Time Machine back-up error 19

My Time Machine has been working flawlessly for years, automatically backing up my MacBook Pro over WiFi. However it won’t backup again since june, even if I start it manually. After spending a long time “preparing backup” it reports “The backup disk image …sparsebundle could not be accessed (error 19).”

Time Machine can see the backup disk, and this is accessible through the finder.

I have macOS Sonoma 14.5. I already unplugged the Time Machine without result.

Any thoughts?

Posted on Aug 13, 2024 7:36 AM

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Posted on Aug 13, 2024 12:29 PM

do you have any idea why there is a (2)? could it have abandoned to old sparesebundle and be starting a new one?


whatever the answer, it sounds like errors are devloping on the drive holding the sparse bundle file, and the drive need to be at least repaired, and possibly ERASEd to start over.


Erase will test all the suspicious blocks on the drive controller's 'suspected bad' list, and substitute spare blocks for ones found bad after erasing and checking.


You could try holding Option when clicking on the Time machine icon on the menuBar. if a backup is not in progress, it may offer a 'Verify Backups' choice. this I=will check the integrity of the backup DATA (but not the drive itself.)


I think you use Airport Utility to check and erase the Time Capsule Physical drive.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 13, 2024 12:29 PM in response to Evelinebomba

do you have any idea why there is a (2)? could it have abandoned to old sparesebundle and be starting a new one?


whatever the answer, it sounds like errors are devloping on the drive holding the sparse bundle file, and the drive need to be at least repaired, and possibly ERASEd to start over.


Erase will test all the suspicious blocks on the drive controller's 'suspected bad' list, and substitute spare blocks for ones found bad after erasing and checking.


You could try holding Option when clicking on the Time machine icon on the menuBar. if a backup is not in progress, it may offer a 'Verify Backups' choice. this I=will check the integrity of the backup DATA (but not the drive itself.)


I think you use Airport Utility to check and erase the Time Capsule Physical drive.

Aug 13, 2024 3:29 PM in response to Evelinebomba

What verify backups does is cje=heck the data integrity of your backups. since it reports your backups have lost integrity, there is no penalty for staring over.


Time machine can support multiple backup devices, with widely different connection methods. if you add an additional backup device, every-other backup will go to every other drive, and either drive can be removed at any time, such as to start over.


If you are concerned at having NO backups while you do this recovery, you could start an additional backup on a different drive.

Aug 13, 2024 1:30 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for your time and response!

I don't know why there is a (2). When I browse I see that all backups from previous years are gone. There are now only 2 backups left. Under the Sparesebundle doc there is a new empty folder with the title: new test folder. I don't know what happened.


When I click on "verify backups" the time capsule starts preparing the backup again and this takes forever! Finally I got the following message:

Time Machine has noticed that your backups to 'Data' cannot be restored without any problems.

Time Machine needs to clear your existing backup history and start a new backup to correct this.

Do you advise me to do this?

And I do indeed have airport utility.

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Time Machine back-up error 19

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