Time Machine doesn't ever finish backing up.

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Level 1

106 points

Time Machine doesn't ever finish backing up.

When Time Machine Backup starts running it tells how much it's going to back up and then starts backing up. For example tonight it said it was going to backup 340.0 MB. It started backing up and got through the entire 340MB quickly, but it has been stuck there for the last hour. It still says "Backing up 38,234 items", but now it says "340.2 MB of 340.2 MB".'

This is happening on my new MacBook Pro running 10.6.2

It's backing up on a Time Capsule version 7.4.2 with an almost full 1TB disk.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 13, 2010 7:44 PM

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Answer 1

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Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 13, 2010 9:34 PM in response to kae

It may be having a problem deleting expired backups.

A clue may be lurking in your logs. Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.

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Answer 2

kae Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 14, 2010 12:38 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks for that widget. I got this information when I looked at the log:

Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://kae@kae.local/Data
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://kae@kae.local/Data
Disk image /Volumes/Data/MacBookPro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Macintosh HD 1
Warning: Bytes to copy estimate was negative (-495487)
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 949.1 MB available

The only thing that looks a little suspicious is the negative bytes to copy. Has anyone seen that before?

My MacBook Pro replaced a PowerBook G4 that bit the dust. I usually don't use migration assistant and I usually just copy the files that I want, but I did this time I did use migration assistant (only because I was able to get the PowerBook to boot far enough to let migration assistant get to the files. Usually my PowerBook gets the black screen that says (I'm paraphrasing) "Something bad happened and your system was halted, hold down the power key and reboot".

Is it possible that my use of the migration assistant is causing problems with Time Machine/Capsule?

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Answer 3

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 14, 2010 1:07 PM in response to kae

kae wrote:
. . .
Warning: Bytes to copy estimate was negative (-495487)
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 949.1 MB available

The only thing that looks a little suspicious is the negative bytes to copy. Has anyone seen that before?

That's more than a little suspicious! Try a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD, per the yellow box in #A5 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

My MacBook Pro replaced a PowerBook G4 that bit the dust. I usually don't use migration assistant and I usually just copy the files that I want, but I did this time I did use migration assistant (only because I was able to get the PowerBook to boot far enough to let migration assistant get to the files. Usually my PowerBook gets the black screen that says (I'm paraphrasing) "Something bad happened and your system was halted, hold down the power key and reboot".

That's a +*kernel panic.+* They're usually caused by hardware problems, but can be software, too.

Is it possible that my use of the migration assistant is causing problems with Time Machine/Capsule?

Perhaps. You've gone from PPC to Intel architecture, and probably Leopard to Snow Leopard, so there are a lot of differences. It's also possible that whatever was going wrong with the PB corrupted some thing(s) that were then copied by the migration.

See if the +*Repair Disk+* helps. If not, post back and we'll dig deeper.

For the kernel panic, disconnect all peripherals, except keyboard and mouse. Reconnect one at a time to see if you can find the culprit.

If that's no help, one of the discs that came with that Mac should have the +Apple Hardware Test+ on it, with instructions on how to run it printed (in very tiny type) on the disc. Start by running that.

More kernel panic info:

Apple Support - About kernel panic messages
Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ
The X Lab - Resolving Kernel Panics
Apple Developer - Technical Note TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics
Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics

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Answer 4

kae Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 14, 2010 2:50 PM in response to Pondini

I ran Verify Disk (Repair Disk is grey'ed out) and it returned that everything was okay. Here is the log:

Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.

I have DiskWarrior version 4.1. Should I run DiskWarrior on the drive? or just boot from the Apple CD and run Disk Utility from the CD?

This time when the backup ran, it was stuck with these messages in the log:

Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)

It didn't complain about a negative size this time. This time it got stuck forever waiting for the index to be ready.

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 14, 2010 2:55 PM in response to kae

kae wrote:
I ran Verify Disk (Repair Disk is grey'ed out) and it returned that everything was okay.
. . .
I have DiskWarrior version 4.1. Should I run DiskWarrior on the drive? or just boot from the Apple CD and run Disk Utility from the CD?

No, if Verify says it's ok, it's ok (I'd expected problems).

This time when the backup ran, it was stuck with these messages in the log:

Waiting for index to be ready (100)
Waiting for index to be ready (100)

That's likely a problem with, or communicating with, the TM drive. Try the things in #D2 of the Troubleshooting Tip.

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