Time Machine Causing Open Apps to Choke?

Question

Time Machine Causing Open Apps to Choke?

Have been using Time Machine for over a year with minimal problems. More recently, however, I'm noticing that often my open applications aren't responding and sometimes must force-quit them ... almost always Time Machine is doing its thing when this occurs.

If I see that TM is active, I sometimes will use the pulldown menu to stop the process. Even if it says, for example, "Backing up 260K of 8.6Mb" it takes at least 5 go 6 minutes for the backup process to cease. There have been times when I've walked away from the computer and returned 20 minutes later to see that it's still "stopping back up."

Also having more diffulty with accessing anything on my wireless network (mail, internet, printer) when TM is engaged in its backup.

All of this makes me wonder if I'm seeing corrupt files or faulty hardware ....

Any ideas?

Mac Pro Xeon 64-bit Workstation, Mac OS X (10.6.6), 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Posted on Jan 3, 2012 12:12 PM

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Answer 1

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Jan 3, 2012 12:22 PM in response to KatieOConnell

TM backup disk almost full? Or your OS disk almost full?

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Answer 2

Jan 3, 2012 12:28 PM in response to Lexiepex

No to both.

TM disk capacity is 2TB with 1.3TB available

OS disk capacity is 1TB with 785GB available

Thanks for seeing what could have been a simple solution. Almost wish that was it!

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Answer 3

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Jan 3, 2012 12:43 PM in response to KatieOConnell

Are there reasons that you did not update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8?

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Answer 4

Jan 3, 2012 12:51 PM in response to KatieOConnell

I did update it and am using 10.6.8.

Forgot to change that in my Apple profile. My bad.

Apple profile now correct.

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Answer 5

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Jan 3, 2012 12:57 PM in response to KatieOConnell

It may be that one of the disks is nearing its death.....

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Answer 6

Jan 3, 2012 1:04 PM in response to Lexiepex

Seriously?

There are no other indicators that something is amiss with the OS disk. In fact, I just ran Disk Doctor recently after booting up from my OS CD and there were no problems - save for some permissions - on my drive at all.

Time Machine is another thing. It's only about 1 year old, however.

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Answer 7

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Jan 3, 2012 1:22 PM in response to KatieOConnell

I did not say definitive ! There may be totally different cause, but this is one of the possible signs.

You could check in the Activity Monitor how much %CPU the TM uses.

Did you use DD to check on both disks (stop TM before)?

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Answer 8

Jan 3, 2012 2:03 PM in response to Lexiepex

Disk Doctor doesn't seem to recognize my Time Capsule as a mounted disk.

In fact, the disk usually shows up as an active networked item when Time Machine is doing its backup.

At other times, the disk shows up on the network via Finder. Just not via DD.

-------Added Information----

Time Machine just kicked in so I opened DD and the Time Capsule DOES now show up as a verifiable/repairable disk.

However - do I dare invoke that command when Time Machine is preparing its backup or actually performing its backup?

Message was edited by: Katie 'OConnell

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Answer 9

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jan 3, 2012 3:24 PM in response to KatieOConnell

Katie 'OConnell wrote:

. . .

I'm noticing that often my open applications aren't responding and sometimes must force-quit them ... almost always Time Machine is doing its thing when this occurs.

It's possible Time Machine is having a problem, but it's also possible there's something else going on that's causing everything to slow down.

If a backup won't cancel for a while, see #D6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

If the backups seem slow, try the things in the green box of #D2 there.

I'm not familiar with Disk Doctor, but Disk Utility should be fine to verify your internal HD. To Repair your backups, see #A5 in the above link. It's best to do that while connected via Ethernet cable if at all possible -- it will take a while either way, but 2-3 times faster than wirelessly. Turn TM OFF when you do that.

If that doesn't solve it, we'll have to look at other things.

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Answer 10

Jan 3, 2012 4:02 PM in response to Pondini

THANK you for this thorough and well-thought-out response.

I do run TM wirelessness as my Time Capsule is located on a different floor of my home than is my computer. I'll read through all of your Troubleshooting information and will likely find my solution there.

Thanks again!

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Answer 11

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jan 3, 2012 4:06 PM in response to KatieOConnell

Katie 'OConnell wrote:

. . .

I do run TM wirelessness as my Time Capsule is located on a different floor of my home than is my computer.

Ah, that may be part of the problem, but a marginal connection shouldn't bring your Mac to it's knees like that.

Keep us posted . . .

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Answer 12

Jan 11, 2012 1:05 PM in response to Pondini

So I took TM off of automatic backups via TM prefs but it apparently didn't "get the message" since it kept kicking in every hour.

Repaired prefs and rebooted the Time Capsule and it FINALLY stayed quiet.

I selected the "manual backup now" option this morning and it completely that flawlessly.

NOW it seems to think I want it to do automatic hourly backups again.

It's like the creature that won't die in a horror movie. What's up with this thing?

p.s. I took it off auto backups simply to see if it improved my system's performance. So far, YES!

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Answer 13

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jan 11, 2012 1:27 PM in response to KatieOConnell

Katie \'OConnell wrote:

. . .

NOW it seems to think I want it to do automatic hourly backups again.

It's like the creature that won't die in a horror movie. What's up with this thing?

You may have to do a "full reset", per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

p.s. I took it off auto backups simply to see if it improved my system's performance. So far, YES!

You shouldn't have to do that. Hourly backups shouldn't behave that way. It sounds like something else is wrong.

Have you ever used a 3rd-party app, or followed instructions to manually edit some "plists," to alter TM's default behavior? That might explain some of this.

If not, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate one of the backups in question, then copy and post all the messages here.

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Answer 14

Jan 11, 2012 6:28 PM in response to Pondini

Please forgive my ignorance, but I've download the widget and don't know how to use it. When I double-click on the thing, I get the message, "The Time Machine Buddgy widget is already installed. Would you like to replace it?"

I don't use widgets in general so I guess I'm just not understanding how widgets work.

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Answer 15

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jan 11, 2012 6:41 PM in response to KatieOConnell

If it's already installed, you don't need another copy.

See Mac 101: Dashboard for info on using the Dashboard and widgets.

Briefly, press the F4 key on your keyboard (or fn + F12) to open the Dashboard, containing your widgets (some are preinstalled, so there will be several).

Click the "target" icon at the lower left of your screen to see them. Find and click the Time Machine Buddy widget to display it.

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