Time machine cannot complete my backup

I have the same deal...'an error occurred while creating the backup folder'. The support article doesn't cover this particular 'event'; nor does Finder Help. Last time I asked here I was referred to the article or the contents thereof for troubleshooting, none of which works or applies. What I've been doing is either 'force eject' or shutdown and then turn off the external drive. The former doesn't sound too cool, considering the warning one gets about losing data, etc.

After shutting down the ext drive, waiting awhile before restarting, it works fine for a couple days then I get the error message again; inevitably. Hopefully, someone will have a solution this time.

Napone, I forgot to ask if you've tried any trouble shooting. I assume you had since I was directed to your discussion after reading the Apple Trouble Shooting article...at the bottom of the aritcle, something like 'more like this'.

If you haven't done any trouble shooting, click on Help, Time Machine. There's also some extensive stuff at:

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

My ext HD is connected via FW. How 'bout yours? Mine won't eject, I have to force it. Yours? Like I said, mine works fine for a couple days after I do get it restarted.

Napone, have you tried any troubleshooting yet?

FYI, I've tried the Pondini stuff before to no avail. Tried again yesterday...his Verify/Repair Disk and Full Reset. Still getting the error.

Actually, mine's worse now. Before, I could 'force eject', power down the ext HD, wait a couple hours or the next day...and it would do backups for a day or two. After the Full Reset, it hasn't backed up since; failed each time. BTW, I have to 'force eject' because it always responds that it's "in use".

I have the same issue and have no luck in getting 1 backup in. HELP

LaCie Rugged XL (the orange one) through USB connection. Time Machine giving error message "cannot create backup folder".

Thanks

RRMusic...have you tried the troubleshooting at pondini.org ...above link?

I'm back to "normal" now....I shutdown, then turn off the ext HD (it won't eject "because it's use"). After restart, I turn the ext HD on again. I've gone a couple days now without the error message. That's how it's been in the past...works for 2-3 days then the error re-occurs.

I am having the same problem. It will not complete a single backup, the external becomes read-only half way thru a back-up. I even went out and bought a new external HD, and the problem still occurs on the brand new HD. Hoping for some advice, thanks!

Failed again this morning. I checked my logs and one thing it showed was, "Error: (-50) Creating directory..." I saw this...

ssls6

one thing you can try

Open system prefs and go to spotlight, in the privacy section add your Macintosh HD and any other drives you back up. Give it a few seconds then remove your Macintosh HD and any other drives you added. Close system preferences. Watch the spotlight symbol on the top menu bar "looks like a magnifying glass". It should have a dot in it as in is indexing all your drives again. When the indexing is over (it can take a long time of your drive is big) now try to create a new backup with time machine...."

As usual, it's gonna take a couple days to see if it works. I'll let y'all know...and y'all should try it also, and let us know.

Does, "Error: (-50) Creating directory...", sound like a Spotlight deal?

The Spotlight fix seems to have done the trick. It's been about 4 days now.

(Watch it act up as soon as I post this...LOL)

As usual, backups worked for a few days. Failed again on wakeup this morning...

Starting standard backup

Backing up to: /Volumes/TM Backup/Backups.backupdb

Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/TM Backup/Backups.backupdb/David’s Mac Mini size:10

Error: (-50) Creating directory 2012-02-25-074454.inProgress

Failed to make snapshot container.

Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/TM Backup/Backups.backupdb/David's Mac Mini size:10

Backup failed with error: 2

I've searched Discussions and have seen the exact same error message reported by others, with all kinds of Macs and ext HDs, both USB and FW. Seems like the ext HD would have actually failed by now if it was a case of drive failure. Why does it work for a few days and then fail...after doing 'fixes'?

I'm having the same issue. It occurred the first time I tried a Time Machine backup after installing Lion. "An error occurred while creating the backup folder." Has anyone found a way around the problem?

I've had this provlem a number of times and I usually end up having to start ANOTHER Time machine database.

This time, after verifying both my built in HD and my external USB Time Machine HD were okay, I noted that the last entry in the Time Machine database was a file with the extention ".inProgress".

Assuming that an "inProgress" file was not a good thing when Time Machine was not running, I tried to delete it but even after changing the file priveledges, the system would not allow its removal.

Then I went into the Time Machine Preferences, added my macintosh HD to the exclusions and tried to run Backup Now. Time machine gave an error message that there was nothing to backup so I removed "Macintosh HD" from the exclusions and added "My Documents" and "DropBox" and ran Backup Now. It worked! I then removed the later two items from the exclusions and ran Backup Now again and it executed perfectly.

Weird, but it saved me from dumping yet ANOTHER Time Machine databse and starting over ...

I wouldn't assume an 'inProgress' file was a bad thing. Time machine is deisgned to do backups incremenatally - that file ought to indicate that the last backup was interrupted for one reason or another and will be resumed in the future when TM gets around to it. I'm not saying that this can't get goofed up and cause problems, but I doubt it's a problem in and of itself.

Ray...that's a lot of hoops. I continue to:

1. eject 2. force eject; ignore the dire warning 3. turn off ext drive; wait a few mins 4. turn ext drive on. It works/backs up for 2 or 3 days then fails. That's what I've been doing for months now.

I guess one could just turn off the ext drive and get the dreaded, "you could do damage and lose data...and your first born".