Something is locked and blocking my time machine backup

Question

Level 1

24 points

Something is locked and blocking my time machine backup

Hello,

I found an answer to this question from 2023 but it is now closed. And, I have a follow-up question regarding the resolution the problem. First, here is what's happening:

Only in the last couple of days has this error been showing up and I have had my computer set to require a password to wake it up, well for forever, really. And, I recently updated every Apple device I have to its new OS.

I, too, am having issues with Time Machine unable to finishing backups overnight while computer is locked from not being in use after one hour. I only see the error in morning when I first wake it up. note that the backups do complete while I am actively using the computer and it's awake.

The solution given in the previous post from 2023 titled 'Locked files block my time machine backup' was as follows:

"It says some files were unavailable. That could happen for many different reasons, but that message did not specify why.

It says the backup will resume when your Mac is unlocked.

To me, this implies your Mac automatically Locked itself, and refused to transfer any more files.

That could happen if your Mac went to sleep or you have screen locking and password required in:

system preferences > Security & Privacy > General ...

[√] require password after sleep or nnn minutes after screensaver begins.

There may be other more obscure reasons as well."

I have followed the directions to remove a required password to wake the computer, but I really would prefer not to do that. I have also looked what has Full Disk Access and Files and Folders access in Privacy & Security, but I am not sure what I need to grant the access to, as you can't specify Time Machine.

What are the other possibilities for this happening and how can I resolve them?

I greatly appreciate your help and have a great day!

Lisa Atlanta

Mac mini

Posted on Sep 30, 2024 6:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Feb 26, 2025 3:34 PM in response to Focker

I tried running:

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h|grep "Operation not permitted"

and the output is:

2025-02-26

11:03:15.330337+1100 0x21d5b6 Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire

device lock assertion for

'/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro

(3)/2025-02-26-092819/Data/Users/u1234567/Library/Metadata/Assets/com.apple.MobileAsset.SpotlightResources.plist'

(assertion state: <dropped>), error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain

Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

11:34:33.350983+1100 0x23a22e Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to

proactively acquire device lock assertion on lock state change

(deviceIsLocking), assertion state: <dropped>, error: Error

Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

11:34:43.252100+1100 0x23acfa Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to

proactively acquire device lock assertion on lock state change

(deviceIsLocked), assertion state: <dropped>, error: Error

Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

12:07:26.041262+1100 0x242e7c Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to

proactively acquire device lock assertion on lock state change

(deviceIsUnlocked), assertion state: <dropped>, error: Error

Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

12:07:58.789230+1100 0x241862 Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire

device lock assertion for

'/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro

(3)/2025-02-26-120328/Data/Users/maclocaladmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/Library/HTTPStorages/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/httpstorages.sqlite-wal'

(assertion state: <dropped>), error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain

Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

12:07:58.800165+1100 0x241862 Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire

device lock assertion for

'/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro

(3)/2025-02-26-120328/Data/Users/maclocaladmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/Library/HTTPStorages/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/httpstorages.sqlite'

(assertion state: <dropped>), error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain

Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2025-02-26

12:07:58.801554+1100 0x241862 Error 0x0

326 0

backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire

device lock assertion for

'/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro

(3)/2025-02-26-120328/Data/Users/maclocaladmin/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/Data/Library/HTTPStorages/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetIntentsPeople/httpstorages.sqlite-shm'

(assertion state: <dropped>), error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain

Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

Reply

Answer 2

Rotlex

Level 1

45 points

Apr 14, 2025 5:44 PM in response to lisaroser

Found this post while troubleshooting this same issue. This is on a brand new Mac Mini M4 Pro running Sequoia 15.4. I tried allowing full disk access to Time Machine and that appeared to work, however, just today, I got the error again, twice.

This is crazy. I have multiple Time Machine drives and have backed up TB of data over the years without issue. There has to be a real fix for this from Apple at this point. Why would this even be a thing?

Reply

Answer 3

lisaroser Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 22, 2024 4:33 PM in response to lisaroser

Hello,

Thank you for that but note that this is my normal setting and the update to Sequoia did not change that.

Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off option is ON

Put hard disks to sleep when possible option is OFF

Wake of network access option is ON (I keep this on always because I do remotely access my computer)

The error is still happening.

Thank you!

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 14, 2024 10:14 PM in response to Focker

Please clarify the steps to take, if you can.

I open terminal and pasted the string, and this is what I cam up with:

Last login: Wed Nov 13 19:00:29 on console

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/timelines/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems

/Users/peter/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/timelines/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems: Error (100002) while attempting to change exclusion setting.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

Thanks in advance.

