error messages
total 17912
728505 drwxrwxrwx 116 me staff 3900 Jan 7 02:53 .
280678 drwxr-xr-x 6 me staff 264 Jan 20 01:23 ..
144 -rw-------@ 1 me staff 39940 Jan 15 14:27 .DS_Store
145 -rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 0 Oct 20 2008 .localized
147 -rwxr-xr-x 1 me staff 8 Mar 20 2010 .promptCache
151 -rw-r--r-- 1 me staff 6893 Dec 17 10:36 A.txt
152 -rw-r--r--@ 1 me staff 7717 Dec 17 10:54 A9.txt
If you look very close a hint as to what is going on is obvious - the inode for the Documents folder is 152 on the local mounted case (the first set of code above for mac1), and it's 728505 in the remote mounted case for mac2. So it appears that these "hard links" to folders have an extra level of folder that is hidden from you and that AFP fails to take into account, and that is what the "hfsdebug" shows even better as you can clearly see the REAL location of the Documents folder is in something called "/.HFS+ Private Directory Data%000d/dir_135" that is not even visible to the shell. And if you look closely in the remote mac2 case, when I did the "cd Documents" I don't go into the inode 135, but into the inode 728505 (look close at the "." entry for the "ls -la" commands on both mac1 and mac2) which is the REAL problem, but have no idea how to get AFP to follow the extra level of indirection.
Anyone have any ideas how to fix this so that "ls -l" commands don't generate these "no such file or folder" messages?
I am guessing that the issue is really something to do with AFP (Apple File Protocol) mounted remote volumes. The TimeMachine example is something that I used as an example that anyone could verify the problem. The real problem for me has nothing to do with Time Machine, but has to do with some hard links to folders that I created on another file system totally separate from the Time Machine volume. They exhibit the same problem as these Time Machine created folders, so am pretty sure the problem has nothing to do with how I created hard links to folders which is not doable normally without writing a super simple little 10 line program using the link() system call - do a "man 2 link" if you are curious how it works.
I'm well aware of the issues and the conditions when they can and can't be used and the potential hazards. I have an issue in which they are the best way to solve a problem. And after the problem was solved, is when I noticed this issue that appears to be a by-product of using them.
Do not try these hard links to folders on your own without knowing what they're for and how to use them and not use them. They can cause real problems if not used correctly. So if you decide to try them out and you loose some files or your entire drive, don't say I didn't warn you first.
Thanks ...
-Bob

The problem is Mac to Mac - the volume that I'm having the issue with is not related in any way to Time Machine or to TimeCapsule. The reference to TIme Machine is just to illustrate the problem exists outside of my own personal work with hard links to folders on HFS Extended volumes (case-sensitive in this particular case in case that matters).
I'm not too excited about the idea of snooping AFP protocol to discover anything that might be learned there.
The most significant clue that I've seen so far has to do with the inode numbers for the two folders shown in the Terminal window snippets in the original post. The local mounted case uses the inode=728505 of the problematic folder which is in turn linked to the hidden original inode of 135 via the super-secret /.HFS+... folder that you can't see unless using something like the "hfsdebug" program I mentioned.
The remote mounted case uses the inode=728505 but does not make the additional jump to the inode=135 which is where lower level folders appear to be physically stored.
Hence the behavior that is seen - the local mounted case is happy and shows what would be expected and the remote mounted case shows only files contained in the problem folder but not lower-level folders or their contents.
From my little knowledge of how these inode entries really work, I think that they are some sort of linked list chain of values, so that you have to follow the entire chain to get at what you're looking for. If the chain is broken somewhere along the line or not followed correctly, things like this can happen. I think this is a case of things not being followed correctly, as if it were a broken chain problem then the local mounted case would have problems also.
But the information for this link in the chain is there (from 728505 to the magic-135) but for some reason AFP doesn't make this extra jump.
Yesterday I heard back from Apple tech support and they have confirmed this problem and say that it is a "implementation limitation" with the AFP client. I think it's a bug, but that will have to be up to Apple to decide now that it's been reported. I just finished reporting this as a bug via the Apple Bug Reporter web site -- it's bug id 8926401 if you want to keep track it.
Thanks for the insights...
-Bob

