Time machine Error ( Hung on Preparing)

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Level 1

11 points

Time machine Error ( Hung on Preparing)

MBP on Lion receiving TIme Machine error as determined by reading the console log: MTM fs Mount server failed to start because of error -1.. Spent hours investigating.. I restarted Time Capsule.no change.. My wife's MBP which shares the time capsule does not back up due to 0 MB space...does not delete the older backups for some reason.

Read multiple Pondini suggestions...This seemed to start after Time Capsule firmware was updated... my last successful bakup was Mar 5 which seems to be close to when the firmware was updated..

Is my only choice is to erase all data on the Time Capsule and start backups over with both MBPs??

Thanks for any suggestions..

Tony Liguori

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 14, 2012 9:52 PM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 15, 2012 5:56 PM in response to tonal

tonal wrote:

MBP on Lion receiving TIme Machine error as determined by reading the console log: MTM fs Mount server failed to start because of error -1.

That message concerns Local Snapshots, not regular Time Machine backups.

My wife's MBP which shares the time capsule does not back up due to 0 MB space...does not delete the older backups for some reason.

Most likely, Time Machine has already deleted all but the last backup of that Mac, but still doesn't have room for a new one (it won't delete backups from a different Mac).

Is my only choice is to erase all data on the Time Capsule and start backups over with both MBPs??

That may end up being the easiest, especially if one Mac's backups have "hogged" the TC's space, and/or it just isn't large enough.

How much data is on each Mac?

How large is your TC?

Is anything besides the backups of these 2 Macs on your TC? If so, how much?

What message are you getting from your backups? See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

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Answer 2

tonal Author

Level 1

11 points

Mar 15, 2012 6:24 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks for your reply... I had read the C2 from your excellent trouble shooting guide... in fact I read just about every section A,B,C,D...nothing seemed to match the symptoms..I had read in a forum that the latest firmware of TC was causing problems and the upgrade seemed to coincide with my TM issue.

I have a 500gb Time Capsule...one Mac is 181gb the other 90gb, that was it... My MBP did not get any error msgs...The TC only hung on 'preparing', never started backing up....it stayed that way for many hours... That is why I downloaded the console widget to see what was going on in the background...the msg that kept repeating was the :

MTM fs Mount server failed to start because of error -1 (console msg...it went on repeatedly.)

So what I did: (again before your note back to me)

- Renamed the Time Capsule to less than 25 characters (as per one of the suggestions in your guide)

- Regressed the microcode level of the time capsule.

- Erased the entire data disk of the TC

- Used TM to backup both Macs...

- All is well now..

Thanks for our time and your reply...

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Answer 3

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 15, 2012 6:45 PM in response to tonal

tonal wrote:

. . .

I had read in a forum that the latest firmware of TC was causing problems and the upgrade seemed to coincide with my TM issue.

For a few folks, yes. Seems nearly random who's affected vs. who isn't. 😕

I have a 500gb Time Capsule...one Mac is 181gb the other 90gb

Ah, should be plenty of space!

Very strange. Glad it's sorted out, though, and thanks for the feedback.

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