Time Machine gets stuck at the end

I have a related TM and Catalina thread outlining my inability to see TM Snapshots beyond my local snapshots that are typically only cover the last 24 hours.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250727083?answerId=251418254022#251418254022

In my issue my system appears to complete its scheduled backups successfully. I have a late 2013 iMac upgraded from the latest version of 10.14.

I am using a Drobo 5N NAS as I have a been for over 5 years with minimal effort.

The link above further outlines my setup. My upgrade to Catalina was not smooth. Microsoft OneDrive broke requiring a reinstall and a few hours going through 2k rows to recover files from recycle bin. Interaction between iCloud sync and OneDrive sync was resulting in some duplication and data loss. Additionally, during the upgrade process my system hung at "Setting up..." for approximately 3 hours. I eventually forced a reboot via the power button.

The system came up normally, but with iCloud authentication loops and keychain sync'ing was problems, but resolved after multiple (20) password entry cycles.

FindMy required me to validate my hard drive and recovery volume with disc utility at boot to enable. No issues were discovered.

Can I ask for more specifics around your setup and whether you still have access to backups prior to the upgrade? I'm hoping it will provide everyone with context as they try to figure out if their Time Machine issues are related or not.

Can you see backups older than 24 hours?

Are you seeing the amount of history you'd typically see prior to the upgrade?

Do you recall if a TM Verification was done on your backup?

Was it successful or did it recently ask you to create a new backup volume?

What is your backup media? NAS? Drobo? USB? Other?

Is that volume near capacity?

Did your Catalina upgrade install complete normally or did it hang at all?

What stage in the upgrade caused delays for you? Special Hardware? Missing Drivers? Incompatible software?

What was your previous macOS version when upgrading to Catalina?

Apple Hardware: iMac (Year), MacBook (Year)?

If you are missing backups could I ask for a description of your issues on the thread referenced above as well? Would help to relate Time Machine related issues in Catalina together more directly.

Thanks for posting your upgrade challenge here.

This has been happening to me as well. My Time Machine backup for my iMac seems to run well past the estimated storage end given during the backup, and indeed my dedicated 4TB USB-C hard drive has a file labelled ".inProgress" as per the image below:

I am going to let Time Machine and the drive run for a while, but this is actually most distressing. Any support or ideas would be most appreciated!

Not sure if this is still the case on Catalina but in previous versions, you could look at the file named .Backup.log located in the /Volumes/TM-volname/Backups.backupdb/computer-name/snapshot-name folder and see if there is any clues as to what is happening.

This file is protected so you might need to do something like this in a Terminal window:

sudo more /Volumes/TM-volname/Backups.backupdb/computer-name/snapshot-name/.Backup.log

and enter your admin password. Change the folder names to fit your situation.

Good luck

Congratulations!!! Have to remember this little trick.

However, I am wondering about the decision to not backup the DocumentRevisions folder as it's needed for keeping track of changes to various documents in applications. What was the actual error that the fs_usage found? I would guess it might be a good idea to find out what the problem was and fix it rather than just exclude that folder from backups and risk problems with document recovery later.

Good luck...

Could you please explain what to do exactly, for someone who is not that familiar with coding etc.

I have a related TM and Catalina thread outlining my inability to see TM Snapshots beyond my local snapshots that are typically looking back in the last 24 hours.