Time Machine Freezes Computer

I am having the same problem. I just set up time machine a couple of days ago. It took 3 tries to get it to back up the first time. I never get an error message, but time machine freezes, then the finder freezes, and will not force quit. It does not happen every time it backs up, only about half the time. I have had to do a hard restart twice, as I am not even able to restart normally. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and I verified the back up disk with disk utilities and it said it was fine.

Are you running any Intego software?

Finally upgraded to Leopard on my 17" MBP. All went well except for Time Machine freezing when I tried to access it. Initial backup went fine...and so have a few hourly incremental backups.

But when I tried to acces to see what it had performed - freeze-up. Had to force quit it.

Disabled Intego's scanning, and all is well.

Clint Bradford

Just found the fix for VirusBarrier v5:

Open it. VirusBarrier. Click on "Interactive" (under mode).

Then go up to Preferences, Scanner. Under "Trusted Zone" click on + and select your Time Machine external drive under Devices.

Click Choose. Your external HD is now listed in the "Trusted Zone."

Close the Window and run Virus Barrier X5. Time Machine will work properly again.

I am not running any Intego software. I thought that 10.5.3 had fixed it, because it ran without any problems for about a day. Then back to the prolonged preparing phase and the freezes. It even refuses to force quit, so I have to restart, and usually have to turn off the external hard drive to be able to restart.

Thanks, that fixed the problem!

I am also going through the same problem here. I dont have anything blocking time machine nor do i have any virus protection installed. I attempted to do a repair on my backup drive and everything seems to be ok with it. I can acutally recover files but only by going to the actual hard drive and searching for files myself instead of going through the actual time machine application because it just hangs on me and no way of getting out other then hard booting the pc.

Clint,
Excellent answer. Setting my external drive into the Intego Trusted Zone is the real solution, rather than having to stop Intego real-time scanning every time you want to use Time Machine. (not that I will use Time Machine very often, but the fact that everything was freezing up when I went there had me frustrated). Thanks!

I am also having freeze issues with time machine. It starts a backup and then just stops, then the OS crashes. I have no anti virus software running and the HD checks out fine. I've tried reboots, reinstalls, and even letting the thing run for 12 hrs and no luck with a backup. any ideas?

having similar issues, but seems like indexing is to blaim for the backup not completing:

i checked the particular file its been crashing over and really is a very simple text file.
bizarre that such a fundamental app like spotlight ( mds ) is failing over trivial data and messing up a backup. who cares whether a file can be indexed or not, i want it backed up...

7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Indexing a file failed. Returned -1134 for: /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/easy-install.pth, /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/brutus/2008-07-16-175657.inProgress/FD070 BFF-FD08-414F-9D7E-FE55E4D5A837/OSX/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/easy-instal l.pth
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Stopping backup.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Copied 310 files (48 KB) from volume OSX.
7/17/08 11:41:04 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[279] Copy stage failed with error:11

My problem:
When trying to "Time Machine" my 2.8 MHz iMac to Time Capsule-Time Machine goes to "Preparing" and I get the spinning disk... Computer becomes unresponsive to inputs. IF I can get the "Force Quit" window, it shows "System Preferences...not responding". Trying to force quit is futile. Requires a hard restart.
No intego involved.
HOWEVER...
This same iMac's Time Machine works beautifully on a USB HD connected directly to this iMac.
I've tried connecting to TC via ethernet directly with this iMac: same results.
There's more...
My MacBook is connecting wirelessly to TC (thru a WDS relay), and TM is working fine.
The issue seems to be between the iMac/TC/TM combo.
iMac and TC get along nicely for internet/LAN purposes.

I can't figure out the TM/TC lockup problem.

I may have fixed it...
I went into TC and deleted the "sparsebundle" for the troubled computer.
I then deleted/ejected the Backup Disk image on the troubled computer's desktop.
I tried TM backup again (connected via ethernet).
---No lockup! The iMac began "preparing" as usual, but no sluggish behavior!
Next morning... Success! 100+Gig backed up over night. Perhaps this might help others.

I thought all was well... but back to same old problems. I read changing the computer's name, staying away from special characters, may help. I didn't think I had special characters... until I looked in "sharing" in System Preferences. I found some characters I don't remember putting in there. I corrected the problem and tossed the "sparcebundle" again and started over.
TM seems to be working (again-maybe).

I hope Apple cleans this up.

I am getting the following error:

Jul 23 19:43:33 HenkiMac quicklookd[32833]: [QL ERROR] 'Creating thumbnail' timed out for '<QLThumbnailRequest /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/HenkiMac/2008-07-21-005343/Macintosh HD/instance.plist>'

Seems mine is trying to create a thumbnail for quicklook and hanging. I have to keep turning off the external harddrive to stop the backup and turn it back on to restart. Once i do that, it runs successfully.