Time machine goes to almost complete (98%or so), then gives a message that says time machine delayed. I restarted time machine several times, same message when almost complete. Backup is to a NAS. Sonoma 14.0 worked fine until a day ago. Do not remember doing any updates since a good backup.
MacBook Pro 13″
Just did another try - AND WENT TO COMPLETION!!! Looks like your comment might be the reason, perhaps something had to be downloaded from iCloud??? Or maybe just a $$$magic fix. Thanks for taking the time to help.
Following up my post of 16 November:
I'm running Sonoma 14.1 on an M1 MacBook Air.
A discovery! When I backup to one of my USB drives, get the Backup Delayed message, the first line beneath the TimeMachine icon still says, as before, that the last backup was (a) to a different drive and (b) on 22 October.
BUT when I go down the menu and choose OPEN TIME MACHINE SETTINGS.., one of the icons has beside it the name of the drive I've just backed up to, and the correct date and time the backup was completed.
So I won't worry any more. (Though I wish Apple'd fix this minor bug.)
If and when I buy a new drive (or reformat this one), I'll be interested to see whether TM's first-line message is still wrong, but it isn't a big deal.
I can confirm this is a UI issue - I also have Sonoma 14.1.1 ad I see "Backup Delayed" after my first backup in a long time.
But if I select "Open Time Machine Settings..." I can see the issue is with another of my TM disks and the last backup completed successfully.
CAN YOU DEFINE "WORKED FOR ME"? THIS THREAD IS ABOUT MAC NOT BACKING UP IN TIME MACHINE AND GIVING A "BACKUP DELAYED" MESSAGE SO ARE YOU SAYING YOU DID A BACK VERIFICATION AND AFTER THAT YOUR MAC BACKED UP OK?
Sorcerer2006 wrote:
CAN YOU DEFINE "WORKED FOR ME"? THIS THREAD IS ABOUT MAC NOT BACKING UP IN TIME MACHINE AND GIVING A "BACKUP DELAYED" MESSAGE SO ARE YOU SAYING YOU DID A BACK VERIFICATION AND AFTER THAT YOUR MAC BACKED UP OK?
Please do not post all in caps. In addition to being considered rude, it's hard to read.
The person to whom you're replying appears to be saying that what BIGKID did helped. Start by reading the thread from the very beginning and read the exchange of posts between BIGKID and Grant Bennet-Adler.
igirl1 wrote:
I turned off the iCloud Drive/Photos nonsense and my stuck backup was resumed upon clicking "Backup Now".
Can't edit my previous post - but it reverted to Backup Delayed again. The iCloud stuff is not the cause.
This system is running no programs, and has almost nothing on it - new Sonoma 14.3.1 - with Adobe LIghtroom/Photoshop - and Logic Pro.
I disabled/signed out of Adobe Creative Cloud next to see if that fixed it - Not.
I'm using a 512GB SSD, which was working great (MacBook Pro w/only 200GB of data on it) - but then I started getting message it was out of space. Time Machine wasn't deleting the oldest backup to make room for the new ones. I reformatted the SSD and still got out of space - then reformatted again and now started getting this Backup Delayed issue instead.
Hi all --
Back on 16 November last year, here, I reported my problems with "Backup delayed" and failure to show the most recent previous backup in TM's "Latest Backup" line. Those problems persisted until very recently. But today TM was behaving itself perfectly -- both problems have disappeared.
Puzzling.. e.g. I've been running Sonoma 14.1 for at least a couple of months i.e. haven't upgraded yet, so it wasn't an upgrade that explains the cure.
If Apple fixed the problem -- thank you, Apple!
Good luck to you others with your variants of "Backup delayed" --
Stephen
Regarding "backup delayed" on Sonoma I just discovered that in fact it was not delayed. All my attempts were met with "backup delayed" but it appears that in reality it completed the backup each time...
jevanswa wrote:
Regarding "backup delayed" on Sonoma I just discovered that in fact it was not delayed. All my attempts were met with "backup delayed" but it appears that in reality it completed the backup each time...
...so for your system, the truth was "message delayed" or message lingered for a long time after it was no longer applicable.
if you can supply a terse summary of what the problem is, Apple Product Feedback would like to hear from you:
Is it possible this setting is the culprit? It was off when I found it but turning it back on caused the folders mentioned above to begin offloading files again into the cloud.
if you hold down Option while you click on the Time machine icon on the menubar, you may be offered "Verify Backups".
Worked for me
I turned off the iCloud Drive/Photos nonsense and my stuck backup was resumed upon clicking "Backup Now".
what is the message of backup status, EXACTLY?
could it be telling you that your BOOT drive is out of space? in needs some space to 'stage' the list of files that make up the backup.
Time machine says backup delayed
