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Level 1

117 points

mountain lion breaks time machine

I backed up, with Time Machine, to this drive, immediately before upgrading to Mountain Lion.

Since then: "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to 'FreeAgent GoFlex Drive'. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."

User uploaded file

Since then, this is all I get from Time Machine in the Console:

29/07/12 9:09:28.688 AM com.apple.backupd-helper[52824]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 10:09:58.736 AM com.apple.backupd-helper[53357]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 11:10:28.777 AM com.apple.backupd-helper[53728]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 11:23:56.801 AM com.apple.backupd-helper[53840]: Not starting Time Machine backup after wake - failed to resolve alias to backup volume.

29/07/12 12:10:58.837 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[54123]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 1:11:28.869 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[54548]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 2:11:58.910 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[54922]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 3:12:28.969 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[55263]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 4:13:27.472 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[55608]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 5:13:57.520 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[55935]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - time machine destination not resolvable.

29/07/12 5:42:49.376 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[56116]: Not starting scheduled Time Machine backup - computer is on battery power.

29/07/12 5:43:20.029 PM com.apple.backupd-helper[56117]: Not starting Time Machine backup after wake - failed to resolve alias to backup volume.

I don't want to lose all my temporal backup points.

I can copy files to and from this drive. The drive is active.

Anyone have any ideas? Any more logs I might post?

I've scheduled a call with Apple Support this morning so hopefully we'll get some good news. We shouldn't have to lose our old backups because we upraded to Lion, or should we?

Kirk

MacBook Pro (17-inch 2.4 GHz), Mac OS X (10.7.3), Lots of Gentoo Linux going on too.

Posted on Jul 29, 2012 4:27 PM

118 replies

splurben Author

Level 1

117 points

Jul 30, 2012 5:21 PM in response to softwater

The type is large because, for those who are coasting through these discussions looking for the solution, and as this is a discussion I started, I thought it would be prudent to indicate that a solution to this problem was found. At least for users of Firewire connected drives, which do respond to changes made to this setting.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 30, 2012 5:43 PM in response to splurben

splurben wrote:

This new problem has been solved without destroying previous backup data.

Nothing I recommended would have done that.

Reseting the TM info would not have helped to solve this problem

But it would probably have ruled out a corrupted preference file, which is a fairly frequent problem.

The whole point of Time Machine is that we should be able to keep native Time Machine access to all the temporal nodes on our backup devices.

Nobody suggested doing anything that would cause loss of access.

I am loathe to wipe out that access and am eager to help others solve issues with Time Machine without assuming we have to lose the full functionality of Time Machine.

Who suggested any such thing? Why do you keep going on about it?

g_pirtle

Level 1

45 points

Jul 30, 2012 5:40 PM in response to Pondini

I could not write to my Time Machine backup after Mt Lion upgrade. I had two instances of the same backup point in my list of "Select Disk". I selected the 2nd instance of the same disk (the one not in use) and it asked me if I wanted to use both of the backup disks or just the new one. I chose just the new one and Time Machine picked up right where it left off.

splurben Author

Level 1

117 points

Jul 30, 2012 5:51 PM in response to Pondini

This is a Seagate FreeAgent Firewire 800 External HD and it definitely responded to changing this setting. I also have a 'cheap-o' ($30) Welland USB External case, loaded with a 3.5" Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green Drive that has responded to this setting. That may not be many, but at least in my lucky case thats 2 of 2 or 100%.

(Welland external case is USB3 but I've only got USB2 on this laptop and it still responds to drive sleep commands, obviously there are thousands of vendors out there and it's impossible to say if they'll respond.)

I always prefer Firewire or Thunderbolt on Apple products for compatibility reasons, or course, USB cases would be cheaper. I'd be curious to know if anyone's had this problem with a Thunderbolt connected LaCie or Elgato drive.

I've seen many instances where TM resets trigger a new backup set to be created. I'd love to know, as you're clearly well acquainted with everything TM, how does one get TM to reconnect to a backup set once TM has decided to move on. The worst case is when a system has had a new mainboard and the MAC address changes.

splurben Author

Level 1

117 points

Jul 30, 2012 5:58 PM in response to Pondini

Pondini wrote:

Second, backups to a directly-connected drive should not be in a sparse bundle; those are used only for network backups. Do you really have a sparse bundle on the drive? If so, we'll need to examine it.

Pondini, you're right. I have a folder with a .backupdb extension on the Firewire and USB connected backup devices, not a sparseimage.

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 30, 2012 6:11 PM in response to splurben

splurben wrote:

. . .

I've seen many instances where TM resets trigger a new backup set to be created.

No, a reset alone won't do that. Neither will re-selecting the drive. Both are common fixes for various problems.

If a new backup starts after that, it's because something had already happened to cause it.

I'd love to know, as you're clearly well acquainted with everything TM, how does one get TM to reconnect to a backup set once TM has decided to move on. The worst case is when a system has had a new mainboard and the MAC address changes.

Depends on what version of OSX the Mac is running:

On Leopard, there's no help from TM, but a rather wonky workaround (I couldn't get it to work, but some others did). See #C8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

On Snow Leopard or later, when you do the first backup to the "new" Mac, TM should ask whether you want the new Mac to "reuse" (Snow Leopard) or "inherit" (Lion & Mountain Lion) the backups. See #B5 in the same link.

But sometimes it doesn't. If not, effective with Lion, you may be able to do it manually, per #B6 in the same link. As noted there, that may not work if the backups are on a network.

tfindlay

Level 1

6 points

Jul 31, 2012 12:44 PM in response to splurben

Thanks! Disabling that preference seems to have worked for me (after a restart)! 🙂

iknowdjz

Level 1

0 points

Jul 31, 2012 2:19 PM in response to splurben

Awesome Fix THANKS!

xser

Level 1

87 points

Jul 31, 2012 3:39 PM in response to splurben

I am having this problem with a Time Capsule (over Wifi and over Cat5). I am using a Late 2008 aluminum MacBook (with specs that meet ML requirements). I was backing up for months on Lion. Once I installed ML, I got the following error when trying to back up:

"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Mac Byrd (4).sparsebundle” is already in use."

None of the fixes posted here have worked. I'll be honest. I am a bit frustrated that this problem is the result of using all Apple products. If this were a beta version of ML or if the issue were with a Microsoft product, then I would understand, but a full-blown consumer release having issues with all Apple hardware and software is just plain silly.

Anyone want to restore my appreciation for Apple?

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 31, 2012 3:50 PM in response to xser

xser wrote:

I am having this problem with a Time Capsule (over Wifi and over Cat5). I am using a Late 2008 aluminum MacBook (with specs that meet ML requirements). I was backing up for months on Lion. Once I installed ML, I got the following error when trying to back up:

"The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Mac Byrd (4).sparsebundle” is already in use."

None of the fixes posted here have worked.

Probably because that's a different problem and a different message than in this thread.

See #C12 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Aug 4, 2012 7:10 AM in response to splurben

Thanks spurben! That fixed the problem for me. I did have to do a restart after disabling "put hard disks to sleep when possible" for the fix to take.

John

Aug 10, 2012 5:23 PM in response to splurben

This did not seem to fix the problem for me, is anyone else still having the problem?

Aug 18, 2012 5:03 AM in response to bradfordfrompainesville

I am trying the disabling of hard disk spin down to see if it fixes the problem for me. So far it appears that the backups work if I am logged in to a user account on the server but not if the user is logged out.

I will update what happens now I have changed the setting in Energy Settings.