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User profile for user: Luciano Vascotto
Luciano Vascotto Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Time machine backup log file

Can someone please tell me if TM keeps a backup log file somewhere? When TM starts its backups, they're larger than they should be. I would be running GB, exporting a file to disk. It finishes its processing, but when I check, the file is not there. So I guess it didn't work. But when the backup shows how much it's backing up, it's as if there is a file. Is the file marked hidden? I would really like to know what is being backed up.

MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, Intel Core2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.4), 4GB,200GB HDD,1.5 TB External HDD,TM,VMware,Vista Ultimate

Posted on Jul 10, 2008 9:59 PM

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User profile for user: Steve Holton
Steve Holton
User level: Level 4
1,030 points

Posted on Jul 11, 2008 12:54 PM

There is a log in the system log. Go to the Console application. (Finder: Applications/Utilities/Console ) On the left is a list of many log files, the system.log is the 1st when expanding LOG FILES.

There is a LOT of messages in the file, and the log entries from different applications/services etc are interspersed. If you have a Time capsule, some entries will have "Time Capsule"appearing as in them, but they are not the only entries related backups. The workhorse of the actual backup is something called the backup daemon - appearing as "backupd" in the log file.

You can search the log for relevant entries and see if there are any clues.

Below are the log entries from one of my machines initial successful backup:

Log of a successful initial backup

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy fseventsd41: log dir: /Volumes/Backup of livy/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 3F939294-8F0D-493B-956B-FFB2CC5B5334

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/livy_001b632ffd76.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of livy

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of livy/Backups.backupdb

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backup content size: 88.8 GB excluded items size: 48.0 GB for volume Macintosh HD

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No pre-backup thinning needed: 48.97 GB requested (including padding), 879.05 GB available

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Waiting for index to be ready (906 > 0)

Jun 6 18:31:18 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)

Jun 6 20:55:47 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Copied 226484 files (34.7 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.

Jun 6 20:55:53 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No pre-backup thinning needed: 543.2 MB requested (including padding), 841.58 GB available

Jun 6 20:56:27 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Copied 366 files (4.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Starting post-backup thinning

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backup completed successfully.

Jun 6 20:56:36 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ejected Time Machine disk image.

Jun 6 20:56:41 livy kernel[0]: AFP_VFS afpfs_unmount: /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk, flags 0, pid 511

Jun 6 20:56:41 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
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User profile for user: Steve Holton
Steve Holton
User level: Level 4
1,030 points

Jul 11, 2008 12:54 PM in response to Luciano Vascotto

There is a log in the system log. Go to the Console application. (Finder: Applications/Utilities/Console ) On the left is a list of many log files, the system.log is the 1st when expanding LOG FILES.

There is a LOT of messages in the file, and the log entries from different applications/services etc are interspersed. If you have a Time capsule, some entries will have "Time Capsule"appearing as in them, but they are not the only entries related backups. The workhorse of the actual backup is something called the backup daemon - appearing as "backupd" in the log file.

You can search the log for relevant entries and see if there are any clues.

Below are the log entries from one of my machines initial successful backup:

Log of a successful initial backup

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy fseventsd41: log dir: /Volumes/Backup of livy/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 3F939294-8F0D-493B-956B-FFB2CC5B5334

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk/livy_001b632ffd76.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of livy

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of livy/Backups.backupdb

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.

Jun 6 18:31:01 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backup content size: 88.8 GB excluded items size: 48.0 GB for volume Macintosh HD

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No pre-backup thinning needed: 48.97 GB requested (including padding), 879.05 GB available

Jun 6 18:31:03 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Waiting for index to be ready (906 > 0)

Jun 6 18:31:18 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)

Jun 6 20:55:47 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Copied 226484 files (34.7 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.

Jun 6 20:55:53 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No pre-backup thinning needed: 543.2 MB requested (including padding), 841.58 GB available

Jun 6 20:56:27 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Copied 366 files (4.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Starting post-backup thinning

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist

Jun 6 20:56:30 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Backup completed successfully.

Jun 6 20:56:36 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ejected Time Machine disk image.

Jun 6 20:56:41 livy kernel[0]: AFP_VFS afpfs_unmount: /Volumes/Time Capsule Disk, flags 0, pid 511

Jun 6 20:56:41 livy /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd125: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
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User profile for user: emheenan
emheenan
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 17, 2008 9:31 AM in response to Luciano Vascotto

Time Machine keeps a log specific to each backup in the root directory of the backup.

In Terminal, go to /Volumes/[TM disk name]/Backups.backupdb/[Machine name]/Latest and have a look at the file .Backup.log

You can see it by typing 'sudo more .Backup.log' once in the above directory.

If you go into one of the inProgress directories via Terminal you can also see the hidden log files if you type 'ls -al'.
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Time machine backup log file

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