Time machine hanging on verifying backup

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Level 1

8 points

Time machine hanging on verifying backup

Hi,

I am trying to do a backup on time machine by wifi to an AirPort. I have been reading other posts and take on board a couple of things that will be making the backup a lengthy one: a) I did a lot of clean up on the mac prior to the backup, so there are lots of changes and b) as I have been travelling over the past 6 months I was backing up to another smaller external hard drive. I have now waited 48 hours and there is still no change to the 'verifying backup ...' status. What do I do? Do I cancel and retry, cancel and retry on the hard drive I used while travelling, or just keep waiting? I'd appreciate some advice, or anyone else's similar experience on this please.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Dec 9, 2019 5:19 PM

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Answer 1

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LaPastenague

Level 9

67,226 points

Dec 9, 2019 9:06 PM in response to Lee_Ga

Ok.. You don't have to wipe since you have so much free space. And I understand you want to keep a backup with all of the files intact that you might have deleted on the way to saving some space.

Connected directly should help.. depending on which model TC we are talking about .. latest one and close by.. for sure.. you should get high speed over 5ghz wifi.

Let me recommend a couple of things.

Firstly I would archive the existing backup.

Plug a Mac (HFS+) formatted USB drive into the TC and run archive on the disk tab airport utility. This is important because Catalina has shown a nasty predisposition to wiping out or corrupting earlier backups. You should only need a 1TB disk although normally you would use same size as the TC.. ie 2TB or larger. Since your data use on the disk is less than 1TB it should fit.

Second step depends.. I think I would do a factory reset.

NOTE.. factory reset does not delete any files on the hard disk.

After the reset configure the TC again using the airport utility in the Mac.

DO NOT USE APPLE RECOMMENDED NAMES.

Use short names, no spaces and pure alphanumerics. Bonus for less than 8 characters. Use same rules for passwords but longer.. 8-20 characters.

Test from Finder you can now access the TC.

You will need to point Time Machine to the newly renamed TC location. TM will indicate it is going to start a new backup but will discover the backup already exists and after checking complete the next incremental. If it refuses to finish again.. erase the TC disk and start again. You will have all the old files in the archive disk.

Third step .. I would create a clone. The best place for this is USB drive plugged into the computer.. same size as the disk in the computer or larger. I use Carbon Copy Cloner.. it if free to use for a month so give it a run. You might be very glad of it. Set it to bootable.. and test boot from it.

You can also use CCC to create a clone on the TC but it is not bootable.

Now you are ready to do Catalina.. and if you have trouble just boot from your clone.

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Answer 2

Dec 9, 2019 5:42 PM in response to Lee_Ga

According to your profile you are on Mojave. Did you upgrade to Catalina? That can definitely slow things down.

Can you copy a file using finder directly to the TC disk? If not you might need to reset the TC to factory and start over.

How full is the TC drive? Does it have multiple computers backing up to it or just the one?

It might be easier to erase the TC and start a fresh clean backup.

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Answer 3

Lee_Ga Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 9, 2019 6:55 PM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly! Really appreciated.

I was actually cleaning up and backing up in preparation for installing Catalina.

The TC drive says '1.31 TB of 2TB' available in the time machine preferences screen. My MacBook Pro is the only computer connecting to it, although it does connect to the iiNet router.

Interestingly, in Finder, I can see the TC but it says I'm not connected. It was originally connected through my iiNet router. I have now connected directly. I wonder if that will work? Also interestingly, now that it's connected, the only file it shows is my MacBook Pro, modified on 8 Dec 2019 at 11:02pm (which is when I started the backup), file type 'Sparse Disk Image bundle'. I have been using the TC for years and I can see backup in Time Machine. Shouldn't I be able to see them on the TC hard drive, or does that file I can see hold all of the backups?

I hope I can resolve this without having to wipe clean, given my massive clean up of the mac in prep for updating ....

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Answer 4

Lee_Ga Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 14, 2019 8:10 PM in response to LaPastenague

Thank you sooo much again ... and apologies that it's taken me this long to reply. I ended up getting too frustrated and hit 'skip verification' then tried again. Of course, this was successful as it obviously only backed up anything additional to the non-verified backup. I also went ahead and installed Catalina and the new, to me, Office (one of the things that I had to uninstall in my cleanup, having had Office 2011). And then Photos has taken about 5 days to get itself reorganised and catalogued, so I'm now at a point when I can try a clean backup and set up for future hassle-free backing up again, hopefully.

Now I'm going to have a go at your recommended steps, before attempting another backup. I'll let you know how I go.

Again, I really appreciate how you've offered assistance on this!

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Answer 5

Lee_Ga Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 17, 2019 5:10 PM in response to LaPastenague

And a final update. As suggested, I archived what was on the time capsule, then did a factory reset, although the TC has ended up with the same name as before (not sure if I missed something during the reset ... anyway, no matter). I tested in Finder and could see the TC so proceeded to do a backup. At this point, I decided to create an encrypted backup and I was offered the option to erase the disk before starting the backup, which I did. I am happy to say that the backup worked perfectly and everything seems to be in order again, I have a cleaned up and up-to-date mac again. Yeehaaa! Thank you so much!

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Time machine hanging on verifying backup

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