Why is Time machine making a few incrementals and then only full back ups?

Is there anybody out there using Time Machine and Time capsule with a laptop? After 3 weeks I am extremely frustrated!
I made an initial full back up and everything went well for a couple of days. Then one day and I think it was after I took my laptop away on my return it started making a full back up again (takes 8 hours to do so). I let it do its thing, thinking it might for some reason not be feeling comfortable with the gap in between or that perhaps it had been at some crucial phase in its backing up and I should perhaps have stopped it making the incremental back up when I took the laptop away. So, after that I tried stopping the back up when I needed to go away. Same result: Next time I open my laptop a full back up starts.
Last Tuesday when I wanted to restore something I discovered it had not made any back up's since Sunday. Only reason I can think off the fact that I had been out of the house most of the time and perhaps hadn't connected to the time capsule long enough for it to do its thing. Yesterday I had a full back up finishing at 12.54pm, then I had incrementals until 5.54 pm and then suddenly (I did not move or close the laptop) at 6.54 it started on a full back up. I stopped that back up at 7.15 because I needed to go somewhere, but started it again at 10.30pm when I got back. I left the laptop open, but this morning it had not got any further than 5. something gb.
I should probably start all over again, but if I don't know what I am doing wrong I can see myself end up in the same pickle again.
On Tuesday I did have another interesting thing happen that may or may not have anything to do with it: I closed my laptop and opened it again and all the settings of anything that is connected through time capsule to the internet had gone as well as the content of my inbox.
Anybody any ideas?
Anneke

TM recognizes that the drive is different, so it will want to do a full backup. I believe there may be a workaround listed here:
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html

Similar Messages

After sleeping my macbook pro 15.4" mid 2012 model for overnight and pass 24 hours time, on wake -- the dock background is white for a few seconds and then it turns back to normal color. . .

After sleeping MacBook Pro 15.4" mid 2012 model (running Mac OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite) for overnight and pass 24 hours time, upon wake from sleep-- the dock background is white for a few seconds and then it turns back to the normal color.
Is this normal? Should I be worried? Is my GPU defective?
My specs:
MacBook Pro 15.4" Mid 2012 model, Ivy Bridge Quad core i7 2.3Ghz CPU w/ hyperthreading,
16GB RAM, Nvidia 650M 512MB VRAM/Intel 4000 HD 1GB VRAM, 500GB HD
Running Mac OSX 10.10.2 Yosemite.
Thanks to all in advanced.

It doesn't happen all the time but sometimes and i tried zapping the PRAM and it still happens!

Time Machine DELETED all of my data & will only show backed up data Jan 10

My harddrive was replaced by Apple. I was not concerned about data loss because my time machine backs up every night. When I got the computer back, I followed the directions for the computer to use a time machine backup. But, when it pulled up the drive, the only date available was Jan 2010. Thinking I could backup when I got into the system, I went ahead with that date back up. The computer restarted and I, after a few tries, was able to access my backup as of March 18, 2011, elated, I hit "restore" and the file began to copy.
Near the end of the copy, an error message popped up indicating that the copy could not complete because of duplicate names (?). Thinking I could just restart the restore and fix, I went back into time machine but there existed no backups between Jan 2010 and last night.
Before the restore started, the files were there, my user names were there, everything was there, now they are gone!! I cannot find an entire year of my life. Can someone help, please!! And, no, I am not sophisticated enough to have erased my time machine backups.
I talked to Apple Support and they were at a loss and said they couldn't explain how, as it appears, that time capsule, as some point during the copying, backup-ed over the existing data and that all my data is now lost.

Nothappy123 wrote:
When your Mac first started up, and you got a window asking if you wanted to +Transfer your information,+ what did you select?
I selected to transfer my information from a Time Machine back-up. The lastest date it had was Jan 2010, which was strange because it backs up every hour (or at least it was supposed to)
That sounds like Time Machine had started a new "sequence" of backups in January 2010, and transferred your data from the old set.
After I got to the user screens, I signed in and went into time machine. It was a little tricky because it took all of my settings (passwords) back to 2010, so I it took me a minute to remember what my server password was. When I got into the star wars, after a couple of times entering the time machine, March 2011 magically showed up. I selected the hard drive and hit restore.
That explains more. Unfortunately, Apple does not make it clear that you can't do that. You can't restore the system you're running from that way.
Yes, I have a time capsule. How do I get to that? Honestly, I thought that was what I was in.
Yes, that's what I thought; you hadn't mentioned it before, and I wanted to be sure.
As mentioned above, what I think happened is, for some reason, in January 2010, Time Machine started a new set of backups, and restored from the old set instead of the new one.
To confirm that, do this:
From a Finder window, in +Column View,+ locate your Time Capsule in the sidebar and double-click it. You should get a display something like this:
|
|
See if there are two (or more) +sparse bundles+ listed, as in the sample.
Post back with the results (or if you have trouble getting that screen -- I don't know how familiar you are with this).
That should clarify the situation.
|
Did a little more digging. The backup is case-sensitive and i think my hard drive is case ignorant, which explains the copy fail. how do I fix?
No. That's different, unfortunately.
As odd as it seems, your backup drive can be case-sensitive. In fact, that's the what Time Machine uses when you let it format a backup disk for you.
The problem is if the old +*internal HD+* was case-sensitive, but the new one is not, it could explain part of what you're seeing.
All Macs come with the internal HD set up as case-ignorant, so if you bought it new, and didn't change it (which requires erasing and reinstalling everything), that's very unlikely.

