Q: mountain lion breaks time machine

R. Fred Little wrote:

. . .

When I click +Backup Now+ from the TM menu bar, it immediately displays the fail dialog pop-up.

What message does it show?  There are a bunch of possibilites.  See section C in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

But why would the two +Backup Now+ options work any differently?

Possibly something corrupted in the preferences file.  Try a "full reset" of Time Machine per #A4 in the above link.

The error message is "the backup disk is unavailable"...

I'll try the full reset tonight -

Thanks!!

I have been suffering general unreliability of TimeMachine backing up to my network drive, an iomega IX2-200 NAS drive, for 18 months or more. This started with Lion and has continued with Mountain Lion. What is odd is that nothing seems to work for a week or so and then it starts working and works for several months then something causes it to stop working again.

I have tried all sorts of fixes, some of which have no effect and some which seem to get it going againfor a few monthsonly for something to disrupt it all again. There doesn't seem to be any common factor causing these problems. Recently, I discovered Pondini's website which had a lot of useful suggestions - which I worked through over about a week. Unfortunately, none worked.

Then, by accident, I discovered an Apple Support document.
 
It seems that with Lion and on to Mountain Lion, Apple decided that some of the AFP protocols were not secure and so, as a default, blocked some versions of AFP. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4700 explains and, much more importantly, how, through Terminal, the preferences determining which AFP protocols are allowed can be changed.

Having reset the preferences as described in this Apple Support document, TimeMachine managed a full back up, on the 2nd attempt, I admit but finally, after 2 frustrating weeks, it worked.
 
It would have been a great help if Apple had included some sort of warning dialogue when TimeMachine failed ...
 
And, I suspect that iomega are and were aware of the problem but solving it would mean a major rewrite of the firmware which it seems they aren't prepared to do. It's going to make me think  carefully before buying anything from iomega again.

larry666 wrote:

. . .

It would have been a great help if Apple had included some sort of warning dialogue when TimeMachine failed ...

Agreed, assuming it's possible for TM to know that's the problem (a number of things can cause the same or similar messages).  And in a different circumstance, it does just that -- it sends one of the messages detailed in #C16 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. 

By all means, report your experience and request such a change via http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

And, I suspect that iomega are and were aware of the problem

Yes, several years ago, Apple warned developers that the old methods had security vulnerabilities, and were "deprecated" (meaning, they still work, but will be removed at some time in the future). 

Worse, the first beta version of Lion was released to developers and other testers in February of 2011, and testers quickly found that most NASs no longer worked.  But 5 months later, when Lion was released, few if any NAS makers had updates ready.  It's unfortunate that Apple didn't warn users, but the info was available to developers for a very long time.

I have a number of what I think are related problems. First my USB 3  3TB La Cie TM external drive was spontaneously unmounting. Not putting drives to sleep cured that problem. However it did not solve two other problems. The first is that the Mac Pro won't see the drive at all 70% of the time. Following a suggestion elsewhere on the forum, rapidly unplugging and replugging the USB lead sometimes tricks the system into recognizing the drive. I did a full TM back-up before upgrading from Lion to  ML 10.8.2. Immediately after the upgrade I did another back-up. It takes about 1.8TB of the 3 TB. So far so good. However now it wants to do a 640GB back-up - nothing much has changed. About 80% through that it says it now needs 900GB. Then it says the disk is "unexpectedly full" (see other threads on this). I then do another back-up and it says it needs 6.7GB and there is 9.1 GB free, but soon the disk is again "unexpectedly full". Previous/oldest back-ups are at "None". I have done a full TM reset following your helpful instructions, but the exclusions still remain which suggests the reset didn't work. Certainly the problem was not solved. I noticed that there was an adjacent file [0KB] com.apple.Time Machine.plist.lockfile.  Should that be deleted as well?

rhjph wrote:

. . .

The first is that the Mac Pro won't see the drive at all 70% of the time.

That sounds like a hardware problem -- drive, cable, or the card/port in your Mac.  And might explain some of the other behavior.  Do you have a different (non USB 3) drive you can try, to see which, if any, of the problems persist?

Then it says the disk is "unexpectedly full" (see other threads on this).

See #C18 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. 

Previous/oldest back-ups are at "None".

That's just "cosmetic" -- the Preferences panel not being updated.  See #B3 in the same link.

