A Time Machine Backup Problem, HELP!!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

This is a strange one.

Backup content size: 101.5 GB excluded items size: 4.6 GB for volume Snow Leopard

It does see that it needs to do a large backup.

Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying / to (null)
Copied 1 files (26.5 MB) from volume Snow Leopard.

I'm assuming that +Snow Leopard+ is the name of your internal HD, correct? And that's the one you ran a +*Verify Disk+* on?

From a Finder window, select +Go > Go to Folder+ and type a single forward slash into the prompt.

That should produce a list of all the volumes connected to your Mac (plus the special "Network" entry). See if anything else is listed there.

Eject and disconnect anything you can, do a Restart just to be sure, and try again.

Hi there,

It seems I am having a similar problem. I started having this problem last September, were the backup failed for more than 2 weeks without any single error message. By that time, I found some bad sectors in the disk (Using SMART utillity), so I have bought a new disk and have performed a fresh installation. I have only copied the /User stuff from the old disk and did not include any system file. Anyway, after a few backups I found the same problem. The log always reports an error while copying the root directory ("/"). After rebooting, the backup finishes without any problem.

I use OpenAFS in my system, which creates an additional volume, but I always excluded the "/afs" directory from the backup. Despite that, after reading Pondini suggestions, I suspect It has something to do with the AFS volume.

Here follows the Backup.log output during last failure:

*Will use FS events for "Blacksys" (mount: '/' fsUUID: A3E825DA-EE2F-399A-8E9D-A2A2CDC44710 eventDBUUID: 9EFB1FD7-85AC-4BC4-B450-431A70CF4503)*
*=== Starting backup loop #1 ===*
*Will use IncrementalBackupCopier*

*Running preflight for "Blacksys" (mount: '/' fsUUID: A3E825DA-EE2F-399A-8E9D-A2A2CDC44710 eventDBUUID: 9EFB1FD7-85AC-4BC4-B450-431A70CF4503)*
*Scanning nodes needing deep traversal*
*Node requires deep traversal: / reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|*
*Calculating size of changes*
*Should copy 0 items (0 bytes) representing 0 blocks of size 4096. 67122934 blocks available.*
*Preflight complete for "Blacksys" (mount: '/' fsUUID: A3E825DA-EE2F-399A-8E9D-A2A2CDC44710 eventDBUUID: 9EFB1FD7-85AC-4BC4-B450-431A70CF4503)*
*Time elapsed: 1 minute, 6.000 seconds*

*Processing preflight info*
*Space needed for this backup: 2.0 GB (524205 blocks of size 4096)*
*Preserving last snapshot /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/blackbird/2010-03-13-072044*
*Finished processing preflight info*

*Copying items from "Blacksys" (mount: '/' fsUUID: A3E825DA-EE2F-399A-8E9D-A2A2CDC44710 eventDBUUID: 9EFB1FD7-85AC-4BC4-B450-431A70CF4503)*
*Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying / to (null)*

*c :ERROR:-128, copy / to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/blackbird/2010-04-03-091029.inProgress/46940C58-9B2F-4 874-A659-EC38237C91D8*
*Finished copying items for "Blacksys" (mount: '/' fsUUID: A3E825DA-EE2F-399A-8E9D-A2A2CDC44710 eventDBUUID: 9EFB1FD7-85AC-4BC4-B450-431A70CF4503)*
*Time elapsed: 1 minute, 22.000 seconds*
*Copied 0 items (0 bytes)*

Hi,

I cannot take TM backups any more. Latest successful was 2010-4-2 about 19:20 local time (Finland).

What is changed in my iMac G5: I installed the latest leopard update 10.5.8. I started to use iMovie, so the amount of backup increased rather much. The first error occur 2010-4-2-2105. I tried to delete the inProgress file without success, Then I moved Backup-file to another name. I also reduced the amount of backup and adjusted energy saving options. I also checked my disks with disk tool and they were OK.

I enclose the latest log:

2010-04-05-14:02:11 - Starting backup

Previous snapshot:
None

Will traverse "Machintosh HD 2" (mount: '/' fsUUID: F4B0F519-BB7E-3971-B71A-F6270BE6993C eventDBUUID: 17B622B5-DA78-44E1-BA81-91BF270342CD)
=== Starting backup loop #1 ===
Will use FirstBackupCopier

