Time Machine doesn't backup iPhoto Library (if iPhoto is open)

LizCastro wrote:
P.S.

That's cool that my little dashes turned into lines, I didn't know they'd do that or I would've been more careful to set them apart from the quoted text!

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Yeah, I discovered that by accident, too.

Oddly enough, it's not mentioned in How can I format my post?

With iPhoto Open forced a backup with TM and then ran Time Machine Buddy. Here are the results:

Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/ToadsTM/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Users/toad/Pictures/Test Lib reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 132.2 MB requested (including padding), 29.90 GB available
Copied 2459 files (63.1 MB) from volume Toad Hall.
Copied 3487 files (63.4 MB) from volume The Annex.
Copied 3500 files (63.4 MB) from volume Toad's Cellar.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 29.83 GB available
Copied 1415 files (2.2 MB) from volume Toad Hall.
Copied 1490 files (2.2 MB) from volume The Annex.
Copied 1503 files (2.2 MB) from volume Toad's Cellar.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.

Closed iPhoto, forced a backup with TM and ran TMB again.

Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/ToadsTM/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Users/toad/Pictures/Test Lib reason:contains changes|must scan subdirs|fsevent|missed reservation|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 29.83 GB available
Copied 2859 files (20.3 MB) from volume Toad Hall.
Copied 2934 files (20.3 MB) from volume The Annex.
Copied 2947 files (20.3 MB) from volume Toad's Cellar.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 29.81 GB available
Copied 1411 files (3 KB) from volume Toad Hall.
Copied 1486 files (3 KB) from volume The Annex.
Copied 1499 files (3 KB) from volume Toad's Cellar.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.

What does it all mean?

Old Toad wrote:
. . .
What does it all mean?

It's all normal. Most of the messages don't relate specifically to this issue (and there's details of some of them in #7 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).

There does appear to be a cosmetic bug we've seen on occasion, where TM reports the same amount of data being copied from each disk/partition, but it doesn't seem to cause any trouble.

Node requires deep traversal:/Users/toad/Pictures/Test Lib reason:must scan subdirs|missed reservation|

This is the one that seems to indicate that a previous backup couldn't back up your iPhoto library because it was open and "missed" it's "reservation."

Oddly enough, LizCastro got a similar, but longer, message.

I was hoping to see something in the messages for the backup that skipped them, that would at least indicate that it had happened.

So it looks like we didn't learn much. 😟

Thanks for your help, though!

LizCastro wrote:
. . .
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.40 GB requested (including padding), 58.18 GB available
Copied 2225 files (24.1 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.05 GB requested (including padding), 58.16 GB available
Copied 2578 files (23.9 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.

In both passes, TM estimated over a GB would be needed, but only actually backed-up a few MB. There are some things that can cause that, but it is unusual.

Still, I'm not at all sure this is relevant, since I'm pretty convinced that in my second test (in my earlier post), despite requiring a deep traversal ⚠, the backup was real and complete.

Actually, this one is a confirmation that, at the time of this backup, iPhoto was already caught up, since there were no UUID or "deep traversal" messages. This is what a normal, uneventful, backup is supposed to look like!

Keep us posted if you find anything else of interest, and I'll do the same.

Thanks,

Jim

LizCastro wrote:

Actually, this one is a confirmation that, at the time of this backup, iPhoto was already caught up, since there were no UUID or "deep traversal" messages. This is what a normal, uneventful, backup is supposed to look like!

I know this indicates the backup was successful, what I'm not seeing is that the "deep traversal" messages indicate whether the backup was unsuccessful or not, since I got one after a failed backup and one after a successful one. That's why I'm not convinced the deep traversal thing is relevant to whether the iPhoto Library is getting backed up or not.

It's a bit odd, and I'm not making myself clear. And part of this is deduction:

What seems to happen is, when TM is unable to back-up iPhoto, it leaves an internal indication that it had missed a "reservation," but sends no message to the log.

On the next backup, it sends the "deep traversal" message to explain why it's taking a longer time than usual in the "Calculating changes" phase ("Preparing" in Leopard) to figure out what needs to be backed-up (it compares every folder in the iPhoto library to it's backups).

If it still can't back it up, it leaves the internal indication again (but again doesn't send a message).

The absence of this message means that TM knows that iPhoto was backed-up properly on the previous backup.

There's similar handling, and messages, when TM isn't sure of the status of other things, usually hard drives. For example, if you have a power failure or have to do an abnormal shutdown, TM can't be sure the hidden log of changes that OSX keeps is correct. Since it can't use that log to see what needs to be backed-up, it has to compare every folder on the drive to the backups. For a drive with a lot of files and folders, that can take quite a while, and even longer if you're baking-up over a network via WIFI.

Hello everybody,

I'm going crazy with this same problem, but I think my problem is even worse. I have the same messages you say in the events log, but also I have noticed that, from time to time (one or two times a month), Time Machine try to backup the whole iPhoto library (70GB!!!). I'm desperated, I have tried almost everything to find the reason. I posted a bug report to Apple right now. I have tried to restore my system two times using the two possible ways (with the DVD and restoring from a backup, or with the DVD, installing a clean Snow Leopard and restoring the user from the backup). This second time, after restoring everything, I found that all my iPhoto library was missing. I almost died, but fortunately I could restore an older iPhoto library backup, and the lastest missing photos from the SD card

I'm also very worried about the Time Capsule health: with this huge backups, all the restorations I'm doing these last weeks and now I'm checking the sparseimage file with Disk Utility (time to complete: 15 hours!!), I'm frightened about destroying the Time Capsule's hard disk. It's 1TB capacity, but since this problem started, it's totally full. It's crazy that, the hard disk of my Macbook is 160GB, and the sparseimage file is more than 500GB!!!

