verifying backup - stuck twice in 6 weeks

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Level 3

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verifying backup - stuck twice in 6 weeks

For the 2nd time in 6 weeks my dual core MacBook (10.6.x) fan was racing and activity monitor showed fsck_hfs was running. Again [1] Time Capsule was stuck trying "Verifying Backup" over WiFi. Even when I connected via ethernet backup would not verify. I had to delete the sparseimage and start again.

Once is chance, twice is enemy action. Something is wrong. My other machines are doing better, but even my new iMac complained that it could not connect to the backup drive last night.

Both the MacBook and the 500GB Time Capsule are at least middle-aged. Either could be failing. Console isn't showing anything suspicious on the MacBook and TechTool Pro passed it last time. The only diagnostic information I find on the Time Capsule is that the disk START status is verified.

I've set syslog to 7 [1]. I've also stopped backing up my Fusion VM image.

Anything else I can do to sort out what the new failures might be from?

[1] http://tech.kateva.org/2012/01/my-macbook-fan-was-roaring-again-time.html

[2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2180886?start=0&tstart=0

i5 iMac 27, iPhone OS 3.1.2, MacBook Core-2 Duo, G5 iMac, G3 iBook, Mac mini

Posted on Mar 9, 2012 6:12 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

William-Boyd-Jr

Level 6

10,579 points

Mar 12, 2012 10:06 AM in response to jfaughnan

You might find useful information on the Web site Time Machine Troubleshooting.

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Answer 2

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

887 points

Mar 17, 2012 12:38 PM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

Great resource, I'll add it to my custom google mac search engine. Didn't answer my question on first review, but there's a LOT there.

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Answer 3

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

887 points

Mar 25, 2012 8:45 AM in response to jfaughnan

I've now had this problem hit two with two clients on backups stored on TC both internal and external drive.

I'm suspecting that either my 3yo TC hardware is failing OR there's a bug in a recent TC firmware update that might impact older TC's perhaps with external drives.

I'm sharing what I learn in a blog post, no firm answer yet. My next step is to try a factory reset of my TC per Apple's directions and drop back to a prior firmeware level.

http://tech.kateva.org/2012/03/time-capsule-recurrent-episodes-of.html

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Answer 4

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

887 points

Mar 25, 2012 9:17 AM in response to jfaughnan

Doing some further research I've seen other threads on this. My first occurence began after the Nov 7.6 firmware update, and continued after the Jan 7.6.1 update. So I've dropped back to 7.5.2 which was the last known good version for me.

Details here: http://tech.kateva.org/2012/03/time-capsule-recurrent-episodes-of.html

If this is a firmware bug, I suspect it impacts older Time Capsule devices (mine is 3 yo and was the last of the 500 GB line) possibly with external drives. It's certainly intermittent, seems to happen to me every few weeks.

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Answer 5

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

887 points

Mar 25, 2012 9:53 AM in response to jfaughnan

Reverting to firmware 7.5.2 allowed verification to complete normally.

With Time Capsule firmware 7.6 and 7.6.1 verification would never complete.

I think the "The backup disk image ... could not be accessed (error -1)" bug is a red herring side-effect of a firmware 7.6.x bug that prevents verification whenever a Time Capsule backup glitches.

I suspect the bug only affects older Time Capsules, and perhaps then only when they have an external drive mounted.

The fix is to revert to 7.5.2.

See: http://tech.kateva.org/2012/03/time-capsule-recurrent-episodes-of.html

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