Time Machine Completed a Verification of your Backups

Question

Level 1

8 points

Time Machine Completed a Verification of your Backups

Good Afternoon,

I have a Macbook Pro which I am trying to backup using Time Machine to an AirPort Extreme with a built-in hard disk.

Previously, at a different location, this worked just fine but I recently moved the Airport Extreme to my new house and I cannot get a backup to complete without the following pop-up the next time I run Time Machine.

"Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on "Airport Time Capsule". To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.

Click Start New Backcup 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."

I've started a new backup roughly five times so far, and every day when I go back to check the status I get this message.

The Macbook is connected to the same wireless network as the AirPort Extreme and Power nap is enabled.

Thanks in advance,

Posted on Sep 15, 2020 2:35 PM

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Answer 1

Bob Timmons

Level 10

185,360 points

Sep 15, 2020 5:32 PM in response to Danapsta

OK, thanks for the confirming that.

Unfortunately, you can no longer trust Time Machine in Catalina to erase the Time Capsule disk, and frankly, you can no longer trust that Time Machine will work correctly in Catalina with a Time Capsule.

So, if the Time Capsule is 5+ years old, you might consider retiring the device and looking at a new and more reliable backup strategy.

If you want to continue to try to use the Time Capsule, my suggestion would be to manually erase the Time Capsule hard drive using the Zero Out Data option in AirPort Utility, which will likely take 8-10 hours or more depending on the capacity of the hard drive in the Time Capsule.

Once the hard drive erasure has been completed, then you can try to start over again with a new Time Machine backup to the Time Capsule and move forward again.

No guarantees that this will be successful, but there are not really any other options to try at this point.

Not sure how you want to proceed at this time. Post back to let us know what you decide and whether you need step by step instructions to erase the Time Capsule hard drive manually.

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Answer 2

Bob Timmons

Level 10

185,360 points

Sep 15, 2020 2:47 PM in response to Danapsta

We have a hunch that you may be running the Catalina operating system on your MacBook Pro. Would that be correct? We ask because there are loads of issues with Time Machine on Macs running Catalina.

If yes, or even if the Mac is not running Catalina, the first thing to check is to make sure that you are NOT running any kind of anti-virus applications on your Mac, or any other utility that claims to "optimize", "speed up", "keep", etc your Mac.

Please advise.

Not a big deal, but an AirPort Extreme does not have a built in hard drive.......an AirPort Time Capsule does though, so that is the device that you are calling an AirPort Extreme. Let's call it a Time Capsule for short, and to keep things simple as well.

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Answer 3

Bob Timmons

Level 10

185,360 points

Sep 16, 2020 12:02 PM in response to Danapsta

Time Machine is unfortunately not reliable with new or old Time Capsules because of a number of changes that Apple made with Catalina. Maybe things will improve with the next operating system.

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