Will Time Machine backup 2 internal HDs and put the data back into them when restoring?

Hello,
I am going to be doing a clean install of Snow Leopard. I have a machine that has 2 internal HDs. If they are backup up using Time Machine, when restoring, will it put those files exactly as they were?
Thanks!

Restore to a multiple disk setup should work fine. But there are as always some tricks to it.
See our expert Pondini's explaination and follow his links.. I suggest you actually spend some time understanding how TM works.
http://pondini.org/TM/32.html
I would also recommend spending a few dollars and buy CCC or superduper. Make a backup of each drive. These 3rd party backup programs are more flexible and you can create direct images of the drives. It makes recovery a much much easier process.
If it is a Mac Pro put in another disk for TM backups and use a USB or even esata card and external sata drive for backups using CCC. Doing it that way you can make a bootable image of your main drive.

Time Machine fails to backup HD and stalls computer when backing up to external HD (Western Digital WD5000MT) when using Firewire 800 but works fine using USB

I have a mid 2012 MBP (MacbookPro9,1) running Mountain Lion 10.8.2. When I start a Time Machine backup to an external Western Digital HD (WD5000MT) connected using a Firewire 800 cable, my open programs stop responding and in general my computer freezes up not allowing me to open activity monitor or the console utility. I can't even shut down or restart my computer and must hard boot to reset. Though removing the firewire cable that goes to the external HD can sometimes get my system working again. However, the WD external HD also has a usb port and when I connect it to my computer via a USB cable, Time Machine seems to backup my system fine without stalling my computer. This same external HD worked fine with Firewire 800 using my old late 2007 MBP running snow leopard. I should note that my brother has the exact same model WD external HD and he also had issues with the firewire port on his MBP running mountain lion. I have run the disk utility checking for disk/file permission errors and the drive itself seems fine. I initially formatted that drive as ExFAT but while troubleshooting reformatted to HFS+ and still had the same issue. I tested using a different firewire 800 cable but still had the same issue. Can't think of anything else to do. I don't have another firewire-compatible device to test if it is the HD vs the firewire port. I would prefer to use the firewire port for quicker transfer speeds but I'm stuck with USB for now. Any suggestions?

Maybe these will help:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11194
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275 (note - older article)
Have you tried looking at the Western Digital web site to see if you can find anything?
http://support.wdc.com

HT3728 since Oct 25 my time capsule is not working properly. I enter the time machine to check my backups and the only thing I see is balck screen on every single day since I put it to work on my house. Any ideas on what's going on?

I am having problems with my time capsule.
It's not backing up... if I enter the time machine, all I see is a black page, any day I look, since the day I bought it.
Was not like this before Oct 25...
Any ideas on what's going on and what should I do to make it work again?

Check the USB cable first to make sure that it is operating correctly on another connection.
You may need to use a powered USB hub with the drive since the USB port on the Time Capsule is not a high powered port like you have on your Mac.
You may need to use the powered hub even if the hard drive has its own external power supply.

Time Machine deletes entire previous backup and then back it up from zero!

my configuration :
Time Machine : USB external HD 500G
Backing up : 1. internal 160G (90G used) 2. USB external HD 500G (290G used)
the problem is, every time I hook up the TM, it backup the internal HD smoothly but deletes its entire previous backup of the external HD and starts all over ... and naturally it takes forever to do 290G....
anybody get any idea where the problem seem to be ?
Thanks!!

