Time Machine backups failing or very slow after upgrading to Catalina

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Time Machine backups failing or very slow after upgrading to Catalina

TM backups to a USB3 external HDD on my 10.14.6 installation were working normally. However, after a clean install in a new APFS volume of Catalina, my TM back ups now either take a very long time (frequently just hanging for an hour or two and then proceeding at snail's pace, or fail right at the end. I have tried performing first aid on the external drive several times, but it hasn't made any difference. Is this a known Catalina problem or is it likely a disk or backup folder error and I need to wipe my TM drive and start again?

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 19, 2019 7:02 AM

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Answer 1

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PliSsK Author

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Dec 23, 2019 9:43 PM in response to PliSsK

Wiping it as HFS+ and repairing the volume and drive multiple times with Disk Utility didn't help, even when running TM to an empty drive. Eventually I wiped it again (for the 3rd time or so) and I tried a complete drive scan with WD Drive Utilities (which failed right at the end after 6-12 hours) - not sure if it repaired anything), then I did a chkdsk using admin level command prompt in Windows 10 (reported no bad sectors, finished in 10 seconds), restarted into OS X and ran TM again and now it works fine, actually even better than ever (that I can remember).

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Answer 2

PliSsK Author

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Nov 20, 2019 3:02 AM in response to PliSsK

I have reindexed the Catalina drive a couple of times, that didn't seem to help much either.

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Time Machine backups failing or very slow after upgrading to Catalina

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