Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.

Sorry if this is redundant, but have you tried rebooting the computer? I haven't had the issue in a while, but when it does show itself, rebooting always works for me. Of course, YMMV.

So I did an erase of the drive and now NO partition and all looks good. Will see what happens in a hour if the next backup works. But so far so good. Disk verify is all OK green now too. (tries rebooting and same issue to jimchik2)

2 hourly backups are done now! All good. Also before I was having a **** of a time ejecting the EXHD when it was partitioned. Now unpartitioned and all is working well!!🙂

Great! 🙂

You should still be able to make a second partition. See #3 in Using Disk Utility.

I have had this "error creating backup folder" problem for awhile. Like others, it popped up a few weeks ago. I run the fixes and TM works fine for a day or so, then same error. I have no idea what "spin down" means (somebody mentioned that somewhere in this thread), but one thing is very obvious: Apple has a problem wiht TM, and Apple should fix it. It used to work, now it doesn't, and it isn't an answer to say Apple users shold jump through a hoop every other day just to have a viable automatic backup. If TM can't work authomatically, Apple should just say so and I'll buy something that does work.

tom1825 wrote:

. . .

I have no idea what "spin down" means (somebody mentioned that somewhere in this thread),

Some external HDs respond to the Put the hard drive(s) to sleep ... setting in System Preferences > Energy Saver, some don't. That's set to 10 minutes of inactivity, but can be changed by the pmset UNIX command.

Many posters use "spin down" to mean a drive going to sleep under any circumstances, but many use it to mean the built-in sleep function that most (all?) external HDs have, to distinguish it from the Energy Saver setting. Those are usually anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. Some can be disabled or altered by the drive maker's software.

Sometimes drives don't spin back up quickly enough when Time Machine or other apps want to use them, so backups or other processes may fail. This seems to be less of a problem, generally, in recent versions of OSX. If it is a problem, sometimes it's an early indication that a drive is beginning to fail. (They are, after all, mechanical beasties, with moving parts and tiny bearings that need lubrication.)

Apple has a problem wiht TM, and Apple should fix it. It used to work, now it doesn't, and it isn't an answer to say Apple users shold jump through a hoop every other day just to have a viable automatic backup. If TM can't work authomatically, Apple should just say so and I'll buy something that does work.

Matter of opinion. Some things seem to work better on Mountain Lion, some worse. This is the first release of a new operating system, and most "early adopters" realize that there will be problems. Even after many updates, not everything will be perfect.

TM works just fine for many. If it doesn't work for you, by all means use something else. See the green box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for some suggestions. You'll find most of them cost more than the whole Mountain Lion operating system, but that's another issue entirely.

Glad I'm not alone. I've had this pproblem for many months, though Apple have been great trying to solve it. The problem occurs regardless of connection - firewire or USB. WD drive finally collapsed and replaced with LaCie, no difference. Tested all connecting cables etc, all OK. Done PRAM reset. Done disk repairs & checks, even full suite of disk checks using TechTools. Erased TM drive and started TM again. iMac hardware checks resulted in replaced RAM stick and logic board (firewire problems), but problem still occurs. Full clean reinstall of Mountain Lion and all apps, no difference. We've run out of things to check, so the details of everything tried are now with Apple engineers & I'm waiting for further advice.

It is not a spin down problem as the drive is usually spinning hard, with its icon on the Desktop. Sometimes I can bring up the TM top level directory, but not lower levels, othertimes I just get the beachball. If I turn off TM and try to eject it, it won't eject and I get the beachball forever. Sometimes I get a message saying that it couldn't be ejected because another app like Calendar is using it!!! Often Finder stops most tasks though other apps seem to work OK unless they require disk access. If I turn off the drive and unplug it (and get the message it wasn't ejected properly), then restart it and reattach it, everything goes fine till next time. The only other way out is to do a hard shutdown (a menu restart doesn't work - just hangs) and reboot.

This is an example of a systemlog at the time of the event:

Your-iMac-3.local com.apple.backupd[3278]: Starting automatic backup

Your-iMac-3.local com.apple.SecurityServer[15]: Succeeded authorizing right 'com.apple.ServiceManagement.daemons.modify' by client '/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent' [11] for authorization created by '/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent' [11] (100012,0)

Your-iMac-3.local com.apple.backupd[3278]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Your-iMac-3.local com.apple.backupd[3278]: Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.HostUUID path:/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Your’s iMac size:37

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Looks like I may have solved this on my iMac. I have a 500GB internal drive running SL 10.6.8. For almost two years I've been using TimeMachine with a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB portable drive with a FW800 connection, daisy-chained through a OWC 320GB Hitachi TravelStar, with no problems at all.

I decided it was in my best interests to rotate two different TimeMachine backup drives for redundancy. I opted for a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB portable drive so that I could use the same FW800 connector, swapping it between the two Seagate drives.

I never had success with the 1TB Seagate drive for more than a few days at a time. I would inevitably find TimeMachine hung with the error message that is the title of this thread. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and reformat/repartition the 1TB drive, and zeroed out the data, too. Well, same result: after a few days TM would fail to create the backup folder with the 1TB drive.

In frustration, I decided to decouple the Seagate drive from the OWC 320GB portable drive and run the FW800 connector straight into the iMac. This necessitated my downgrading the OWC drive to the FW400 port, which is too bad because it's a 7200 rpm drive whereas the Seagates are both 5400 rpm drives.

Anyway, TimeMachine has been backing up just fine for the past week to the Seagate 1TB drive connected directly to the FW800 port on the iMac, and the OWC is working just fine on the FW400 port.

This was the last thing that I could think of trying before giving up and seeking an alternative method and/or drive. So far, so good. My understanding is that daisy-chaining causes the data to go through the chain and back to the computer before returning to be written to the drive. That's why I decoupled it.

I did find a workaround before this solution: Force Eject the external drive, then remount it in Disk Utility. While this works, it's obviousyl a hassle, though less so than a full reboot.

iMac MA877LL, Intel Core 2 Duo 20", 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, SL 10.6.8

Glad your decoupling the drive has worked scottmk. My Time machine drive is connected via a powered 800 firewire hub, but one of the tests I tried was to connect it directly to the computer as you've done. It still failed after a few days. I tried another cable too, but no joy. I also tried a USB connection, and it also failed. I am still waiting for a solution from Apple - they did a log capture to check what's happening and suggested a few things like renaming my computer, but no joy. While I'm waiting for a solution I now do what you suggest: manually "back up now", turn off TIme machine auto backups, eject the drive, and power it down. Then to back up again, turn the drive on etc. A pain and not what's supposed to happen, but at least it's sort of working.