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 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...

Surely this must be a bug with macOS Monterey 12.0.1 running on Apple Silicone? It's working perfectly fine from my Intel X86 MacBook Pro, but ever since macOS Monterey it has never worked on my Apple Silicone Mac mini.

I even tried to restore my Mac mini using the 12.0.1 IPSW through Apple Configurator and setting it up completely fresh. No Rosetta2 enable or anything. Still getting:

2021-11-11 15:08:40 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople/Data/Library error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:40 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople/Data/Documents error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:40 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetPeople/Data/tmp error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:46 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/Library error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:46 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/Documents error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:46 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/tmp error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:47 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsItems/Data/Library error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:47 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsItems/Data/Documents error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

2021-11-11 15:08:47 Failed to acquire device lock assertion for /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Anduril-Macmini/2021-11-11-150305/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/ramguy/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsItems/Data/tmp error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=22 "Invalid argument"

I've tried First Aid. I have tried to complete the first run in Safe Mode etc. Nothing seems to fix it for me. Just for fun I used the IPSW for macOS Big Sur 11.6 and then I have no issues with Time Machine Backups at all.

It seems that macOS 12.2 fixed this issue, I can complete backup with exclusions removed.

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 :-(

i finally solved it via assistance. I did two operations, 1: I deleted the LULU Helper app (firewall) and I deleted a time machine file from HD-Library-Preferences-com.apple.TimeMachine.plist

I think it was useless to delete lulu, for me this worked after doing all possible tests above (formatted mac and external hd, booted in safe mode, excluding find me etc).

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?

Yes, it does seem like a bug in the 12.x OS. I reported it to apple using the feedback assistant, probably would be good if as many people do that as possible to encourage them to look into it. The fact that we have a workaround doesn't mean they don't have anything to fix on their end.

Thanks to everyone who reported this directly to apple as a bug. I checked my bug report just now, the status says more than 10 people reported a similar issue, and a potential fix has been identified for a future OS update. Hopefully the next update will include a fix.

Yes apple seems scared to communicate certain issues properly. I routinely find bugs in new updates that are never told to the public, and never reported as fixed in new updates that end up fixing them just like this one is not reported as fixed in 12.1 despite it fixing it.

I second this. Have the same problem in this thread, followed some instructions to complete the backup by excluding container folder. Then updated to Mac OS 12.2 and I was able to complete the backup with exclusion removed.

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 confirm: Same here, after safe mode all went fine and after 3 backups in normal mode autoswitch back to not working...

So it must be a bug with 12.0.1, i report back to support.

Again with: "Backup failed (104: BACKUP_DELAYED_UNFINISHED_PROTECTED_FILES)"

I updated to 12.1 yesterday and ran Time Machine. Same result as before. I reformatted an external hard drive used for Time Machine [APFS (Case Senstive)] and started Time Machine. About 12 hourse later it completed the backup. Over 1 Tb of space is used on the backup drive (that equates to the content of my internal hard drive), and the drive contains a file 2022-01-02-111115.inprogress that can be viewed using terminal. . However, Finder shows no files on the drive and Time Machine says "Waiting to complete first backup". Unfortunately, Time Machine is still broken in Monterey 12.1.