Time Machine

patmel1997 wrote:

Rebooted in safe mode. Time Machine worked fine over the course of two days. Rebooted normally, and Time Machine worked once, then wouldn't work (similar to disconnecting, then reconnecting).

If it worked in Safe Mode, that almost certainly is an indicator that something you have installed (maybe a long time ago) is interfering.

People here can probably find what that culprit is but you have to paste in the full Etrecheck report using the "additional text" button below that looks like a pice of paper with the upper right corner folded.

patmel1997 wrote:

<EtreCheck run #2.log>

Uninstalled WD Utilities and EtreCheck report again.

Time Machine still not backing up properly.

This is still showing up in your launchd, did you run a complete uninstaller from the vendor (WD)? Sometimes these items can be stubborn to remove.

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper.plist

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper

Also this ...

Launch Daemons:

[Loaded] com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper.plist (? 9f7f4405 - installed 2021-12-13)

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

Go to System Preferences, Users and Groups, and remove any WD or WDC items from Login items. Restart after doing this.

Look for a complete WD uninstaller to remove WD and and associated utilities, extensions, and firmware. Restart after doing this.

If this proves problematic, you might try running the uninstaller from safe mode.

I once had this issue years ago and downloaded and ran a program called Find Any File. I looked for any file that contained the strings

WD

and

WDC

and deleted them if they looked like they were associated with Western Digital software. Best thing really is to run an uninstaller from the manufacturer. Did you run an uninstaller from Western Digital?

Do you have multiple partitions, containers, volumes on that drive? Apple recommends dedicating the entire physical drive to Time Machine. Some is keeping another part of that drive busy when you try to unmount it. That could be:

• some process in the background trying to access or interact with that other portion of the drive
• do you have any security software, little snitch, VPN, anti-virus running in the background
• do any of your drives have third party or manufacturer drive utilities on them, custom firmware, custom drivers
• do you have cloud storage or processes running that may touch the external drive in some way

Any of the above can cause these problems. This is why Apple recommends dedicating the entire physical drive to Time Machine, although in principle it should be ok to dedicate a portion of the physical drive to Time Machine and use another portion for other storage.

patmel1997 wrote:

At first, the entire drive was dedicated to Time Machine. When it didn't seem to work correctly, I partitioned the drive to see if other data could be saved/retrieved without disconnecting/reconnecting. Once I saw that the drive worked for regular data, I reformatted the drive using disk utility and dedicated the entire drive to Time Machine again. I was trying to do my best to troubleshoot the drive and rule out the drive as the cause of the error.

In order to unmount the drive correctly, I had to deselect the drive from the Time Machine menu (as if Time Machine was the thing that kept trying to access the drive).

I also reformatted the second external drive which used to work with my old Mac, but can't get that one to work correctly either. I can't imagine that I've had three drives go bad simultaneously (two external + time capsule).

Greatly appreciate any insight you might have.

You did not respond to those questions I asked ...

The fact that this happens with multiple drives and you got the message that your drive was "busy" when you tried to eject is consistent with there being a common software issue. Usually this is something you have installed that interferes with normal external drive operation. It could be software, firmware, something that you installed that runs in the background. That's why I asked these questions:

• do you have any security software, little snitch, VPN, anti-virus running in the background
• do any of your drives have third party or manufacturer drive utilities on them, custom firmware, custom drivers, extensions installed so you can work with them
• do you have cloud storage or processes running that may touch the external drive in some way

Are you using a hub or dock? Does the problem persist when drives are directly connected?

There are two more things you can try:

Boot into Safe Mode. Does the issue go away? If so, it's almost certainly something you have installed.

Create another user. Does the issue go away with the other user? Is so, it's something in your specific user configuration or something installed just for that user. If not, it's something installed that's system wide.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.

You should not have these many errors on a new drive. I would recommend you return the Western Digital drive, and get a high-quality drive, such as a SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE - Western Digital.

Jack

patmel1997 wrote:

• To answer your questions specifically:

do any of your drives have third party or manufacturer drive utilities on them, custom firmware, custom drivers, extensions installed so you can work with them

• A: No, I don't think so. Everything was wiped when I reformatted them. Looking now, I don't see anything.

I'll give safe mode a try and see what happens.

Thanks for sticking with me.

I was particularly interested in whether you have the WD utilities installed. Even if you recently wiped the drives, if WD utilities were installed anytime in the past, they could still be there. In fact, an ancient version of those utilities not updated for Big Sur could wreak havoc.

Running Etrecheck and posting the results here using the Additional Text button below might provide some insights ... Etrecheck keeps your personal info private but does list various software and extensions that are installed. It might identify the culprit. You should get to the bottom of this because I don't know if you presently have reliable use of external drives to either back up or restore with such an issue. You need a rock solid backup system.

Safe Mode will also be informative here.

In your Etrecheck report, I noticed this:

[Loaded] WDDriveUtilityHelper (Western Digital Corporation Branded Products Group - installed 2019-01-20)

Application

/Applications/WD Drive Utilities.app/Contents/WDDriveUtilityHelper.app

The most recent version of WD Utilities is September 2021, I think. Big Sur was first released in November 2020, and your version of WD Utilities was installed almost two years before then. What I am saying is that it is quite possible that the old version of WD Utilities is not compatible with Big Sur. This could interfere with use of your WD drives.

I suggest that you completely uninstall WD Utilities and firmware. The problem with utilities like this is they overlap in functionality with Apple's own MacOS and when they get out of date, sometimes the related MacOS function stops functioning. Booting into safe mode disabled those extensions, and then your Time Machine worked. It's circumstantial evidence but I would uninstall all such third party drive utilities to see if that restores proper functioning of your drive.

Give Etrecheck Full Disk Access in System Preferences, run Etrecheck, copy the resulting report, then click the "Additional text" button below and paste the report.