Please Help. Have not been able to back up with Time Machine since September.

See if pondini's section C helps at all...

http://Pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Turn TM off and try trashing this...

/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Rebecca Brown’s MacBook/2011-12-15-174517.inProgress

It seems you also have several Error: (-50) SrcErr problems, which as I recall are bad files 7 need trashing.

rebsblack wrote:

. . .

Jan 14 12:34:25 rebecca-browns-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[412]: Error: (-50) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e/.de0068.04a/.de0068.049/21359.emlx to (null)

Jan 14 12:34:25 rebecca-browns-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[412]: Error: (-50) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e/.de0068.04a/.de0068.049/22383.emlx to (null)

Jan 14 12:34:25 rebecca-browns-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[412]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e/.de0068.04a/.de0068.049/21359.emlx to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Rebecca Brown’s MacBook/2011-12-15-174517.inProgress/EE00711B-EF68-49B1-8D00-9C26E07FB145/Untit led 1/Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e/.de0068.04a/.de0068.049

It's having trouble with some of your email messages.

They're in a rather odd place: in a hidden folder inside a hidden folder inside a hidden folder in your Mail folder:

/Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e/.de0068.04a/.de0068.049

I've never seen anything like that. Do you have a 3rd-party app that's interacting with Apple Mail?

Start with just excluding the top folder in that path (/Users/Rebecca/Library/Mail/.de0068.04e from backups, per the blue box in #C3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. Once you get a good backup of everything else, then you can tryto figure out what's going on with those folders.

This is the first error 50 that I see in the list. Any ideas on where this is hiding?

You don't want to mess with that file, it's just the process that is coming back with the error.

I see Pondini is here now, so I think you're in good hands. 🙂

rebsblack wrote:

Where do I find the Time Machine file that you said to trash?

You probably don't need to do that.

Also, I'm trying to find the CoreServices file and it's not listed under Library. This is the first error 50 that I see in the list. Any ideas on where this is hiding?

That's part of the "path" to the UNIX file that's sending the message, not what it's having a problem with.

rebsblack wrote:

I don't have a 3rd party interacting - I don't think. I just have it set up to bring in my gmail.

Hmm. I don't use Gmail, so I guess it's possible that's how it works. Seems rather bizarre, though.

Any ideas on how to go about sorting out the mail issue?

Let's wait until we see if the backup runs ok. (It's possible something else is wrong.)

Give it a good long while.

The copying amounts and times are a bit misleading because of the previous failure. That left the ".inProgress" package of the stuff it had already copied, so on the next backup it doesn't have to copy all of that again.

But the copying messages only count what it actually copies, not what it "recovers" from the partial backup. Then it has more "cleaning up" to do in the finishing stage.

rebsblack wrote:

Backup was successful! THANK YOU!

Yay! 🙂

First: What do you think/suggest that I do about the hidden-hidden-hidden Mail folders?

Let's see what the messages in question are.

What you need to do is "navigate" to one or more of the files in question (since neither Spotlight nor a Finder Search will find them).

If you're not sure how to do that, see #A7 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Once you get to one of the emails in question (such as the 21359.emlx file), just double-click it -- that will open it in Mail. See if it/they are really emails, where they're from, etc -- ie, anything you need. Also look at the dates, and how many other files are in that folder (there may be more that are a problem -- Time Machine gave up after 3, so we don't know yet). If it's all old or unnecessary, you may just want to delete it.

The error from the install disk - disk utility - repair disk mode reads:

Checking HFS plus volume

checking estent overflow file

invalid sibling link

volume check fails

error - The underlying task reported failure on exit

That means there's a serious error in the file system on your internal HD (the part that keeps track of where everything is). It's possible that's involved with the problems Time Machine found.

Try to Repair it per #6 in Using Disk Utility. Since it's your startup drive, you'll have to start up from a different source, per the yellow box there.

I don't remember for sure, but I think the invalid sibling link may be one that Disk Utility cannot fix. If it can't, see the pink box in that same article. If not, do you have (or can you borrow) another external HD?

invalid sibling link

You do not want to use the computer until you repair those errors, it'll only get worse.

You must repair the HD, if Disk Utility or fsck should fail to repair it, your best bet is DiskWarrior from Alsoft, you'll need the CD to boot from if you don't have another boot drive...

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

Your best bet is DiskWarrior, you need the CD/DVD though.

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

But others that may work…

Drive Genius…

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius.php

TechTool Pro…

http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=83