Hello -- I've just joined the community.. I'll try to keep this brief.
I have three USB drives I use for backup - let's call them D1, D2 and D3.
With D1 and D2 I get the "Backup delayed" message. What's more the TM menu top lines say that my previous backup was to D3, many days ago.
Grant says the cause could be a dodgy connection to the backup drive. I've now tried backing up again to D1, then D2, using different USBA-USBC connectors in each case. Same result.
When I drag to the "Backup Delayed.." TM menu item, I'm told TM couldn't complete the backup to D3. As if it had been trying to..
Grant also pointed out that if you hold down Option while you click on the Time machine icon on the menubar, "Backup Now" changes to "Verify Backups". I hadn't known that! When I tried "Verify Backups" TM told me it was verifying the backup to D2, the drive I'd just backed up.
Which looked promising - it's verifying D2, not D3.
And when it finished, reported the correct time I'd backed up D2.
So that's good. BUT the TM menu still says that my most recent backup was to D3, many days ago.
Bottom line: TM seems to be backing up perfectly, but its messages are misbehaving. I can live with that till Apple fixes it.