Speckled James

Q: Time Machine stuck preparing backup

Hi Community

 

In Time Machine, I get the iMac Backup - Time Capsule 371 GB of 998 GB available Preparing Backup phase for an eternity, as others have reported.

 

My system is an iMac (27-inch, Late 2009), 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor, 12 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory with a ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB video card and a 1 TB ST31000528AS Media Sata internal Physical Disk.

 

My last backup was 16 Sep 2016 @ 1257 GMT and my software was the last version of El Capitan.  (I backup to another external HDD using Carbon Copy Cloner and Mac Backup Guru, unfortunately I haven't got another large enough ext HDD to run a Time Machine backup to as well).

 

When the TC is connected I can see the iMac Backup folder and iMac.sparsebundle and when I enter Time Machine I can see the timeline running back from 16 Sep and it allows me to access files from folders.  Therefore, I assume that the TC HDD is OK.

 

Software changes were: 1 Sep a copy of CCleaner Free 1.14.451, 2 Sep Security Update 2016-001, 13 Sep Adobe Flash, 14 Sep iTunes 12.5.1, 16 Sep Digital Camera RAW Compatibility update.  Never had a problem before with these downloads.  Updated Safari on 20 Sep and then to Sierra on 22 Sep having first backed up using CCC and MBG.

 

Searched the various help pages through Google.  Followed advice given to Reset the SMC and PRAM, deleted Sophos Home and the com.apple.TimeMachine.plist and com.apple.TimeMachine.plist.lockfile. 

 

Rebooted and restarted the iMac and Time Capsule many times, carried out numerous Verify Backups on the disc even reset the Time Capsule but all to no avail.

 

I am still stuck at Preparing Backup when I reselect the backup disc.

 

Can anyone help further please?

 

I last had a problem in 2014 when Apple recalled the iMac for a HDD replacement programme.  This was successful but a few days later the Time Machine and Time Capsule would not backup.  This was due to the component change when the UUID was different.  The advice I should have been given was how to Inherit Backup and the Associate Disc commands within Terminal. I foolishly started again when the TC asked me to and then discovered the Terminal commands a few days later.  Actually the loss of 4 years' backups was no great issue, so I suppose if I have to, I will do so again unless a clever Community member can advise me better please?

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Sep 25, 2016 12:20 PM

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Q: Time Machine stuck preparing backup

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  • by Speckled James,

    Speckled James Speckled James Sep 26, 2016 12:02 AM in response to Speckled James
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 12:02 AM in response to Speckled James

    Well Community

     

    I forgot to tell you that I backup to a 1 GB Time Capsule purchased in 2010 along with the iMac.

     

    Not sure how but no sooner had I finished posting my query above than Time Machine kicked back into action and carried out a backup picking up all the changes, around 50 GB since 16 Sep. 

     

    It has done so again this morning so I am sorry that I cannot report what action caused Time Machine and my Time Capsule to act correctly.

     

    Regards

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Sep 26, 2016 12:05 AM in response to Speckled James
    Level 8 (49,654 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 12:05 AM in response to Speckled James
  • by Speckled James,Helpful

    Speckled James Speckled James Sep 26, 2016 1:03 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 1:03 PM in response to John Galt

    Thanks very much John. 

     

    I had Googled help and followed the instructions from those searches, (one of which was your link), albeit I did not have Sierra installed before the issue occurred.

     

    However, the problem cleared last night just after my first post and now T M and TC are working as they should. 

     

    I am just none the wiser if any of my actions, following those help searches, was the solution to kickstart T M and TC.

     

    Thanks again

  • by John Galt,Helpful

    John Galt John Galt Sep 26, 2016 1:02 PM in response to Speckled James
    Level 8 (49,654 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 1:02 PM in response to Speckled James

    Great! Thanks for your report.

     

    I did not see the reply you posted until posting mine. It's a peculiarly due the way this site works.

     

    For future reference I suggest that you do not use "CCleaner" or similarly categorized non-Apple utilities on a Mac. Depending on what you do with it, it is quite capable of exacerbating existing problems or causing trouble of its own. Whatever you need it to do can be accomplished far more safely with the tools and diagnostics already incorporated in your Mac.

     

    Also, non-Apple "anti-virus" products such as "Sophos" should not be used if you expect your Mac to work properly. That just goes without saying.

     

    Lastly, using Google to search for solutions to Mac problems is a bad idea. Due to the nature of Google's business model the vast majority of its results will be thinly veiled (or not so thinly veiled) recommendations to install some product claiming to cure all Mac ills. That always results in a horrendous mess that can become difficult to correct. "Googling" probably results in more user-inflicted misery than any other single cause... including determining how to contact "Apple Support": Re: Rude Apple care specialist

     

    Using this site is second only to AppleCare when it comes to quickly and effectively obtaining assistance with Apple products.

  • by Speckled James,

    Speckled James Speckled James Sep 26, 2016 2:01 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 2:01 PM in response to John Galt

    Many thanks John

     

    Your advice is very welcome and of course you are quite correct, the non-Apple utilities are really unnecessary.

     

    I have been an Apple user since 2010 but some old PC habits die hard.

     

    CCleaner was one of these and I think that I may have accessed it from the App Store way back when I started with iMac although it may have been removed from the store later.  I only ran Analyse to see what junk I might be able to get rid of, but that doesn't really matter yet whilst using a 1 TB HDD.  CC does warn one that running the cleaner may cause problems.  This time I may just have pressed the run button, which was pretty stupid and most likely caused the issue, but of that I am not sure.

     

    I used the free version of Sophos AV as it was well reported in Mac Mags as having the lightest footprint, again I think that I downloaded the first basic version from the App Store some years ago.  I was well aware that it was most probably a pointless piece of software for an iMac, however, it did seem to be very light on the iMac's resources.  I recently upgraded it to their most recent free Home version, which I didn't much like even though it still seemed to be light on resource.  It did occasionally give an alert and quarantine the odd rogue file.  It did this, especially when I looked at some old and now spare PC internal discs holding their old PC software and files.

     

    I have now removed both these non-Apple utilities.

     

    Your advice re-Google again is understood.  I tended to look only to the links to Apple support and advice and I would make note of what some of the Tech mags said if it seemed pertinent. 

     

    Hopefully I will not have any further issues.  Only 2 problems in 6½ years iMac use, and both with TM and TC, shows fully why I should have moved from PC to Mac much earlier.  In comparison, over about 12 years of PCs and Windows, some 5 PCs and 3 laptops, I wasted a huge number of hours dealing with their need for constant maintenance and countless crashes and failures.

     

    I think that the lesson is that, although Apple is expensive, you get what you pay for.

     

    Thanks again for the advice.