Monterey Time Machine not working

The Apple support person got back to me today. Engineering requested that I run the command:

tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy*

and try backing up again. After running that command, the next backup succeeded. If I removed the exclusion (tmutil removeexclusion), the next backup failed; if I re-added it, the next backup succeeded. No other changes were needed.

Presumably the engineers were basing the exclusion on these errors in my Time Machine log, which other folks have also seen:

2022-01-05 20:52:41.604577-0700 localhost backupd[540]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/[computername]/2022-01-05-205219/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/[username]/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/Documents error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

All of the errors like this in my log referenced items that fit the pattern “~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy*”. For those who want a workaround to get TM to mostly work, searching the Time Machine log entries for those “Failed to acquire device lock assertion” errors (or any other errors that appear to happen when backups fail), and tailoring your TM exclusions to what you find, might help. (Again, this echoes what other folks have said.) For those who aren't helped by this workaround, consider logging your case with Apple.

Meanwhile, at least there’s evidence that Apple engineering is working on it, even if they’re not currently very far ahead of us.

Had the same issue.

I was getting mad when trying to TM on a new fresh formatted Samsung T7 Touch SSD, the progress bar did show as it was backing up but at the end of the process got the "waiting to complete first back up" thought it might had something to do with the finger print encryption feature, but then when I plugged my old HDD TM disk and run Back Up Now had kind of the same behaviour, at the end of the process last back up shown was the one before switching to Monterey.

Temporary fix: Run TM as you normally would, then restart your computer on safe mode (turn off your computer, then long press on power button, select Mac HD + shift, click reboot in safe mode) when trying to TM while on safe mode the backup did fine and the snapshot just builded and older ones were shown on TM software and on the external drive.

This should definitely be sorted by Apple ASAP please !

I too spend countless hours trying to solve the problem.  Finally, here’s what works for me:

Firstly, I haven’t got FileVault on.

Secondly, I named my time machine disk “T5 TM” - you can name it anything you like.

In Disk Utilities, formatted by entire external drive to USB External Physical Disk GUID Partition Map. (My entire external drive is called “Samsung Portable SSD”

When complete, you should then see a container containing your actual drive.  Mine looks like:

Samsung Portable SSD

       Container disk6

                 T5 TM

Formatter the T5 TM drive to APFS - nothing else NOT ENCRYPTED.

In Time Machine Preferences, if you have used a disk with the same name before i.e. “T5 TM” and it is still showing in the list of time machine disks, remove it first.

Now add the APFS disk (T5 TM), tick the Encrypted box and fill in your password and reminder.

PLEASE NOTE:  I found that the first backup NEVER completed!  The solution was to boot up in Safe Mode, do the backup and then restart as normal.  In fact, I always backup in safe mode.  I hope Apple solves this in their next Monterey update.

Good luck!

The reason your back failed was "2021-11-24 09:25:59.821010-0800 Backup failed (104: BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES)"

For me I was able to skip over the protected files in Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople

From my previous post:

I was finally able to fix my "Waiting for First Backup" woes in Monterey by adding this path to the exclusions list. Worked for me at least after lots of digging through error logs. I also had to first boot into Safe Mode and start with a freshly formatted external backup drive (as discussed previously in this thread).

Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople

I'm running an M1 Pro machine with macOS 12.0.1

After upgrading to Monterey 12.1 Time Machine Backup is working. I spent hours over two weeks with a Senior Tech (contracted by Apple, not an Apple employee, who had access to the macOS engineers). They are aware of the problem and apparently 3 or 4 days after we identified the source of the problem they updated Monterey to 12.1. If you go to Recovery Mode, you will also see a new option to reinstall Time Machine. I upgraded to Monterey 12.1 and Time Machine Backups have been working - Hourly, Daily, Weekly and I suspect Monthly although it hasn't been a month nor has the month changed since the upgrade. The problem seems to have been in the (hidden) Library/Containers/... folder. Various folders and files there caused Time Machine to stop backing up, claiming it couldn't back up a folder or a file. This happened to me with a Chrome folder, a Firefox folder, a Safari folder and finally a Siri folder. The last two (Safari and Siri) clearly pointed the finger at Apple and Time Machine Backup. Don't reformat your external disks, don't replace your external disks. If Time Machine Backup does continue to stop, first try a reinstall of Monterey (12.1). If it continues, I would try a reinstall of Time Machine Backup. If it continues it is important to note the folder or file that Backup claims it can't backup. Then contact Apple Support and request a Senior Tech - Tech is apparently the important group, since they have access to the macOS engineers. BTW I'm on a 2019 16" MacBook Pro with an Intel chip, backing up to an external USB C Seagate 10Tb HDD. I was using a USB C Seagate 5Tb HDD, the backup problems occurred shortly after I switched drives and after the upgrade from Big Sur to Monterey. The dates on the backups and two external drives help us identify where/when the problems started. I hope this helps you all!

