Time Machine Problem #2

Question

Time Machine Problem #2

I am posting my question, a reply, and my new reply, as my reply would not post??

I got the following message from Time Machine

twice ... that I have to create a new backup. I have a Mac and an Airport Time

Capsule. I clicked on it the first time and it did indeed wipe out my prior

backups. then, 9 days later I got the same message so I turned off Time

Machine. "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on [my

Airport Time Capsule]. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new

backup for you. Click Start New Backup to create a new backup. This will remove

your existing backup history. This could take several hours. Click Back Up

Later to be reminded tomorrow. Time Machine won't perform backups during this

time." Please understand that I did have a four year old Mac that I

replaced with a new Mac. I always had trouble with Time Machine on my old Mac,

that is one of the reasons for getting a new Mac. Now, I can back up for 9 days

and then Time Machine wipes out prior backups and then starts another 9 day

cycle and wipes out prior backups again!! This issue is getting ridiculous, I

did check my Airport Time Capsule Firmware, and it has the latest firmware.

Does anyone have any fixes for this issue, or should I just scrap Time Machine

and use anther non Mac backup solution? Looking online trying to find fixes for

Time Machine, it appears that there are many Mac owners that are having

troubles with Time Machine. What, if anything is Apple doing to correct the

issues once and for all? I love my Mac, but, this Time Machine is definitely

tarnishing my opinion of Apple.

Response:

Tesserax

User level:Level 10

(90,384 points)

Apple MusicSpeciality

level out of ten: 1

Jan 16, 2020

1:10 PM in response to donaldfrommetuchen

Unfortunately, this

recurring theme is becoming more and more common. Most likely, your Time

Capsule has reached its useful life and you will need to start looking for

other backup options going forward for your Macs. Although it may still be

possible to find a new/used Time Capsule, I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, you

should look into any of the following:

·

If you want to continue using Time Machine (there's really no

good reason why you shouldn't), use either an external drive directly connected

to your Mac, or if you have multiple Macs you want to back up, consider getting

a dedicated NAS device that supports Time Machine. Those from Synology do.

·

Instead of using Time Machine, another option would be to use

something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to perform the incremental

backups. These too can be done to either an external drive or a NAS.

My Reply:

My Airport Time Capsule is only a year old and

I only used it briefly as my backup storage, and it is directly connected to my

Mac. I was using another external hard drive. I can't believe that my Airport

Time Capsule "has reached its useful life" ... it is only a year old!

I was having issues with Time Machine on both my eternal hard drive and my

Airport Time Capsule, but I was backing up only to my external hard drive with

one (1) backup to my Airport Time Capsule. My son is a Lehigh Computer Engineer

graduate, and he cleaned off my Airport Time Capsule when I got my new Mac as a

precautionary measure in case there was a corrupted file that was residing on

the Airport Time Capsule. He also selectively transferred files from my old Mac

to my new Mac to avoid transferring a potential corrupted file. As you stated

that this is "Unfortunately, this recurring theme is becoming more and

more common", I would think that Apple should get their act together and

fix the problem rather than let it "becoming more and more common".

Do you have any other possible fixes other than scrap a one year old Airport

Time Capsule? I would very much appreciate your or anyone's help. Thank you.

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 16, 2020 2:07 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 16, 2020 5:29 PM in response to donaldfrommetuchen

You are not alone.. as you discovered Time Machine is just less and less reliable with each Mac OS iteration.. which come uncommonly fast nowadays.

You say it is directly connected to the Mac.

Please spell out the exact nature of the setup. Or where I am wrong.

The Time Capsule is ethernet connected to the Mac.

It is connected by WAN port directly to a modem in working as main router.

This is how Apple intended it to be used.. but for many people it is not possible and TC is setup in bridge mode plugged into another wireless router.

It is important to know which of these is used.

Also make and model of the main modem or modem router can be a help.

If the problem is Time Machine itself there is not a lot anyone but Apple can do for you.. and as noted.. they appear to not be doing anything much to help the issue. In fact with recent changes in the OS it is worse.

There are a few things we can suggest which will help for problems with network setup. Apple has made some big changes which of course they attempt to hide from end users. The ending of router production in 2018 and major move in later OS to use SMB2 or later for Time Machine over network has led to issues because no firmware upgrade given Time Capsule SMB2 compliance.

I do strongly agree with Tesserax comment that you should try Carbon Copy Cloner or other 3rd party. I use CCC and it has been reliable both to Time Capsule and local disk. I think your main issue is not actually network but Time Machine fragility it is time to move on. For a number of years I was running CCC as insurance against Time Machine regular failures.. but I eventually reached the point where I swapped around to CCC as main backup and I keep TM running to both local and network targets to help keep track of issues people are posting. It is certainly useful when it works. Unfortunately its main reliability is giving me the finger.

Reply

Time Machine Problem #2

Similar questions