The backup volume could not be found

Spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Apple last night trying to get my Macbook Air to work with Time Machine/Time Capsule.
Symptoms of my problem included Time Machine Preferences giving the error "The backup volume could not be found"
Console messages complaining about not being able to find the MAC address for machine:
(console is accessed by clicking Go -> Utilities -> Console from the Finder, and then selecting All Messages)
11/7/08 11:06:13 AM System Preferences[123] *Time Machine failed to get MAC address for machine.*
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] Starting standard backup
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] Network mountpoint /Volumes/Time Capsule not owned by backupd... remounting
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_mount: /Volumes/Time Capsule-1, pid 1604
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] Network volume mounted at: /Volumes/Time Capsule-1
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] *Volume at path /Volumes/Time Capsule-1 does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)*
11/7/08 11:13:09 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] Backup requested due to disk attach
11/7/08 11:13:14 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1603] *Backup failed with error: 18*
And my only network interface was showing up as en1 (instead of en0). You can check this by using Network Utilities:
- On the Finder main menu bar click Go -> Utilities -> Network Utilities
If "Network Interface (en0)" is not an option in the drop down list under "Please select a network interface for information" (mine was showing as en1), then the following steps will probably solve your problem:
1) Enable the root user
- Open the finder
- On the Finder main menu bar click Go -> Utilities -> Directory Utility
- On the menu bar click Edit -> Enable Root User
- set a password (they suggested using the same password as is used for the main user account)
2) Login as the newly enabled root user
- Click Log Out... from the Apple menu on the main menu bar
- select "Other" at the login screen
- enter the user name "root" and the password you set in step 1
3) Drag Preferences folder to the desktop
- open the finder, and click on Macintosh HD and then Library
- drag the Preferences folder onto the desktop
4) Restart the computer
- Click Restart from the Apple menu on the main menu bar
After this, the Network utility should show "Network Interface (en0)", and Time Machine should work.

Jackson,
See this article for the reasons why you see "Time Capsule-1 does not appear to be the right volume..."
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8116036&#8116036]
As for the error message you are getting, here are several reasons why you would see this message...
*_"Backup Volume Could Not Be Found"_*
First, it is important to distinguish this error message from another, similar Time Machine error that states, “The backup volume could not be mounted”. This is important as the causes and cures for these two errors can be very different.
*Reselect Your Time Machine Disk*
(http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1329)
In the Finder, go up to the "Go" menu and select "Connect to Server".
Click the "Browse" button at the dialogue box.
In the Network window that opens, do you see your TM drive?
Double click it to mount the drive.
Now let's try to reselect it for Time Machine use.
Go to System Preferences --> Time Machine.
Click the "Change Disk..." button.
Select "None" and click "Stop Backing Up".
Now click "Choose Backup Disk" and reselect your drive again.
Close System Preferences and try backing-up again.
On the other hand, does your Time Machine drive NOT appear at all? Is it appearing on your desktop? If it is still connected try disconnecting the cable, waiting a few seconds and then reconnecting the cable. Does the drive mount on the desktop? Try initiating a backup now.
*Disk Fails to Wake From Sleep*
“If your external HD has a sleep function that does not wake for Time Machine backups. Time Machine will alert you that "The backup volume could not be found", and backups will not be made.” [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1337]
*3rd-Party Disk Utilities* #
Many external hard disks come with software for maintaining/monitoring hard disk activities. It may have come on a separate CD or been installed on the drive itself. If these programs have been installed they may interfere with Time Machine backups, generate erratic behavior, or cause the drive to ‘disappear’ altogether.
You may never know these applications are there as they may be running in the background. Go to System preferences --> Accounts. Select your account in the pane on the left. Click “Login Items”. Are there any items listed there that might refer to hard disk utilities. If so remove them using the “-” button at the bottom.
*Delete Time Machine Preference .plist*
It may be that the preference list that stores the name of your designated backup disk has become corrupted.
Go to --> Macintosh HD / Library / Preferences (Note: NOT Home / Library / Preferences).
Drag the .plist file labeled,
com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
to the root level of your Macs’ hard drive.
Reboot your computer.
This .plist file is automatically recreated at startup if it is missing.
Now try choosing the external HD in the TM Prefs for backup.
*Time Capsule Has a Long Name*
“When using your Time Capsule for Time Machine backups in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later, the Time Capsule backup volume may not mount and Time Machine may not be able to back up to it. This alert may appear: "Backup volume cannot be found". This can happen if the Time Capsule disk has a long name. [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1170]
Open AirPort Utility (in /Applications/Utilities).
Click your Time Capsule's icon.
Click "Manual Setup".
Enter the password for the Time Capsule if prompted.
Click the Disks icon.
Highlight the volume name that appears under "Time Capsule Disk".
In the Name field, enter a name for the volume that is less than 27 characters long.
Click Update.
After Time Capsule restarts, on the Mac(s)using Time Machine, open Time Machine preferences and reselect the Time Capsule volume.”
Let us know if any of these suggestions help.
Cheers!