Welcome to Discussions.
It could be that your drive isn't formatted correctly for Time Machine. Launch Disk Utility which is in your Applications > Utilities folder. Choose the upper icon (the one that is not indented) for your Time Machine drive. At the bottom of the window the Partition Map Scheme should be GUID for Intel Macs and Apple Partition Map for PPC Macs. Next click on the indented icon for your Time Machine drive. The format should be Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
If the formatting is not correct on your Time Machine drive you will need to reformat your drive which will erase everything on it. Copy any files you might need from your Time Machine drive. Then format your Time Machine disk following the directions in this article. People with PPC Macs should substitute Apple Partition Map for GUID when following the directions.
If your Time Machine disk is formatted correctly there might be some hints in the Time Machine log as to what has gone wrong. Launch Console which is in Applications > Utilities. Choose All Messages in the left pane of Console and type in "backupd" without the quotes in the search window. Post back any errors or complaints that you find in the log.

Can I restore Time Machine "B" to Macbook "A" and then back again?

My family had 2 Macbooks-- I'll call them A and B -- each equipped with an external USB hard drive that we used for regular Time Machine backups.
Macbook B contained some digitized family videos. About 8 months ago it was destroyed by spilled coffee (family member shall remain unnamed!) Apple tech said it would cost as much to repair as it would to replace, and I ended up doing neither. Coffee-spilling family member went off to college with a new Macbook Pro (equipped with a thin plastic keyboard cover!!!)
Macbook A continues to be used, and backed up (by a family member who doesn't drink coffee, BTW).
I would like to recover those video files -- at least to burn them onto DVD's or whatever -- but I'm assuming the only way to access files from a Time Machine backup is to restore that backup onto a Macbook.
So I'm wondering if I can be sneaky by restoring Time Machine "B" onto Macbook "A", getting those video files copied off it, and then restoring Time Machine "A" back onto Macbook "A" again. Would there be any ill-effects from doing this?
Thanks!
Joe

No. See:
iOS: Unable to restore from backup of a newer device

Why do me apps load for 5 secound and then it goes back to my folder it does that with alot of apps most of my paid apps, why do me apps load for 5 secound and then it goes back to my folder it does that with alot of apps most of my paid apps

when i go to most of my apps they load for 5 secounds then they go back to my folder
why does it do that
PS: Half of the apps are paid

Try:
- Resetting the iPOd. Nothing will be los.
Reset iPod touch: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears
- Download/install a new app
- Restore from backup

Why does time machine back up change root directory of software?

about a year ago i did a time machine back up of my old macbook pro, then when i came to use a piece of software (native instruments-traktor) it said the root directory had been changed and it couldnt find the file. i had to remove the whole program from my mac and redownload it. then since then had no problems.
now ive just purchased a new macbook today and wanted all my old files and software on it so i did a migration expert with time machine. it seems to have bought most things over.....a few files are missing from logic but again when i went open traktor, again it said root directory changed,,,im not to good with these root directorys so havent got a clue what to do so again ive had to remove the program and redownload it which is a bit of a pain.
any ideas why time machine changes it??

I'm also puzzled because it continually wants to back up some 15MB or more when I've changed nothing
Suggest that you download and install BackupLoupe to find out exactly what is being backed up on each pass.
soma-zone: BackupLoupe
If you want to change the backup frequency of Time Machine, an application like Time Machine Editor will allow you schedule backups whenever you like. But, you may not need to do this if you can figure out what might be causing the first issue.
TimeMachineEditor
If you ever decide to delete Time Machine Editor, be sure to change the backup frequency back to hourly before you delete the application.

Why does Time Machine disappear?

Why does Time Machine disappear each restart?

Suggest that you power cycle the entire network, as things are likely out of sequence
Power every device off on the network, order is not important
Wait a few moments, then start the modem first and let it run by itself for 2-3 minutes
Start the Time Capsule the same way
Start each network device one at a time about a minute apart
Check for proper operation

How do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full

how do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full.. HELP!

When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

Why is Time machine backup not working after Mavericks upgrade?

I had the same problem due to the Fire Wire port. Apple tested it told me it is OK!, I tried a new cable, and have tested both ports on my back up device. I find it strange that as soon as I installed Mavericks. The drive does work using USB. It could be a coincidence, I don't absolutely know at this point, my back up drive ports could stop working, but I doubt it!

Why is Time Machine displaying files only in the present not the past?

