Q: Time Machine Frequent "Start New Backup"

Lyonnesse wrote:

 

I have worked through all that stuff, but none of it happens as described.

Please be more specific:

Did you find a problem with any of the names?  Or did something in the link not work as described?

Were you getting the "Time Machine must create a new backup for you" message, per #C13 in the above link?   If so, did anything in the pink box there help?  

Do you know whether the QNAP is compatible with Time Machine on the version of OSX you're running?

Do you know if its software/firmware is up to date?

Hi.

I have a QNAP TS-210 and apart from the Time Machine Sparse Bundle problem have had no trouble connecting Time Machine to my QNAP. Wy do you need to rename the Mac to be consistent with what is seen on the QNAP. When I go to Manage Backup on my QNAP I can see the bundles and they are named as my Mac.I assume Time Machine has bee enabled on the QNAP and the correct password has been entered.

Hey Pondini,

i am really impressed by your enthusiasm to help other people with this issus. Thanks a lot for all these links with pink boxes.

To everybody who faces the problem with backup delete request:

as rrichard proved, this can happen even if you are all apple equipped, wired and UPS protected, even if your HDDs don't go to sleep ( )

and as apple affirmed, this is a feature, not a bug.

in other words: EVERYBODIES TM backups are no real backups as they may be lost at anytime.

read the link at either garth.org, garth.org or this german tutorial to see who you can recover your backup.

just one more thing:

Hey Apple, fix this BUG!!!

Hi Folbo:

According to my long discussion with Apple Care, the way to change the current backup set which TM uses is to run a manual backup.

While online with AC, they attempted to mount the "good-long" backup set so TM would have access to it immediately. That failed every time. If I need to go back to a time before the short backup set, I simply run backup manually. Not ideal, but it works.

Folbo wrote:

. . .

When I go to restore (enter Time Machine), I am not offered a choice of destination. I can only think that TM uses the 'latest' backup ... which contains one week of past history ... instead of my synology backup (6 months of history).

Correct.   It uses the current or most recent backup.

How can I select which backup to use when restoring?

Use the Browse Other Backup Disks option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17.

or how can I rebuild my TC backup from my Synology backup, if (when :-( ) it fails again?

Practically, that's often not realistic.  If a backup set is intact and passes verification, you can copy it, but it takes a very long time.  See FAQ #18.  Since both are on a network, you'll need to copy the sparse bundle, per section 2 there.

rrichard wrote:

 

Hi Folbo:

 

According to my long discussion with Apple Care, the way to change the current backup set which TM uses is to run a manual backup.

It's odd they didn't mention the Browse... option, as specified in the Help:

Also covered in the blue box of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #34.

Message was edited by: Pondini

Just and update. Since my last post mentioning the problem was gone for a record period. Time machine is still working fine, I've no problems anymore since I installed and Airport Wifi station.

Pondini wrote:

 

It's odd they didn't mention the Browse... option, as specified in the Help:

 

 

Also covered in the blue box of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #34.

 

Message was edited by: Pondini

They didn't mention it because it was not available again till 10.8.2; 10.8.0/1 had lost that option. I never even knew that option existed till I read about here in this thread.

rrichard wrote:

. . .

They didn't mention it because it was not available again till 10.8.2; 10.8.0/1 had lost that option.

The option wasn't "lost," exactly:  it was broken (which they'd known for weeks when they released 10.8).

Unless your conversation was a while ago, they should have mentioned it.  10.8.2 was released September 19.

+1. Macbook Pro 2010, 10.8.2, Synology DS212 (DSM 4.1) - no problem with TM until mid 2012.

Now prompts for new backup about once a month.

Annoying.

Well at least it's only once a month.  We've had to give up.  We've not found an answer on this forum that works for more than a week.  Neither Apple nor Qnap are interested in helping.  That's what happens when you are using 2 different products.

I've not got any automatic backups at the moment and am relying on piecemeal solutions, like using Lightroom to automatically copy pictures to a second location; uploading photos to flickr and storing a couple of important documents in the cloud. 

Not impressed though

Lyonnesse wrote:

. . .

I've not got any automatic backups at the moment

See the green box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for some alternatives.

I may (or may not) have found a reason for the repeated backup failures.

I hve a 2012 MacBook Air with 10.8.2 installed and my backups get trashed repeatedly (roughly every 2 weeks).

Initially I thought this might be an issue with Popwer Nap and so switched to Time Machine Editor to stop the backups happening overnight. This went fine for a few weeks but then failed.

On checking the MBA disk for errors I found that there we a number of orphaned blocks. Cleared this and then reverted to the TimeMachine Editor cycle again.

Then last night the whole thing failed again.

On rerunning the Disk Utility it turns out that again there are a number of orphaned blocks.

I am wondering if the backups are true but it is the source data that has the problem and so when the backup is verified it turns out to be corrupt, not because of the backup but because the original data was corrupt in the first place?...

I support this. Checked my SSD (2012 MacBook Air with 10.8.2) same as yours) and found a lot of errors, rebooted to safe mode and got 80gig back!!

Time will tell if TM will work more stable after this but it do sound very plausble.