How to copy a networked TimeMachine backup to a USB drive and restore from it?

Hi,
I backup my MacBook Air with TimeMachine to my QNAP NAS which offers a TimeMachine backup service and I can restore data from it OK.
Working in IT, and being a bit paranoid about important data loss, I am concerned that if I was robbed or my house burnt down I would most likely lose both the MacBook and the TimeMachine Backup on my NAS :-(
To protect against this I have backup my (linux based) NAS to an external drive that I keep offsite. This drive is encrypted to keep my data secure with a Linux form of encryption (cryptsetup) and hence can't be plugged into a MacBook to try and restore from it - I doubt this would work either as the TimeMachine data is not located in the root of the drive.
So what I have done to test my restore process is to mount the encrypted NAS backup that include the TimeMachine backup folders on a Linux machine and then copy the TimeMachine data to the root of an HFS+ formatted external USB drive.
But, now I am stuck as how to try and restore something from this to my MacBook to see if the copy of the TimeMachine backup is good. If I press the Alt key on the TimeMachine icon, I can select an alternate backup device and when I enter TimeMachine to browse the data, I can browse the structure but there is no option to go back in time !! It seems like it is not possible to restore from this copy of the TimeMachine backup.
Does anyone know if this should be possible, and if so, what am I doing wrong here?
Rgds
Gary

For anyone else that may be in a similar situation, I can confirm that this does actually work.
I am unsure why I was not able to mount the original sparseimage that I copied to the USB drive before, but I have gone through the entire process again and I could successfully mount the TM sparseimage onto my MacBook and restore files from within it using TimeMachine to my Mac.
This is a Disaster Recovery solution only needed for if both my NAS and Macbook get stolen or damaged so I am happy with this solution for now.
I will try the restore process several more times from my monthly backups to reassure myself that the first failure to mount the sparse image was an anomaly.
This is the process that I have tested:
Configure MacBook to backup to TimeMachine Service running on QNAP NAS device.
Perform regular backup of QNAP NAS Device (Linux) including the TimeMachine backup data to an external USB drive with encryption enabled and store this device safely off-site
In time of loss of both NAS and MacBook, Time Machine data can be recovered to another Mac without the need of the NAS using the following process:
Mount the external drive containing the backup of the NAS filesystem (ext4) which is encrypted onto a Linux host so it is readable - use the cryptsetup luksOpen options to access the encrypted filesystem then mount it.
Mount a n empty HFS+ formatted USB drive on the Linux host
Use Rsync to copy the sparsebundle from the external NAS drive backup disk to the root of the USB Drive
Insert the HFS+ formatted USB containing the sparesbundle into the Mac's USB port
Double click the sparsebundle to mount it onto the Mac as a Volume
Using Alt button and the TimeMachine icon, select use alternative backup disk and you should see the TM backup in the sparsebundle
Enter TimeMachine and you should be able to restore any/all files
Hope that helps someone else and thanks to LaPastenague for pointing me in the direction of some of the answers I needed.
Rgds
Gary