Running preflight for "Machintosh HD 2" (mount: '/' fsUUID: F4B0F519-BB7E-3971-B71A-F6270BE6993C eventDBUUID: 17B622B5-DA78-44E1-BA81-91BF270342CD)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola0/Pictures: 22.8 GB (3 items)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola0/Movies: 8.7 GB (264 items)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola0/Music: 35.9 GB (7468 items)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache: 144 KB (1 items)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db: 72 KB (1 items)
Excluding /Users/juhasavola/Library/Mail/Envelope Index: 220 KB (1 items)
Excluding /var/root/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache: 80 KB (1 items)
Excluding /var/root/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db: 60 KB (1 items)
Should copy 1291310 items (60.6 GB) representing 15886649 blocks of size 4096. 145050293 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Machintosh HD 2" (mount: '/' fsUUID: F4B0F519-BB7E-3971-B71A-F6270BE6993C eventDBUUID: 17B622B5-DA78-44E1-BA81-91BF270342CD)
Time elapsed: 1 minute, 1.000 second

Processing preflight info
Space needed for this backup: 72.7 GB (19063978 blocks of size 4096)
Finished processing preflight info

Copying items from "Machintosh HD 2" (mount: '/' fsUUID: F4B0F519-BB7E-3971-B71A-F6270BE6993C eventDBUUID: 17B622B5-DA78-44E1-BA81-91BF270342CD)
c :ERROR:-128, copy / to (null)
Finished copying items for "Machintosh HD 2" (mount: '/' fsUUID: F4B0F519-BB7E-3971-B71A-F6270BE6993C eventDBUUID: 17B622B5-DA78-44E1-BA81-91BF270342CD)
Time elapsed: 2 hours, 29 minutes, 38.000 seconds
Copied 254501 items (34.0 GB)
Copy stage canceled

Backup canceled.
Total time elapsed: 2 hours, 30 minutes, 41.000 seconds

I wonder if someone can help me.

Juha K Savola wrote:
. . .
I tried to delete the inProgress file without success

Not a good idea. Sometimes you can do that without problems, other times it will corrupt your backups.

Then I moved Backup-file to another name

Do you mean you renamed the sparse bundle containing your backups? Or the Backups.backupdb folder inside it? Or copied it somewhere?

c :ERROR:-128, copy / to (null)

That's the same error as the two previous posters. I've never seen it before.

Please do as I requested of the first poster:

*From a Finder window, select Go > Go to Folder and type a single forward slash into the prompt.*

*That should produce a list of all the volumes connected to your Mac (plus the special "Network" entry). See if anything else is listed there.*

*Eject and disconnect anything you can, do a Restart just to be sure, and try again.*

|

Let us know what you find.

Hi,

I was not able to delete the package and I restored it to the original place.

I used mv command to Backups.backupdb - > Bup.backupdb so that I could start the TM backup from scratch.

Your last check: I saw the internal hard disk, and 2 external drives and the network. Looks normal to me.

When I tried the backup last time, the display was locked and I had to type psw. And yet I tried to stop the sleep using System Preference settings: start screen saver never and energy saver put the computer to sleep when it is inactive "never". And despite of that the screen was locked, odd.

Juha K Savola wrote:
Hi,

I was not able to delete the package and I restored it to the original place.

If you mean the "in.Progress" file, your backups are corrupted. Delete them and let TIme Machine start over.

Your last check: I saw the internal hard disk, and 2 external drives and the network. Looks normal to me.

And the drives were all aliases, right? If not, post back.

It does sound like your backups are hopelessly corrupted. 😟 Erase the TC (or delete the sparse bundle) and start over.

I don't think my backups starting 2009-06-02 are corrupted totally. I only cannot take more backups for some reason starting 2010-4-2.

In column Kind there reads Volume, not alias.

I think that the backup disk disconnects it for some reason = > null device.

Juha

Juha K Savola wrote:
I don't think my backups starting 2009-06-02 are corrupted totally. I only cannot take more backups for some reason starting 2010-4-2.

A new backup may fail because the backups are corrupted. Time Machine backups are not separate items; they're all interdependent, with multiple "hard links."

In column Kind there reads Volume, not alias.

That's a problem. What's the name of the volume? Open it with the Finder, and see what's in it.

Hi,

But by using mv-command I created the situation of quite new backup and it failed too. Then there was no history.

What on Finder's volume line: the directory at the main level of the external drive.

Juha

Juha K Savola wrote:
Hi,

But by using mv-command I created the situation of quite new backup and it failed too. Then there was no history.

There's no history because TM can't find the Backups.backupdb. folder, and/or, the data inside it is corrupted because of the attempt to remove the "in.Progress" file.

What on Finder's volume line: the directory at the main level of the external drive.

Ok, so it's the actual drive, not a "false volume."

The original error: +*ERROR:-128, copy / to (null)+* is not one I've seen before this thread.