How do I troubleshoot Time Machine backups

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Level 1

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How do I troubleshoot Time Machine backups

I have been using my Time Capsule for many years without incident. We backup two MacBooks to this Time Capsule using Time Machine. I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro to Catalina, which went fine, but a few days ago all backups began failing. I get the error message:

"The backup disk is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required."

Nothing has changed about the backup disk, and the other MacBook continues to back up just fine.

A reboot of my MacBook Pro got it to successfully complete a backup, but then the error came back.

I found some threads that an app called "App Cleaner" can cause this error, but I have no such app.

Any troubleshooting suggestions?

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 17, 2020 6:59 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Bob Timmons

Community+ 2025

Level 10

184,742 points

Mar 17, 2020 9:15 PM in response to enfolder

Without telling you, Catalina completely reformatted your Mac's hard drive, so it now uses a format called APFS. Before Catalina, the Mac used a format called Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

But.....the Time Capsule hard drive continues to use the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. In theory, Time Machine is supposed to convert backups from the Catalina Mac using a new format to another older format that the Time Capsule uses. In practice, things are not working as well as the theory suggests.

Have you powered off the Time Capsule, waited a few minutes, then powered it back up? If not, try this a few times, and then restart the Catalina Mac as well.

If you can get things going again, open Time Machine on the Mac running Catalina to check and see whether you can view only backups that have been made since you moved the Mac to Catalina, or whether you can also see the backups from the Mac before Catalina was installed.

We ask you to check this because there have been numerous reports from users who indicate that they cannot see any of the older backups that their Mac had made before Catalina was installed on the Mac.

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Answer 2

Mar 17, 2020 10:11 PM in response to enfolder

The issue is common. The Time Capsule (TC) is really outdated now for Catalina and Time Machine as a combo.

You can try the suggestions but IMHO Time Machine is no longer reliable to Network Targets period but particular TC. If you want Time Machine then use a local disk plugged into the Mac. This is easy to do if you have a recent Mac with USB-C .. just buy a charging dock which includes USB3 ports and plug a self powered drive into it. Whenever you charge the laptop it will also have a backup drive connected without any hassles.

To keep using the TC I would try using Carbon Copy Cloner which is a lot more reliable.

As a more reliable network target something like a Synology NAS is expensive but seems to work a lot better than TC.

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