Error: "This backup is too large for the backup volume."

Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume."
Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp.
The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs.
Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files as well as the EyeTV temp folder.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF? The TM pane says that "only" 782GBs are going to be backed up. Where did the 938GBs figure come from?
This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder.
I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!!
Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely???
Some screenshots:
http://www.xcapepr.com/images/tm2.png
http://www.xcapepr.com/images/tm1.png
http://www.xcapepr.com/images/tm4.png

xcapepr wrote:
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF? The TM pane says that "only" 782GBs are going to be backed up. Where did the 938GBs figure come from?
Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely???
TM makes an initial "estimate" of how much space it needs, "including padding", that is often quite high. Why that is, and Just exactly what it means by "padding" are rather mysterious. But it does also need work space on any drive, including your TM drive.
But beyond that, your TM disk really is too small for what you're backing-up. The general "rule of thumb" is it should be 2-3 times the size of what it's backing-up, but it really depends on how you use your Mac. If you frequently update lots of large files, even 3 times may not be enough. If you're a light user, you might get by with 1.5 times. But that's about the lower limit.
Note that although it does skip a few system caches, work files, etc., by default it backs up everything else, and does not do any compression.
All this is because TM is designed to manage it's backups and space for you. Once it's initial, full backup is done, it will by default then back-up any changes hourly. It only keeps those hourly backups for 24 hours, but converts the first of the day to a "daily" backup, which it keeps for a month. After a month, it converts one per week into a "weekly" backup that it will keep for as long as it has room
What you're up against is, room for those 30 dailies and up to 24 hourlies.
You might be able to get it to work, sort of, temporarily, by excluding something large, like your home folder, until that first full backup completes, then remove the exclusion for the next run. But pretty soon, it will begin to fail again, and you'll have to delete backups manually (from the TM interface, not via the Finder).
Longer term, you need a bigger disk; or exclude some large items (back-them up to a portable external or even DVD/RWs first); or a different strategy.
You might want to investigate CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper!, and other apps that can be used to make bootable "clones". Their advantage, beyond needing less room, is when your HD fails, you can immediately boot and run from the clone, rather than waiting to restore from TM to your repaired or replaced HD.
Their disadvantages are, you don't have the previous versions of changed or deleted files, and because of the way they work, their "incremental" backups of changed items take much longer and far more CPU.
Many of us use both a "clone" (I use CCC) and TM. On my small (roughly 30 gb) system, the difference is dramatic: I rarely notice TM's hourly backups -- they usually run under 30 seconds; CCC takes at least 15 minutes and most of my CPU.

"Backup is too large for the backup volume" error

I've been backing up with TM for a while now, and finally it seems as though the hard drive is full, since I'm down to 4.2GB available of 114.4GB.
Whenever TM tries to do a backup, it gives me the error "This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 10.8 GB but only 4.2GB are available. To select a larger volume, or make the backup smaller by excluding files, open System Preferences and choose Time Machine."
I understand that I have those two options, but why can't TM just erase the oldest backup and use that free space to make the new backup? I know a 120GB drive is pretty small, but if I have to just keep accumulating backups infinitely, I'm afraid I'll end up with 10 years of backups and a 890-zettabyte drive taking up my garage. I'm hoping there's a more practical solution.

