time machine wake up unwanted

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Level 1

9 points

time machine wake up unwanted

Looking at my console log I see that my computer is being woken up repeatedly by Time Machine.

Since I don't backup every hour this seems to be a wasteful interruption to Sleep Mode, and effectively disables it; not something I want. The console message I see is "Not starting Time Machine backup after wake"

Is there a parm that I can set somewhere to prevent this? I have "Don't wake for network access" set but that seems to affect incoming rather than internally

produced actions.

Thanks,

Bart

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 26, 2012 12:37 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,667 points

May 26, 2012 1:33 PM in response to Bart in VA

If you don't want automatic backups, turn off Time Machine in its preference pane. You'll have to initiate backups either from there or from the menu item.

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Answer 2

Bart in VA Author

Level 1

9 points

May 26, 2012 2:29 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you. I was thinking of a parm like "Don't wake for Time Machine" but can imagine there could be downsides to that.

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Answer 3

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

May 26, 2012 8:38 PM in response to Bart in VA

Time Machine won't wake up a Mac, unless another Mac is backing-up to a shared drive on it via your network, and the Wake for network access box is checked in System Preferences > Energy Saver.

Something else has awakened your Mac. The message you're getting is saying that Time Machine did not start a backup after your Mac woke up (because a backup had been done less than an hour before).

You may be able to tell what woke your Mac from the log messages. Type wake reason into the String Matching box. I don't know all the codes, but if it starts OHC, that's USB/Bluetooth. If it's RTC (Alarm), it's scheduled via Energy Saver.

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Answer 4

Bart in VA Author

Level 1

9 points

May 27, 2012 5:11 AM in response to Pondini

Thanks for the reply, Pondini.

My message is "Not starting Time Machine after wake" becaues it could not find my off-line HD.

My concern is that because I do not backup each hour or even each day, I do not want Time Machine waking up my computer from Sleep mode every hour - It apparently negates what to me is a useful energy saver (Sleep).

I see nothing else in my console messages concerning these hourly wake-ups. These messages come every hour and no other messages are close to them time-wise when I am not active on-line.

You are correct that a backup was not started, because my HD is unplugged. I rely on the default 10 Time Machine warning to schedule my backups.

The message above contains the words "after wake" which says to me my computer is waking up from Sleep mode. If so, I would like to stop it. Last evening I did disable Time Machine and will mentally schedule weekly backups.

Since I am a relatively new Mac user could I be misinterpreting the words "after wake"?

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

May 27, 2012 7:19 AM in response to Bart in VA

Bart in VA wrote:

. . .

My concern is that because I do not backup each hour or even each day, I do not want Time Machine waking up my computer from Sleep mode every hour - It apparently negates what to me is a useful energy saver (Sleep).

Time Madhine is not waking your Mac. It doesn't do that. Something else is causing the wake up.

The message you're seeing is Time Machine's reaction to having been awakened -- it wanted to do a backup.

Check your logs for the "wake" message, per my previous post. That should give you a clue, at least.

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Answer 6

Bart in VA Author

Level 1

9 points

May 27, 2012 10:24 AM in response to Pondini

When I type in Wake in the Console search it returns this message:

Not starting Time Machine backup after wake -

failed to resolve alias to backup volume.

These msgs show up only two or three times a day

When I type in Time in the Console search it returns this message:

Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup -

Time Machine destination not resolvable.

These msgs show up hourly

When I type in Wake Reason in the Console search box it returns nothing

When I type in Wake Reason in the All Msgs box it returns the following only in the time (today) since I turned off Time Macine late yesterday.

date = today Sender = kernel Wake Reason = EHC2

There were two of these msgs pertaining to early this morning and the time some minutes ago when I woke it up for the second time today.

It looks like you are correct. The first msg with Wake in it is associated with me waking the computer and it going off unsuccessfully to try a TM backup.

If after seeing these msgs you agree that you are correct 🙂 then I will go away happy (solved).

Bart

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Answer 7

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

May 27, 2012 10:43 AM in response to Bart in VA

Bart in VA wrote:

. . .

When I type in Wake Reason in the All Msgs box it returns the following only in the time (today) since I turned off Time Macine late yesterday.

date = today Sender = kernel Wake Reason = EHC2

There were two of these msgs pertaining to early this morning and the time some minutes ago when I woke it up for the second time today.

I take it there are no "Wake Reason" messages corresponding to the time the "Not starting Time Machine backup after wake" messages are sent?

That's odd -- as I understand it, whatever causes a wake event should be logged. Mine are all either me waking it via the mouse, or scheduled via System Prefs > Energy Saver. And they all correspond to Sleep messages.

You might be able to get a clue by looking at your system.log via Console, without a filter, for the period before the "Not starting Time Machine" message. There may be a clue about what caused the wake event.

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Answer 8

Bart in VA Author

Level 1

9 points

May 27, 2012 2:27 PM in response to Pondini

What I am saying is that after separating out the messages as listed in my previous post, I see that the Wake msgs only come up when I have woken the machine from sleep. When I first looked at the console without a search string I wrongly assumed that Time Machine was waking it up every hour when in fact it was just saying it could not find the backup drive, that drive not being attached.

And, no, there are no "Wake Reason" messages on the Console after the "Not starting Time Machine backup after wake" messages. The only "Wake Reason" messages are associated with me waking via the mouse.

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