Why won't my time machine icon eject from the desktop after backup is finished?

Just to add that I'm experiencing the same thing since I upgraded to Lion, using Time Machine to back up to a Time Capsule wirelessly.

Expert advice I received from Gary Rosenzweig of MacMost.com was to ignore it and just let Time Machine and Time Capsule do their thing - don't bother "ejecting" the "Time Machine Backups" volume manually. It still seems odd to me, though, and I too used the desktop icon to know at a quick glance if a backup was in progress and therefore whether I could put the machine to sleep without interrupting a backup in progress.

I ran another backup and decided to just wait it out and let Spotlight do it's indexing.

It's about an hour into it and this is what's going on in Console:

8/2/11 3:46:03.803 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.808 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.816 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.828 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.838 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.856 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.876 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:03.884 PM com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0: FlateDecode: decoding error.

8/2/11 3:46:07.393 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

8/2/11 3:46:08.406 PM com.apple.SecurityServer: Session 100008 created

I'm wondering if the above errors are the culprit.

Any thoughts?

cococornell wrote:

. . .

8/2/11 3:46:07.393 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

None of those messages are sent by Time Machine (the backupd process), but this one looks like a problem with something in a virtual machine file.

Most folks exclude them from Time Machine backups, as any change results in a large backup.

You might also want to exclude any such files from Spotlight, too.

I wasn't aware that I had a virtual machine.

I don't own VMware.

Something on your Mac that mds was trying to index triggered mdworker to look for an "importer" for it. I don't do Windoze, so don't know much more than that.

OK, after repairing the disk via Disk Utility and then attempting backup, the Time Machine Backups disk is still mounted and Console shows:

8/2/11 6:51:20.350 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:23.305 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.0: I/O

8/2/11 6:51:23.370 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.0: error : encoder error

8/2/11 6:51:23.664 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:25.525 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:28.398 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:29.539 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:33.849 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.1: I/O error : encoder error

8/2/11 6:51:34.782 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:36.147 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:51:37.507 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.3: I/O error : encoder error

8/2/11 6:52:00.376 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:52:17.065 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:52:27.629 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

8/2/11 6:53:42.087 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

8/2/11 6:54:02.116 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.2: I/O

8/2/11 6:54:02.117 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.2: error : encoder error

8/2/11 6:54:22.633 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:54:23.793 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:54:29.168 PM com.apple.mdworker.pool.1: I/O error : encoder error

8/2/11 6:54:29.830 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:54:30.871 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

8/2/11 6:56:11.659 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

and the backup widget shows:

Starting standard backup

Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Conrad%20Hanstein@Time-Capsule-f5321.local/Data

Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/Data using URL: afp://Conrad%20Hanstein@Time-Capsule-f5321.local/Data

QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN

Disk image /Volumes/Data/Conrad Hanstein’s MacBook Air.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups

Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Untitled

Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Finished scan

240.4 MB required (including padding), 839.78 GB available

Copied 2200 files (112.3 MB) from volume Untitled.

188.6 MB required (including padding), 839.78 GB available

Copied 641 files (93 bytes) from volume Untitled.

Starting post-backup thinning

No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist

Backup completed successfully.

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Am I f&^*@$d? Or is this a Lion issue, because I never had an issue with Snow Leopard.

I'm thinking bout reverting back to it, but not my style so appreciated any input.

Thanks all

cococornell wrote:

OK, after repairing the disk via Disk Utility and then attempting backup, the Time Machine Backups disk is still mounted and Console shows:

8/2/11 6:51:20.350 PM mdworker: *** Failed to decode 7bit; data, treating as binary

. . .

8/2/11 6:56:11.659 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin '/Library/Spotlight/VMware Virtual Machine.mdimporter/'

I have no idea what all that is, but that last message is the same as before.

Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

All the backup messages above that one are normal. Which disk did you repair, your intenral or your backup disk? If you didn't repair the backups, do so.

If you did, and no problems were found, it looks like the Spotlight index on your backups is corrupted. 😟

The easiest way to fix this is to erase the TC's internal disk (or delete the backups, if there's other stuff on the TC). See #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.

Or, delete the index:

First, download the Tinker Tool app, per #A3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. Follow the instructions there to show invisible files.