Peter

Reply

Answer 5

Focker

Level 1

52 points

Nov 14, 2024 10:25 PM in response to Zorkzeres

The error code (100002) indicates that the file cannot be found. This could be due to an error when copying and pasting the string, or it may be because the directory containing the file does not exist on your Mac, probably because you have never used the FindMyWidget application.

Reply

Answer 6

Nov 14, 2024 10:31 PM in response to Focker

That is very possible - I don't even know what FindMyWidget does.

So this did not solve my

"Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Data-2-8TB”

Time Machine did not finish backing up because some files were unavailable. Backups will resume when your Mac is unlocked." problem ...

Sigh!

Reply

Answer 7

Nov 14, 2024 11:16 PM in response to Focker

Thank you, but I have no idea how to do that. In Time Machine I can only exclude attacted external disks.

If i try with terminal it says:

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

/Users/peter/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167: Error (100001) while attempting to change exclusion setting.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

Reply

Answer 8

Nov 14, 2024 11:28 PM in response to Focker

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ ls -l ~/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

-rw------- 1 peter staff 16777216 Nov 15 06:17 /Users/peter/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 15, 2024 12:05 AM in response to Focker

OK, I have now deleted the contents of the folder ... should I also delete the folder itself? It says operation not permitted ... so i could only delete the contents manually from finder

And it seems the system instantly creates that folder agaín

Reply

Answer 10

Nov 15, 2024 10:15 PM in response to Focker

You're a star Focker. Apparently deleting that Biome folder did the trick. No errors to be seen this morning.

When I woke up this morning I found TM had made backup to backup-disk-1 at 1.54 a.am. It's now 7.15 a.am and it's in the process of of "preparing to backup" to backup-disk-2 so it's not like it's hourly backups. Weird.

Reply

Answer 11

bratman91

Level 2

276 points

Jan 4, 2025 8:43 AM in response to Stephen_J

My iMac with Sonoma has a Seagate external hard drive as the Time Machine backup disc and it has worked flawlessly for over a year. I have just added a Crucial SSD and, in Time Machine Preferences, selected this as a (second) backup disc. As far as I can see both drives are formatted in exactly the same way. Backups to the Seagate disc has continued as normal but, although a couple of backups have been made to the Crucial SSD, there are still time when the backup stalls because of problem with certain files being unavailable and the iMac needs to be unlocked.

I am at a loss to determine why backups to one drive always work but not always to another drive. Both backup drives are encrypted but have different passwords but I wouldn’t have thought that this would cause any problems. If it is because the iMac goes to sleep, then surely this should affect backups to both drives. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Reply

Answer 12

Jan 23, 2025 5:08 AM in response to lisaroser

Hi, I'm having the same problem despite still running BigSur on a MacAir. I added TM to Full Disc access which didnt resolve the problem. I tried the approach suggested by @Focker in Terminal and got the following:

2025-01-23 11:28:09.142827+0000 0xf85ea Error 0xa32d9 606 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Failed to wait for snapshot deletion to complete on disk '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

So it seems a file ...mnt1 is the problem (?) but I (or the Mac) cant find this file to delete it or add it to TM exclusions - what should I do?

Thanks in anticipation.

Reply

Answer 13

Jan 23, 2025 5:30 AM in response to lisaroser

Hi, I'm having the same problem despite still running BigSur on a MacAir. I added TM to Full Disc access which didnt resolve the problem. I tried the approach suggested by @Focker in Terminal and got the following:

2025-01-23 11:28:09.142827+0000 0xf85ea Error 0xa32d9 606 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Failed to wait for snapshot deletion to complete on disk '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

So it seems a file ...mnt1 is the problem (?) but I (or the Mac) cant find this file to delete it or add it to TM exclusions - what should I do?

Thanks in anticipation.

Reply

Answer 14

Feb 25, 2025 6:32 PM in response to lisaroser

I've tried every method in this thread and still facing the same error, on MacOS 15.3.1.

"Time Machine did not finish backing up because some files were unavailable. Backups will resume when your Mac is unlocked."

Reply

Answer 15

jwhitt

Level 1

6 points

Mar 23, 2025 10:16 AM in response to lisaroser

I have tried every solution mentioned here with no luck. Just bought a new Mac Studio that's when this problem started. I had no such problem on my 2019 iMac. You would think Apple would have fixed this by now. Also Time machine does back up my hard drive. I wonder if it's a usable back up though due to the error message.

"Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “OWC Mercury Elite Pro 12tb”

Time Machine did not finish backing up because some files were unavailable. Backups will resume when your Mac is unlocked.

HELP!

Reply