"Time Machine could not create a local snapshot to back up from"

Question

"Time Machine could not create a local snapshot to back up from"

Hi there,

Just tried backing up a regularly updated MacBook Pro for the first time since July last year. Time machine would not automatically do it (error message was "Time Machine could not create a local snapshot to back up from.") on multiple occasions. I have run Disk Utility first aid on the Macintosh HD internal drives, and on both partitions on the external hard drive (one used for storage, one for Time Machine).

Mac Specs:

macOS: Catalina 10.15.3

External Drive Specs:

2TB Seagate Seagate Plus Portable Drive

Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (of backup partition; other partition is running Windows NTFS - I have Paragon NTFS)

Please note that these settings have worked fine for years.

Wondering if anyone can help. Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 25, 2020 3:17 AM

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Answer 1

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declanrobertoconnor Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 25, 2020 9:53 PM in response to declanrobertoconnor

Update:

was at about 95% of internal hard drive usage (which was still only about a quarter of the external drive’s partition size) so deleted some downloaded movies and tv shows and now backup is working fine (although weirdly I have the file that contains my downloads as an exclusion from the backup list, so not sure why... but that worked).

(restarting the computer has already been attempted and made no difference)

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