Time Machine "Waiting to Compete First Backup" but looked like it did create the backup in ".inprogress" folder, and is running hourly and creating ".interrupted" folders

I had some chats and a call with Apple support today about this concern, because I need backups. I did several things qithout any success. They advised me to use the safe mode and doing a backup there.

That fixed the problem for me and the backup went through in safe mode. It took time, but time machine ran through.

After a regular reboot my time machine is running again like before. And the 104 error message (above) went away. Up to now I do not have any idea why this works, but some magic must be these days;-)

Safe mode:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

I had exactly the same problem on my Apple Silicon 16" MBP, which was updated from factory macOS 12.0.0 to macOS 12.0.1.

I was able to resolve the issue the same way as the OP, by running First Aid in Recovery Mode: No problems were found but the time machine backup magically worked the next time.

Looks like there might be a fairly reproducible bug here.

I had also exactly the same issue with Mac OS 12.0.1 on my Mac Mini M1.... in the log I have the same info:

"Failed to acquire device lock assertion for........Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople/Data/Library error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument""

Backup failed (104: BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES)

These findmy-Folders are a problem for all UserLibrary folders of all users. But unfortunately, running First Aid in Recovery Mode did not fix my problem :-(

Any other ideas?

Could you fix it with First Aid? Tried it already three times an all "layers", but did not help. Woraround currently:

Exclude for all User Libraries /Library/Containers

=> But a full System recovery would not be possible in that case :-(

No, I tried several First aids run in sequences on all layers as described above. Backup not finishing on USB nor on NAS shows same behaviour.

I have same BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES error message.

Any other ideas?

@Apple: For me, not having a working backup is a serious problem, this has to be investigated and fixed immediately.

What I do not really like in that case is that I have to find a solution myself to keep working such an relevant feature.

If a mouse or something special does not work ok, but not the backup.

I excluded all com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidget**** files/containers from my time machine settings. Then started a new backup which finished successfully. Will try what you suggest concerning the widget later on this day.

Thanks.

frédéric259

How did you do that, that you only exluded the com.apple.findmy* files? I could not see them in the GUI of Timemachine exclusions. Consequently I had to exclude the whole "Containers" folder, what is stupid for full system recovery

I have a second Monterey installation on an external SSD. I moved the offending files to another location mounting the internal drive after having booted on the SSD. Rebooted on the internal drive, did the backup, and booted again on the external SSD to restore the files that were moved.

What's is that my Monterey on the external SSD backups itself without any issue. Maybe could I try the replace the internal com.apple.find* files with the ones from the external drive ?

I attempted to backup both external and internal drive using the OS on my external SSD. Time machine didn't complete the backup. Backing up only the external drive is OK. I'll try to compare the files to try to understand what's going on.

I think I fixed my problem : i copied the com.apple.findmy* files to another drive, to have a backup of them before deleting them.

I rebooted, removed all User/Library/Containers exclusion from Time Machine and the full internal disk backup completed successfully.

I have the same issue with my new 16" MBP (M1 Pro) running 12.0.1 and an external 4TB USB drive (I've actually tried two brand-new drives, one from WD and one from Seagate). Backing up from Safe Mode and/or using First Aid on the startup disk in Recovery mode did not help. I'm still seeing the errors for the com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidget* nodes in the log, and the initial backup never finishes. I'm trying this again after excluding the offending paths by running "sudo tmutil addexclusion -p ..." for each of them, and hopefully this works. If it does, I'll remove the exclusions to see if the second incremental backup finishes...

Here is an update on my situation (in case someone is interested): after excluding the "com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidget*" directories from Time Machine, the first backup completed successfully. However, after removing the exclusions, these directories were not added to the subsequent backups (which were also successful). I wonder if they are included in the backups for others who were able to finish the first backup by booting into safe mode, or if anyone has ever tried a full system recovery from such a backup... also, I'm not sure if the absence of those directories would have any impact on the system operation (perhaps they will be re-created automatically?)