John,
Please review the following article as it might explain what you are encountering.
*_“This Backup is Too Large for the Backup Volume”_*
First, much depends on the size of your Mac’s internal hard disk, the quantity of data it contains, and the size of the hard disk designated for Time Machine backups. It is recommended that any hard disk designated for Time Machine backups be +at least+ twice as large as the hard disk it is backing up from. You see, the more space it has to grow, the greater the history it can preserve.
*Disk Management*
Time Machine is designed to use the space it is given as economically as possible. When backups reach the limit of expansion, Time Machine will begin to delete old backups to make way for newer data. The less space you provide for backups the sooner older data will be discarded. [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15137.html]
However, Time Machine will only delete what it considers “expired”. Within the Console Logs this process is referred to as “thinning”. It appears that many of these “expired” backups are deleted when hourly backups are consolidated into daily backups and daily backups are consolidated into weekly backups. This consolidation takes place once hourly backups reach 24 hours old and daily backups reach about 30 days old. Weekly backups will only be deleted, or ‘thinned’, once the backup drive nears full capacity.
One thing seems for sure, though; If a new incremental backup happens to be larger than what Time Machine currently considers “expired” then you will get the message “This backup is too large for the backup volume.” In other words, Time Machine believes it would have to sacrifice to much to accommodate the latest incremental backup. This is probably why Time Machine always overestimates incremental backups by 2 to 10 times the actual size of the data currently being backed up. Within the Console logs this is referred to as “padding”. This is so that backup files never actually reach the physically limits of the backup disk itself.
*Recovering Backup Space*
If you have discovered that large unwanted files have been backed up, you can use the Time Machine “time travel” interface to recovered some of that space. Do NOT, however, delete files from a Time Machine backup disk by manually mounting the disk and dragging files to the trash. You can damage or destroy your original backups by this means.
Additionally, deleting files you no longer wish to keep on your Mac does not immediately remove such files from Time Machine backups. Once data has been removed from your Macs' hard disk it will remain in backups for some time until Time Machine determines that it has "expired". That's one of its’ benefits - it retains data you may have unintentionally deleted. But eventually that data is expunged. If, however, you need to remove backed up files immediately, do this:
Launch Time Machine from the Dock icon.
Initially, you are presented with a window labeled “Today (Now)”. This window represents the state of your Mac as it exists now. +DO NOT+ delete or make changes to files while you see “Today (Now)” at the bottom of the screen. Otherwise, you will be deleting files that exist "today" - not yesterday or last week.
Click on the window just behind “Today (Now)”. This represents the last successful backup and should display the date and time of this backup at the bottom of the screen.
Now, navigate to where the unwanted file resides. If it has been some time since you deleted the file from your Mac, you may need to go farther back in time to see the unwanted file. In that case, use the time scale on the right to choose a date prior to when you actually deleted the file from your Mac.
Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
*Full Backup After Restore*
If you are running out of disk space sooner than expected it may be that Time Machine is ignoring previous backups and is trying to perform another full backup of your system? This will happen if you have reinstalled the System Software (Mac OS), or replaced your computer with a new one, or hard significant repair work done on your exisitng Mac. Time Machine will perform a new full backup. This is normal. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
You have several options if Time Machine is unable to perform the new full backup:
A. Delete the old backups, and let Time Machine begin a fresh.
B. Attach another external hard disk and begin backups there, while keeping this current hard disk. After you are satisfied with the new backup set, you can later reformat the old hard disk and use it for other storage.
C. Ctrl-Click the Time Machine Dock icon and select "Browse Other Time Machine disks...". Then select the old backup set. Navigate to files/folders you don't really need backups of and go up to the Action menu ("Gear" icon) and select "Delete all backups of this file." If you delete enough useless stuff, you may be able to free up enough space for the new backup to take place. However, this method is not assured as it may not free up enough "contiguous space" for the new backup to take place.
*Outgrown Your Backup Disk?*
On the other hand, your computers drive contents may very well have outgrown the capacity of the Time Machine backup disk. It may be time to purchase a larger capacity hard drive for Time Machine backups. Alternatively, you can begin using the Time Machine Preferences exclusion list to prevent Time Machine from backing up unneeded files/folders.
Consider as well: Do you really need ALL that data on your primary hard disk? It sounds like you might need to Archive to a different hard disk anything that's is not of immediate importance. You see, Time Machine is not designed for archiving purposes, just as a backup of your local drive(s). In the event of disaster, it can get your system back to its' current state without having to reinstall everything. But if you need LONG TERM storage, then you need another drive that is removed from your normal everyday working environment.
This KB article discusses this scenario with some suggestions including Archiving the old backups and starting fresh [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15137.html]
Let us know if this clarifies things.
Cheers!

