Time Machine Stuck at "Backing up XXmb of XXgb"

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Level 1

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Time Machine Stuck at "Backing up XXmb of XXgb"

For a week now, time machine gets stuck at "Backing up 901.8MB of 29.14GB." I can let it run all day and it wilPre backup directory and delete the inProgress file, and eject the drive. The next day, it happens all over again. I haven't had a successful backup in six days.

What can I do about this?

Macbook Pro Intel Core i7, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2010 7:06 AM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 26, 2010 10:22 AM in response to jayb3369

jayb3369 wrote:
Yeah, that was one of the first things I tried. Neither disk has any problems that Repair Disk could find or repair. Still not working. Today it's stuck at "Backing up 86 MB of 88.1 MB" for about four hours now.

Is there a Time Machine log that shows what files have been backed up? That might yield some insight.

No, unfortunately. There are a couple of 3rd-party apps that show what was backed-up, but only for successful backups.

A clue might be lurking in your logs. See #A1 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. The widget messages probably won't have anything, but see the pink box to look in your system.log, but without filtering for backupd. There may be some other messages sent by other processes during the backup.

You might be able to figure out what's hanging it by excluding things. Or, look inside the in.Progress package.

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 23, 2010 1:33 PM in response to jayb3369

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

That sounds like something wrong on one of the drives. Try verifying the internal and repairing the external, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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Answer 3

jayb3369 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 26, 2010 9:14 AM in response to Pondini

Yeah, that was one of the first things I tried. Neither disk has any problems that Repair Disk could find or repair. Still not working. Today it's stuck at "Backing up 86 MB of 88.1 MB" for about four hours now.

Is there a Time Machine log that shows what files have been backed up? That might yield some insight.

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Answer 4

jayb3369 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 26, 2010 12:06 PM in response to Pondini

That wasn't it, but looking through in .inProgress file, specifically the applications directory, did spark an idea. Turns out I have an app (Espionage) which encrypts a folder, and when I unlocked that folder, the backup completed.

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 26, 2010 2:03 PM in response to jayb3369

jayb3369 wrote:
Locked and encrypted.

No, sorry, I mean did you unlock it, or decrypt it, to get the backup to run?

Because being locked shouldn't make any difference, I'm wondering if the 3rd-party encryption is actually the problem.

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Answer 6

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 26, 2010 12:30 PM in response to jayb3369

That's odd. Do you mean unlocked, or decrypted?

If a "normal" folder is locked, Time Machine backs it up without a problem.

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Answer 7

jayb3369 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 26, 2010 1:53 PM in response to Pondini

Locked and encrypted.

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Answer 8

jayb3369 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 26, 2010 1:54 PM in response to jayb3369

I do notice that certain applications cause Espionage to want to unlock the folder, even if the application isn't going anywhere near that locked folder.

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