Hi,
My PowerBook G4 recently had its Logic Board replaced. Since Time Machine identifies the machine to backup thanks to its MAC Ethernet address and, since after a Logic Board switch my MAC Ethernet address had changed, I had to reconfigure TM so that the external hard drive reassociates with the new MAC Ethernet address and continues to backup in the same backup folder. For that I used this hint posted on MacOSXhints.com :
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101&query=time%2Bmach ine%2Blogic
While performing this hint enabled me to have my new backups in the original backup folder, and access all my backups through finder, I cannot view any backups in Time Machine star-field mode. Whenever I click on "Enter Time Machine" I correctly warp into the star-field, but I only see the present. I cannot go back in time and the time line on the side doesn't show any dates in the past. The finder window at the front displays only what is currently on my PowerBook HDD, and the finder windows that precede it are all dark grey, empty and un-clickable. What is peculiar is that when I click on Time Machine Preferences, the Panel can show the date of the oldest backup.
To sum up: Time machine has no problem backing up my files in the original backup folder of my external HDD (I can see all my new backups in the same backup database folder as the ones before the Logic board switch), I can access all my backed up files via Finder, but when I enter Time Machine star-field mode, it doesn't show me any of my backups. I really like the ease of use of the star-field mode, and I find it frustrating to have to look at my backups in plain old Finder.
What I don't know is whether hint I described above might have introduced errors that provoked the error or whether this might be due to the fact that while my computer was going for repair, I connected the external HDD containing my backup with two computers running Mac OS X 10.4 to retrieve some backed up files.
My case must probably be quite rare, but since I haven't found any solutions to this date, I'm posting it now.
I would be extremely grateful if anyone had a solution for this, or an intuition on the different parameters to modify to correct this Time Machine problem. Any contribution will be helpful. Thank you very much.

gbullman,
You say that the logic board was replaced? Then you will not be able to continue backups to the SAME backup set.
*_Time Machine Always Performs a Full Backup After a Full Restore_*
Actually, this is normal. Anytime your hardware has changed, or you have reinstalled the operating system again, Time Machine will perform a new full backup.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
So even on unchanged hardware, if you reinstall your system software and restore your user data, Time Machine starts anew, and you will not be able to resume backing up with the same history as the previous backups.
While there may be ways to fool/hack Time Machine into recognizing previous backups without performing another full backup, they are likely rather elaborate. Ultimately, though, in a couple of months, all the effort to preserve old backups may seem pointless. After all, Time Machine will eventually purge away that data anyways as it replaces it with new files.
It may simply be easier to begin a fresh series of backups while saving the previous backups until your satisfied that you have enough history built up. Then delete the old backups.
*Why Can’t I Resume Backups?*
You see, Time Machine was designed to restore your Macs’ immediate environment in case of system crashes or accidental deletion of user files. As a result, reinstalling your Mac OS system software or changing your hardware requires a fresh set of backups since older backups would not accurately represent the current state of your Mac.
Additionally, if a user has had to reinstall the system software, then resuming backups to the same set could later reintroduce the very issues that forced the reinstall in the first place. Furthermore, maintaining backups that were started with an older Mac, introduces the possibility of restoring system files that were never intended for the new Mac.
If you require long-term archival storage of files, then you need another backup strategy.
Hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers!

Why does Time Machine Hang OSX when a USB drive does not respond?

I use USB drives to store photo data. When I back up the drives using Time Machine to a Time Capsule, If I have added a large amount of data to the USB drive, the backup will consistently fail with the drive hung. I can see the drive in finder, but I cannot see the directory structure. Often OSX hangs too and I cannot even get to finder, just the whirling colored wheel. Sometimes the system has entered sleep mode and it will not wake up. I if I am using the monitor, I can open the MAC Book Pro cover and the screen there shows alternately, a blue screen and the screen wallpaper, flipping back and forth but otherwise unresponsive. If I turn the USB drive off the OS recovers and Time Machine completes, usually indicating a backup failure (but not always). The drive is always very hot under these circumstances, indicating that the system is issuing repetitive operations to the drive. I should emphasize that I am not writing to the USB drives during backup, Time Machine is just reading the drive. So several questions:
1) How in the world can a non system drive hang the Operating System? This is a big no-no for a supposedly multi-tasking Operating System.
2) I use Aperture 2.1 to store data on the USB drives with no problems (at least so far). Why would Time Machine drive the USB drive so hard that it fails? I had the same problem using a USB drive with iTunes. It completely fried the drive by writing to it too intensively during one of the frequent software updates. Is there no throttle mechanism in OSX that limits the disc activity so that the throttle mechanism is not the failure of the drive itself?
3) Does Apple have a list of USB drives that it has validated to be able to work with it's system reliably?

Are the USB drives powered from the computer or do they have their own power supplies.
There is a limit to how much power can be drawn from each USB port and also a total limit. If you exceed this, unexpected things can happen.

Why is Time machine making a few incrementals and then only full back ups?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for