Time Machine backup fails about once a week

I'm backing up to an external firewire drive.
About once a week, a Time Machine backup will fail.
I have no other information on the failure. There are no errors in any of the log in
Console.app. Time Machine simply reports "Last Backup Failed", and that's it.
I looked through system.log, and found this;
system.log:Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Error: (-43) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/mauroj/Notebook/.DS_Store to /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/kilroy/2008-11-25-085528.inProgress/D2D3A 24A-4AC2-4BBE-B95B-70F6C122AA07/MacIntosh HD/Users/mauroj/Notebook
Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Copied 1132 files (90.0 MB) from volume MacIntosh HD.
Nov 25 08:59:51 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Nov 25 08:59:56 kilroy-3 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3897]: Backup failed with error: 11
I'm not 100% sure this is the reason Time Machine failed and aborted, but it correlates
time-wise. So it appears backupd (aka Time Machine) is reporting it can not or will not
copy one particular file. There is no indication as to why.
This is buggy behavior for backup software. The message is broken, because there's no
"why" to the failure mode, and the software is broken, because it should be able to
recover from this, complete the backup, and simply report that a specific file was not
backed up.
If I can, I'll file a bug. Note to Apple - We RELY on backups. Stuff like this in the backup
software does NOT make us feel warm and fuzzy.
/jim

this is a known bug introduced by 10.5.3 update. lots of people have it (including myself). it's been acknowledged by apple. there is nothing you can or should do about it yourself. we have to wait for a fix from apple.

I do not have permission to move TimeMachine backup?

I've been having this issue for some time now. I have several small external storage drives that I would like to re-sort and move some of the backups from TimeMachine onto a new cloud based external drive.
I want to do this for two computers I have regarding the TM backups.
Anyway, my small externals are full and I need to do some resorting and reformatting and putting things in so they actually make sense again. I also need to do this since backups keep failing on this drive I am using and it's been quite a few months now and there is no solution to fix this.
What I want to do is copy the current directory that TimeMachine makes onto the large cloud drive (Backups.backupdb) and keep it there. When I try to move / copy this directory I keep getting an error! How can I have no permissions when it's my computer? Right now if I try to drag and drop it into the new server I get a pop up saying, "The volume is the wrong format for a backup" - this is a new one.
We have the cloud device split up into two areas, one for me and one for my husband. I'm also hoping I can designate a specific area for each of our backups as well.

Hi Twitchin Kitten,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. Based on what you stated, it sounds like you are trying to move a TimeMachine backup to another drive. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help the issue.
Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support
Check the format of your new backup drive
Connect the new backup drive to your Mac.
Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
In Disk Utility, select the new drive's icon to make sure it has a GUID partition and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can check this from the "Format:" line at the bottom of the Disk Utility window. If your new backup drive is not formatted this way, reformat it, selecting the option for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. Back up any important data from your new drive before you format it.
Set permissions on your new backup drive
Open a new Finder window.
In the sidebar of the Finder window, click the icon of the new backup drive.
Choose Get Info from the File menu.
Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions" section of the Get Info window is deselected (unchecked).
Cheers,
Mario

TimeMachine backup volume about full

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