after the 10.5.6 update Time Machine stops working

How did you overcome the step 5 problem?

Thanks to you Twistert! I tried using the Terminal fix and it wouldn't work so I downloaded Tinker Tool, found the offending file, deleted it, remounted the back up disk, and Time Machine is working now. Too bad we can't bill Apple for our time fixing their shoddy software.

Ran the fix posted by Al75013 yesterday, and it worked beautifully. Today, When I plugged in my Time Machine drive again, the dreaded .00xxxxxxxx file showed up again, and backups stopped working automatically. In the Time Machine Preference Pane, the time of "Next Backup" just continues to go one hour forward, but no backup is done. Just removed the .00xxxxxxxxx file, and will see if it starts backing up automatically again, since I deleted that file.

As someone has mentioned before, this file is the same name as the Ethernet MAC address for the computer. Let's hope Apple fixes this in X.5.7!

So my next hourly came and went. The "Next Backup" just cycled from 12:18 to 1:18, with no backup done. Had Console open, and nary a thing was said from backupd. UGH!

I think you'll find that Time Machine does this whenever you switch to a different backup drive. This is because once you do this your FSEvents are in sync only with the newer drive and if you were to switch back to the old drive you'd have a gap in the consistency of your old backup because anything that was recorded on the newer drive would not be on the older drive as those events were only in the queue once. So this is probably a step Apple takes to ensure that doesn't happen. Removing the file probably forces it to snapshot everything not just what it sees in FSEvents.

It wouldn't surprise me if when they remove that dotfile it tells Time Machine to backup any files that have a modified date/time more recent that the last time machine backup on that drive. That way they don't miss anything that would have been on the newer drive since it was used by Time Machine that's not on the older drive.

Works a treat many, many thanks. But the question remains why is Apple happy to let us users stagger around trying to find the answer?

Hi Everyone,

I too had the same issue, different file name of course. Followed the directions posted above, and Time Machine is backing up my laptop again!

Cheers,
Alan

I'm sure that Apple would be even happier to sell you a support agreement... Just saying...

Dear medorrhinum
This work. I tried all the other instructions without luck. Very well done!
/Niels

My symptoms are similar: eternal "Preparing to backup" and error messages. However, no filename is mentioned! I found the file (eathernet number...), but its permissions are all open. I removed it now. Let's see whether this helps! - At the moment it doesn't look like - still "preparing to backup..." 😟
Funny: the problems occurred only a while after the backup on OSX 10.5.6...

Thanks so much! This worked easily and didn't require much typing in terminal at all.