I don't know what else I can do. I tried to check and repair the thumbnails and database from iPhoto with it's own utility (pressing CMD+ALT while opening iPhoto), but the problem is still here. I'm thinking about deleting the sparsebundle file and start a new one, but I'm really scared of that and not sure at all if it will solve anything. The other final idea I have (suggested by Apple support website) is to create a new iPhoto library and move all my photos from one library to the other, but this solution I think should be the last one, as I'm sure I will lose a lot of preferences, editions tags, notes, locations, faces or such things from my more than 6000 photos library. I'm even thinking into migrating to Picasa to avoid this problems, but iPhoto is too good to forget about it...

I don't know if somebody could help me. Anyway, to write it is good for my heart. Makes me feel a bit better. Thank you for reading.

I have the same issue. Here's my thread http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2230306&start=0&tstart=0. I have a very large Iphoto library (70gb).

I have a 1 tb time Capsule. When I first bought my mac my Iphoto library was about 40 gbs and Time Machine would backup Iphoto even when it was open. As my Iphoto library grew to 60 gbs I began noticing errors in Time Machine, issues backing up, etc I had to delete everything off of the Time Capsule twice because of various issues.

I found that Time Machine would not back up Iphoto when it was open. I believe that it was damaging my time Capsules drive or at least corrupting the data. My temporary solution was to exclude Iphoto from Time Machine and when I wanted to back up Iphoto, I would close Iphoto and then remove the exclusion and do a back up.

After the time machine backup is finished I exclude Iphoto in Time Machine once again. I believe that this issue where Time Machine won't backup Iphoto when it's open only occurs if you have a large iphoto library. Maybe someone who has a large library could verify this?

I really hope that Apple fixes this issue, I have no problems backing up my Iphoto library with Carbon Copy Cloner.

Hi Stuart,

I have read the whole post you worte about your problems. Very interesting, but no solutions. Only to exclude iPhoto from the backup. I think this is what I'll do for now, as I need the Macbook to work, not to play. I cannot beleive how this things happens to Apple products. I could expect this in Windows, not in Mac... But anyway, I also sent a report to Apple about this issue. The most interesting thing I read, is that you linked to a know Apple issue between Aperture and OSX 10.5.2, so this is not the first time this kind of problem happens in OSX. I hope it is solved in the next 10.6.x update.

If it helps you, I have exactly the same problem as you, with the same Time Machine logs, with the same symptoms and with the same 1TB Time Capsule. I use to manually check the logs in the Console, and there I also noticed that it gets extremely slow when the Time Capsule is full, and it needs to delete older backups prior to save new backups.

I'm checking the Sparse bundle with Disk Utility since yesterday, and also see red messages (Note that I'm spanish and the messages are in spanish, traslated by me): Incorrect number of threat records, Number of volume files not valid, Missing directory entry (ID = 2106930), Missing suprocess entry (ID = 2106930).

It has done about 50% of the progress bar, but still says that needs 15 hours to complete 😟.
I'm not sure if it will worth the try or I'm spending "hard disk life" and energy... What do you think?

Thank you for the information!! Oh, last question: Carbon Copy Cloner is a third party app?

Carbon Copy is a great application for backing up your computer. I have no issues with it. I highly recommend it.

Anyone know if Apple has acknowledged this as a bug yet? Anyone have a solution?

Time Machine hasn't backed up to my Time Capsule for 4 months now. It keeps saying that Time Machine Failed to backup. I tried everything to get it to back up but I wasn't successful.

I called Apple and they're sending me a new Time Capsule as a swap. I should receive it in 5-7 days.

Do you guys think that I should keep Iphoto excluded when I set up the new Time Capsule? Could it be that some Time Capsules become defective which is why it wont' back up Iphoto when it's open or is it Iphoto with large libraries that is causing the issue?

I'm afraid to take a chance and risk damaging my Time Capsule if Iphoto isn't excluded but I'm not sure what to do.

In looking back it certainly appears to me that Time Machine is backing up my 72 GB iPhoto library

Note that I do not leave iPhoto running because of the risk of library corruption is the computer crashes while iPhoto is open and iPhoto opens so quickly that I only open it when I need it

LN

Hello,

Some days ago I found something that I tried, and seems to work. At least, I don't have more "iPhoto full backups" after this thing. I'll try to explain it:

I booted from the install disc, and from the utility menu, chose reset password for Macintosh HD, and at the bottom of the box clicked Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Then, rebooted again from the HDD, and done.

Why I did this? Because I saw exactly the same ACL error messages as in this post: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/167580-successfully-remov ed-acl-found-but-not-expected-warnings-permissions-repair.html
And in some other place, I read that our iPhoto problem is related to the permissions and some systems files that tell to Time Machine which photo is backed up and which doesn't. And as this solution reset all home directory permissions, I decided to try. The only consequence of this solution is that all spotlight data of your computer is deleted and indexed again, but I think it worth the try 😉, as you don't loose anything.

I'm not sure if it has 100% solved my trouble, but since I did it one month ago, Time Machine seems to be working again as expected. I wish it 😉

Thanks for the info guys.

I got my new Time Capsule set up and it took 2 days to back up my computer. I kept Iphoto closed while Time Machine was backing up. I have now excluded Iphoto from Time Machine. That way I can keep Iphoto open so that when Time Machine backs up my computer It would avoid corrupting anything. I'm afraid to keep Iphoto open and not excluded from Time Machine when it does a backup.

After some weeks after my last tests, I can confirm that it works. No more problems after reseting home directory permissions. I recommend to other persons with this issue to do the same procedure.