Time Machine weirdness

Stu-art wrote:

Hello,

I’m having problems with Time Machine. Never had any problems for 12+ years until getting my new MacBook in January. Problems are as follows:

(1) Not only a Time Machine problem, but whenever I plug in an external drive, it takes a relatively long time to “see” the drive. It used to take a split second. Now I have to wait, sometimes up to a minute. I discussed this with Apple a few times by phone earlier in the year but the problem was never solved. Sometimes (not always) it also takes a very long time to eject an external drive – I get a message saying “one or more programs maybe be using it” even if I quit all programs. Sometimes I have to force eject the drive in order to get on with my day...

(2) I just checked a new drive I bought in May. Despite backing up numerous times per week since May, if I scroll back with the “up” arrow, only two dates are accessible: 23rd May and 2nd September. In the past, there would be 100+ dates to select from. The red tabs on the right go back as far as January. Is there a problem with Time Machine on my MacBook?

Thanks in advance for any info / advice.

Have a nice day.

You can erase the drive, reformat it as new, initialize and try again a new backup—compare your results.

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support