Q: Time Machine Frequent "Start New Backup"

I don't want to be flow completely against the grain of these forums, but I have no desire to use terminal or any other 'stuff' to fix this or any other issue. I bought a Mac and a Mybooklive and the advice from the salespeople (reps of Apple) was that was an ideal setup for time machine. It worked fine before Apple 'updated' their software so I expect Apple to step up and fix the problem, not leave us out in the cold to try to fix our own problems. We pay a premium for these products so I think it's about time that an IT organisation actually stood by their offerings.

I will just add my 2 cents. I also have an issue with TM and NAS. keep on getting "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on “DiskStation”. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."

I agree with the last post, we pay **** loads of money to Apple and they need to fix bugs especially backup ones.

Had the same problems on my Synology NAS but have solved it and I am now running backups since August last year and had not a single failure, even from a Macbook backing up over Wifi.

If anybody wants to try here are the steps:

1) Create a new share called "Backups" and make the owner "admin" (Apple TM server also use "Backups")

2) Do NOT select "Backups" as your Time Machine share (under Contorl Panel - Win/Mac/NFS - Mac File Server) - just leave it as "Not selected yet"

3) Go to the Mac you want to backup and via Finder mount the "Backups" share manually as "admin"

4) Go into TimeMachine preferences and selected the mounted "Backups" share as destination

5) You can now disconnect the manually mounted "Backups" share

6) When Time Machine wants to do it's first backup it will ask for user and password, enter "admin" and password - only needed one time it will remeber the credentials

That's worked for me and I don't have anymore issues.

Last hint is don't try to use an old TM sparsebundle. Just let TM create a new one the first time the backup runs.

Thanks for that. Basically what you are saying is to NOT use the NAS Mac File Server to manage the backup and use a simple shared folder instead.

I set it up and will se how it goes.

Cheers

What he's suggesting is what i am currently testing...

By not following Synology's advice when setting up a time machine shared folder, you must use the admin credentials when accessing the shared volume that you are intending to backup to.

Synology recommend setting up a separate 'time machine' user and assigning a quota to that user. Instead by using an admin account, we are eliminating any priveledges restriction a regular account has, over an admin account.

Keep in mind that i have started fresh with my testing in that I deleted all previous backups.

So far it seems to have worked, for me at least... Keep us posted on how it goes for you.

Not sure what you mean. The backups that fail to work where ones that I did using Synology method which is to create a separate TM use and assigning a quota. It worked well for a few month and now stopped.

I will see how the new "simple" approach works and get back to this forum.

Just use 'admin' as the user to log into the time machine share you're backing-up to.

Correct. I am not using the "time machine" user suggest by Synology. For me the vaild backups happened do to access priviliges. By switching to admin user you avoid any of this as admin has full access on Synology.

Not using the Synology "Time Machine" share was something I simply did because I didn't want to have Synology listed double in the Finder. I don't know if that has to do with the problem but that's the configuration that works for me.

Thanks, then Admin it is.

aschmid wrote:

 

Had the same problems on my Synology NAS but have solved it and I am now running backups since August last year and had not a single failure, even from a Macbook backing up over Wifi.

 

If anybody wants to try here are the steps:

 

1) Create a new share called "Backups" and make the owner "admin" (Apple TM server also use "Backups")

2) Do NOT select "Backups" as your Time Machine share (under Contorl Panel - Win/Mac/NFS - Mac File Server) - just leave it as "Not selected yet"

3) Go to the Mac you want to backup and via Finder mount the "Backups" share manually as "admin"

4) Go into TimeMachine preferences and selected the mounted "Backups" share as destination

5) You can now disconnect the manually mounted "Backups" share

6) When Time Machine wants to do it's first backup it will ask for user and password, enter "admin" and password - only needed one time it will remeber the credentials

 

That's worked for me and I don't have anymore issues.

 

Last hint is don't try to use an old TM sparsebundle. Just let TM create a new one the first time the backup runs.

Great.    That should help a number of Synology users.

If you haven't yet, I recommend you contact Synology, so they can correct/clarify their instructions or fix whatever's causing the problem.

If they have a forum, you might be able to post it there, too.

There doesn't seem to be a way to bookmark or link reliably to a particular post in this forum.  And since users see the post dates & times in their own time zones, saying "see aschimds' post" with the date/time and a link to the thread doesn't work very well, either, so few folks are going to see your post after a day or two.

I'd suggest you turn it into a User Tip, but I don't think you can do that until you reach level 5 (4,000 points), although that may have changed.  Here's the "how to" https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3441.  Some folks find User Tips on their own, and helpers can easily post links to them.  And they can be updated as needed, indefinitely.

Or, would you mind if I either post it as a User Tip or add it to my website page (#C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting)?  Either way, I'd give you credit, of course.  

Pondini wrote:

 

Or, would you mind if I either post it as a User Tip or add it to my website page (#C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting)?  Either way, I'd give you credit, of course.  

I am fine with that. If it does in fact help others I am happy to write up a more detailed step-by-step guide. So if anybody who tried it and it worked could report back we can take it from there.

I posted this on the Synology forums under here.

On second thought, for now, why don't I just add a link on my page, directly to your post on the Synology forums (not the whole thread there).

Once you get some feedback, and/or you want to expand it, we can revisit.

In the meantime, perhaps Synology will have an update with a fix, or an easier alternative, or something.

Do you know if this applies to all Synology models, and/or all versions of software? 

I wouldn't rush to make this solution a User Tip.

Using the Admin login credentials, or simply mounting the folder as a normal shared folder might be the solution but we shouldn't wait a few weeks to see if all is working correctly.

Yep I agree. I didn't post this as a solution to the problem just a setup that works for me! Everybody can try and see if it works and if they are satisfied with the solution or not.

There is a downside which is you can't control the size of the backups anymore as "admin" as full access to DS. I know that some people with a smaller DS will not like this.

For me I have about 1.6TB free on a 5TB formatted DS and I have not seen backups of 4 Macs grow significantly over the last 6 months. TM does a pretty good job with managing the backup size by itself.

aschmid wrote:

. . .

There is a downside which is you can't control the size of the backups anymore as "admin" as full access to DS. I know that some people with a smaller DS will not like this.

Can you reduce the maximum size of the sparsebundle, per #A8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting?  I've been told some NASs allow that, some don't.