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Time machine won't open error code -43

When I try to open time machine it says:

The operation could not be completed.
An unexpected error occurred (error code -43).

The only thing I have tried is to restart.

Anyone seen this error before or know what I can do to get the program to open?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Dec 4, 2007 10:03 PM

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7 replies

Dec 4, 2007 10:19 PM in response to taloopy

Welcome to Discussions.

Start up from your Leopard install DVD. Hold down the "c" key until you see the spinning gear. Pick a language and choose "Disk" from the Utilities menu at top of your screen. Click on your internal disk and choose "Repair". Keep running Repair until you get a clean bill of health. Then run Repair Permissions and restart.

Dec 16, 2007 5:53 AM in response to taloopy

I have seen this error code before.

It corresponds to an entry in my console that looks like this:
16/12/2007 13:22:09 mdworker[1226] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.

From the Mac OS X man pages: mdworker is the metadata server worker process. It is used by mds to scan and index files as a volume is mounted or a file changes.

It implies that if something goes wrong with the drive that Time Machine thinks is it's target disk, Time Machine doesn't error handle this very well.

In any event, what you want to know is how to work around the missing error handling:

I fixed it as macia suggested:

1. Start System Preferences
2. Select your Time Machine Preferences
3. Select a new target for your Backups
4. Begin backing up
5. Label that external hard disk as your backup disk and treat it as if it were a collection of very important documents (since that's what it is)

This worked for me - no more Error code -43, no more inexplicable console errors.

I hope this works for you.

Dec 24, 2007 9:43 AM in response to taloopy

Hi taloopy,

What Nathan Dornbrook just said works. Go into System Preferences and then Time Machine, change the Hard drive choice of backup. I had the -42 error and this solved the problem. I think it cam up because I had a previously selected Hard Drive as a choice which was unplugged before I ejected it about a month ago.

As we speak Time Machine is backing up everything, it works for me!

Time machine won't open error code -43

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