I’m experiencing this issue and have opened a case with Apple support. It took ~30 min on chat with the entry-level support person, and then 1 h 43 min with the senior support person the next day. That got me to the point where they were able to confirm the issue and collect data from my machine (2021 14” M1 Pro MBP). The senior support person confirmed that others have reported this issue (TM appears to complete a backup, but then reverts to the “Waiting to Complete First Backup” state). He couldn’t speculate on a timeline for resolution. He told me he encourages everyone experiencing this issue to log it with Apple to raise the issue’s profile and allow them to collect more data about the problem. (Just passing that on—I realize not everyone has 2.5 hours to spend with Apple support, and we all wish they had not broken TM in the first place.)

Just to be clear, the issue I’ve experienced is: starting with a newly reformatted backup drive and macOS Monterey 12.1, Time Machine acts like it’s successfully making an initial backup (it takes 1-2 hours; progress bar goes from 0% to completion; status is briefly “Cleaning Up,” etc.), but then reverts to the state it was in before the backup was started (“Waiting to Complete First Backup” in menu bar drop-down; Oldest backup: None / Latest backup: None in TM preferences). No backups appear on the backup drive in Finder, but the used space on the backup drive increases by about the expected size of the backup. Subsequent backups take some number of minutes or hours to complete, but end with the same result, until eventually the backup drive fills up. When I point Migration Assistant to my backup drive, it doesn’t find any usable backups. I’ve tried two different backup drives (an SSD and an HDD), reformatting the drives, running the backup in safe mode, reinstalling the OS, and running First Aid at all levels of the various disk hierarchies. None of that has helped. 

The one change that has allowed me to successfully create backups is excluding /Users/[username]/Library from backups for all the users on my machine. I haven’t tried to narrow the exclusions down any further than that. Not a solution, but it allows me to create some kind of backups. (In the TM logs, I’m also seeing what appear to be error messages related to files in /Users/[username]/Library/Containers, and backups appear to be failing with the code “BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES”.)

I appreciate the work of folks who have already looked into this issue and have provided suggestions. I will continue pursuing my case with Apple support (and hope others do the same), and will report back if I learn anything useful.

I haven't needed to run the terminal command each time. The exclusions appear to persist across backups and reboots. (You can verify with tmutil isexcluded.) However, I tried running a backup a little while ago and it failed like before. So I went back to the Time Machine logs, and this time I saw the same "Failed to acquire device lock assertion" errors as before, but for the other user on my machine. (Not sure why I didn't get errors for that user yesterday.) So I logged in as that user and entered the same command (tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy*) in the terminal. After I did that, backups started working again. So if backups are failing, it may be necessary to go back to the logs to see what they're failing on. I've been viewing the Time Machine logs using this command:

log show --style syslog --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info > tmlog.txt

It's finally fixed!

I just installed MacOS 12.2, erased my external USB hard drive using Drive Utility, and initiated the first backup to it from Time Machine. Of course it ran awhile, but everything finished as it should and my next backup started and finished properly. I believe they have finally addressed this long-standing bug completely to my satisfaction.

I had finally succeeded in getting an initial backup of a Monterey M1 laptop in early February after many attempts (apparently it does not like more than one volume in the TM container in your APFS-formatted external drive) but I could not get it to finish an incremental backup today. After reading this and another thread I decided to go into Time Machine and "exclude" all local folders (in my case for One Drive and Box) that were using on-demand or partial syncing to the cloud. Backup completed quickly and smoothly once that was done. Victory! I hope this works for some of you, not sure we are all hitting exactly the same problem with TM and Monterey/M1 - its been a very frustrating experience. And I hope this continues to work for me...

A safe mode boot allowed me to complete a first backup. After rebooting in regular mode, backups are taking place on schedule and complete normally.

The Solution is: Dont enable reduced Startup Security.

I did this only because the WD MyCloud Home required this. This Wd Software is programmed very bad.

After i switched to Full Startup Security TM Worked normal again!

I was finally able to fix my "Waiting for First Backup" woes in Monterey by adding this path to the exclusions list. Worked for me at least after lots of digging through error logs. I also had to first boot into Safe Mode and start with a freshly formatted external backup drive (as discussed previously in this thread).

Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople

I'm running an M1 Pro machine with macOS 12.0.1

Exclude the ~Library directory and it will work. You just won’t have backups of that one folder. Ignore suggestions about removing container folders or specific files. These are unproven guesses and they regularly fail. This method works.