Via the Finder, locate the sparse bundle, and double-click it to mount the disk image inside it. It will appear on your desktop or Finder sidebar, and is usually named "Time Machine Backups."

Double-click it to open it. Inside it you'll find a .Spotlight-V100 folder. Delete it (you'll have to enter your Admin password), and empty the trash. Do not touch anything else.

Eject the disk image, and run a backup. The first one will take quite a while, as it must be indexed, but thereafter, backups should run normally.

I am happy to report that after I repaired my harddrive using Disk Utility and running the backup and allowing it to index, that the Time Machine Backups disk unmounts itself now. All is good. Thanks!

Only run Disk Utility on Lion was not enough for me.

I ran into Lion Recovery then use Disk Utilty did Repair Disk & Repair Disk Permission twice.

After reboot into Lion, Spotlight ran up for a while and the system seem to be fine.

Now my Time Machine network disk eject properly after backup and found no com.apple.mdworder.isolation error in Console again.

😎

I do have the same problem. I tried to remove the Sportlight files on both sides and it didn't fix it. So i backed my time capsule disk up recreated a completely fresh backup on my Time Capsule. The Problem was gone for 1 week, and now it is back, as if Spotlight corrupts the Index for whatever reason. Leaving TM just do what it is supposed to do (not manually eject the Volume) causes my Macbook to hang after coming out of sleep not being able to connec to Wireless (via the TC). I have no idea what else to do at this point as it feels like I did the most extreme option already. And yes I tried to check both disks with Disk Utility with no luck.

To me this looks like a Lion Time Machine Bug as it doesn't go away even after creating a completely new Backup...

Ideas welcome...

Message was edited by: chrissnv

Oh my god...

My problem come back again. The Time Machine network volume does not eject properly and Spotlight keep indexing forever with ton of com.apple.mdworder.isolation errors in Console.

I have done Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permission in Lion Recovery for several times and the problem still persist.

What the heck...

I was having this problem back in July and it seemed to go away of its own accord but in the meantime I had a catastrophic Time Machine failure and it insisted on deleting a year's worth of backups.

The non-ejection of the Time Machine volume hadn't really bothered me, it was the network traffic which I could see via several different utilities.

Anyway, it has just started again and I'm not very happy about it because it seems that the local WiFi traffic is choking off my internet connection.

I can see via NetBarrier monitor that there is about 1.0 M/s in and out, rising to as much as 5.0 M/s. I can see from Little Snitch Network Monitor that the main tasks using this bandwidth are:

diskimages-helper

Mac OS X Kernel

lsof

I get the horrible feeling that I am going to get another Time Machine failure and lose all my backups again.

This is just one of a huge list of issues I am having since I upgraded to Lion and have been trying to solve. I've re-installed Lion over a dozen times.

If Time Machine hadn't deleted my Snow Leopard back-ups and cut me off from returning to Snow Leopard without losing all my Mail archive, which is absolutely vital to me, I would dump Lion. It has caused me more problems than every other OS incremental upgrade in the last 27 years combined.

I figured out why sometimes it doesn't eject right away after a backup. If you do a backupd in the console you'll see that the backup finished and TM is done. But something messed up the spotlight index and the traffic you see is your mac reindexing the time machine disk.

The next time it does it, just go away and do something else. In about an hour or so, you'll notice that it's ejected. And TM will then work for a few days until sometime in Lion messes up the index again.

Hopefully the fruit people will admit that it's a bug in Time Machine or the Lion file system code and fix it. But the fix or workaround I found is just ignore it. Once Spotlight is done indexing it will start to behave itself.

The problem is that people see the backwards clock stop and it says the backup is complete and they manually eject the disk. Well, that leaves the disk still not indexed in Spotlight so it just keeps doing it and leaving it mounted until you allow it to finish the reindexing.

I totally agree with you TBFlyer. I wish OS X Lion team will completely solve this problem in 10.7.2.

What I hate is not let's it does TM backup indexing but I found repeating message in Console saying com.apple.mdworder.isolation error and my previous logs had gone forever.

This is definitely a system bug and wish it be corrected.

Found a solution!! After the backup completes click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar (enable it if you don't have it there), when the dropdown menu appears, hold down the option/alt key and the "verify backups" option appears. Click it. The verification took about 5 seconds for me and it immediately ejected the volume by itself. After that it didn't have any problems.