Time Machine Error

I'm new to Mac OS so I don't know the correct terminology...

I can get the TM context menu by clicking and holding on the TM icon or holding down the ctrl key while clicking on TM.

In Windows this would be a right click for a context menu.

Message was edited by: Hardbap

That did it! Thanks.

golly, you mentioned that you tried "backup now". How do you do that? I can't find any place to ask it to backup now! It only shows me when it's going to backup next.
Rich

Ooops, just found it, you right click on the icon in the dock.

Message was edited by: RichBP

The "solution" to this problem is a JOKE.

If I trash TimeMachine's backup, then I lose almost a weeks backup, and since the cause of this problem is not reported, how do I know this won't happen a week later??!!

BS

I had the same issue. I deleted the .plist and restarted the backup several times. This obviously meant that I always lost the previous backups. Tonight I tried an old Windoze technique and rebooted and it was sorted.

Thanks Dengui, this seems to have solved my problem. Or it could have been erasing and reformatting the external hard drive in (Journaled) mode. Either way, I couldn't get backups to work, the would freeze my iMac G5 even though my intel macbook worked fine. Changing the name of the computer in the sharing preferences to make sure that there was no spaces, apostrophes or backslashes seems to have done the trick. You are a life-saver. Merci.

I have the same problem. Check /var/log/system.log, it will give you a hint about what the problem is.

Mine says
Nov 4 16:13:46 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Starting standard backup
Nov 4 16:13:46 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Backing up to: /Volumes/girgDisk/Backups.backupdb
Nov 4 16:16:10 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 215.40 GB available
Nov 4 16:16:10 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: MDBackupBegin() returned result (-911) < 0
Nov 4 16:16:40 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: MDBackupBegin() returned result (-911) < 0
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: MDBackupIndexFile returned -1134 for: /Applications/iDVD.app/Contents/CodeResources, /Volumes/girgDisk/Backups.backupdb/girgBook/2007-11-03-120831.inProgress/F9479E 99-85CF-4C03-8FEC-7AB274DE10C0/Macintosh HD/Applications/iDVD.app/Contents/CodeResources
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Aborting backup because MDBackupIndexFile failed
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Canceling backup.
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Copied 33 files (38.9 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Nov 4 16:16:44 girgBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[503]: Backup failed with error: 11

I'm now trying a backup without the "/Applications" folder. It seems to work fine, so far... For me, I think this happened after installing iLife '08, and it is these apps that fail. I moved iDVD to the Wastebasket, and it complained about the same CodeResources file in GarageBand.app instead. Once the backup is OK, I'll remove the exclusion of /Applications again, maybe it will work.

Yep, this did the trick. Removed the exclusion of /Applications, and all is well again.

If you examine /var/log/system.log, I assume you can be more precise and just exclude the applications that fail, make a backup, and then remove the exclusion. This will force a complete backup of those applications, and everything will be OK, it seems.

Renaming did not solve the problem but I have discovered a partial if not entirely satisfactory solution. I trashed the com.apple.Time Machine.plist from the preferences folder in the Library folder of the root directory. When you next launch Time Machine you are asked to choose a drive for it to use and when I selected the option to use a previously used disc, Time Machine opened correctly and I could navigate to each of the previous backups. However, as far as time machine preferences is concerned no disc is yet set up for backups and as soon as you go through that procedure you are back to where you started because the Time Machine program no longer works when it is launched!!

Similar thing happened to me. What I did was ran the Disk Utility on the External HDD and formated it as Mac OS X journeled. Then as soon as it reformatted the HDD, I right clicked it, then went to Get Info and clicked on the lock at the bottom right of the window. Enter the password and then change all the privilages to read and write. Then configure the TM for that hard drive. WORKS LIKE A CHARM.

I have also been experiencing the 'An error occurred while creating the backup directory' problems today. I had been able to use Time Machine for the past week without incident but was greeted with the aforementioned error when returning to my iMac today. It backs up its 320G disk to Saturn, a 500G Iomega MiniMax, via FW400.

Annoyingly, Disk Utility would not repair the disk as it could not be unmounted so I had to restart whereby, following a disk repair, I was able to effect a 'Back Up Now'. Since that success, any further backups today have generated the same problem but Disk Utility claims that Saturn appears to be OK. Saturn also contains my Aperture Vault along with some Virtual Machines for VMware Fusion neither of which have been touched during the immediate period before the errors or since, and my Aperture library has been excluded from Time Machine. Again attempting a manual backup delivers:
------------------8<---------------
Nov 4 19:41:02 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Backup requested by user
Nov 4 19:41:02 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Starting standard backup
Nov 4 19:41:10 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Saturn/Backups.backupdb
Nov 4 19:41:10 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Error: (-50) Creating directory 2007-11-04-194110.inProgress
Nov 4 19:41:10 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Failed to make snapshot container.
Nov 4 19:41:10 janus /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[815]: Backup failed with error: 2
------------------>8---------------

Alright... Just spent 3 hours at the Apple Store. Tried a different external drive, Tried Firewire instead of USB 2.0, Did a Hardware Test. Nothing...
So now I was told to try taking one of my ram sticks out, and then the other.
So tired...
They need to fix this

Add me to the list of people having trouble with TM, among several other quirks, like the machine not able to power down (just hangs after all the icons disappear), and indexing occurs every time I boot up and takes forever, even though it has already completed indexing a few times. This occurs mostly when I have the OWC 500GB eSATA drive with ExpressCard/34 controller running it.

Well I am still having problems. Thus far I am using the old backup software from Apple. I went to the local apple store last week and they told me that the problems we are having are likely related to bugs in the software. They also told me to go to see a genius to see if they can help. I will wit on the next update...hopefully very soon, and see if it fixes the problem. If not then I will go to the Apple store or contact support for help. However, I hope someone figures the problem out soon and posts it.

How can they say that this prolem is "solved" and "answered"???

We all have the same problem: Time Machine does NOT work.

Changing hard disk names: with or without spaces, characters etc.
Erasing hard disks, reinstall Leopard.

Come on: I did a clean leopard install, Ran Time Machine on a brand new hard disk via FW800, others did via USB, did not clean install, did another way of install: it all doesn't matter.

It simply doesn't matter what you do, how you do it. It simply doesn't work as advertised.
It simply is buggy and Apple has to come with an update and tell people that they rushed out Leopard too soon.