I have done a full TM reset following your helpful instructions, but the exclusions still remain which suggests the reset didn't work.

Which exclusions?  If you mean external drives, that's the default.  When the preferences file is deleted, and OSX creates a new one, all connected externals will be put on the list automatically.

If other exclusions remain, it sounds like either System Preferences was still open, or a backup was still running (or trying to run).  Try it again, but Restart your Mac afterwards.

I noticed that there was an adjacent file [0KB] com.apple.Time Machine.plist.lockfile.  Should that be deleted as well?

Those are left over from Lion (you'll see them with any preference file that existed on Lion) -- they're no longer used, and can safely be deleted.

Thanks Pondini. I'll try all your suggestions again, but meantime:

1.     I turned Time Machine off as instructed before doing the reset. No back-up was sheduled at the time. I did reboot after deleting the preference file. The exclusions (not external drives) were the various folders I had in place before the re-set.

2. The Widget buddy shews a successful back-up yesterday and then a series of errors immediately after the upgrade, with repeated massive copying. One thing happened on upgrade - about 30% of my folders became inaccessible because the data disks (RAID mirrored pair) could not find the user (me) (status was jammed at "fetching"). Mac HD (system drive) folders were fine. I had to change the  permissions manually. However it is possibe that Time Machine came up against permissions problems, or the problems that caused the permissions issue also caused other errors??

3. Widget Buddy suggests that all previous backups prior to yesterday were deleted.

4.     As indicated, there was plenty of space on the back-up disk and the only change between backups was the upgrade to ML so how the disk came suddenly to be full was indeed unexpected.

5. The LaCie USB3  PCIe card has the latest September 2012 drivers installed, though others are reporting problems before and after that upgrade especially with ML.  Will try an eSATA disk.

Have now got an eSATA TM LaCie  2 TB drive attached. TM did a deep scan and noted that "Ownership is disabled in the backup destination volume. Enabling" and that the "Event Store UUIDs don't match for [all backed-up] volume[s]". It requires 908GB to back up, with 329 GB available. It says there is no previous back-up while it is backing up, though the last back-up on the disk is dated June. There is certainly not 908GB of new or changed material since June.  Should I stop it? If so, how?

rhjph wrote:

 

Thanks Pondini. I'll try all your suggestions again, but meantime:

 

1.     I turned Time Machine off as instructed before doing the reset. No back-up was sheduled at the time. I did reboot after deleting the preference file. The exclusions (not external drives) were the various folders I had in place before the re-set.

That's rather unusual.  The backupd process may still have been running, and re-filled the preferences file.  A Restart should prevent that.

status was jammed at "fetching").

I'm not a permissions guru, but as I understand it, that's a difference in the default "group" permissions from an earlier version of OSX.  The older group no longer exists, so it displays "fetching" instead.  That has no impact normally;  it doesn't see reasonable that a RAID drive would be any different, but anything's possible.

3. Widget Buddy suggests that all previous backups prior to yesterday were deleted.

That can happen if repeated backups are very large, and the backup disk fills up.  The messages should document every deletion, and the space needed and available.

4.     As indicated, there was plenty of space on the back-up disk and the only change between backups was the upgrade to ML so how the disk came suddenly to be full was indeed unexpected.

A few folks have posted that the first backup after upgrading was very large or full, but I don't recall seeing many (if any) where subsequent backups were also extremely large. 

I begin to wonder if something went wrong with the upgrade.  That's pretty rare, but does happen.  If you have the time and bandwidth, you might consider downloading and installing a fresh copy of OSX.

5. The LaCie USB3  PCIe card has the latest September 2012 drivers installed, though others are reporting problems before and after that upgrade especially with ML.  Will try an eSATA disk.

Good.  That should rule the USB 3 disk & channel in or out.

Have now got an eSATA TM LaCie  2 TB drive attached. TM did a deep scan and noted that "Ownership is disabled in the backup destination volume. Enabling"

That would be normal for an empty volume (when you format or erase a disk, ownership is disabled by default).

and that the "Event Store UUIDs don't match for [all backed-up] volume[s]".

That would be normal for an empty volume, or after a very large volume of changes (such as an OSX update), or a very long time. 

It requires 908GB to back up, with 329 GB available. It says there is no previous back-up while it is backing up, though the last back-up on the disk is dated June.

Is 908 GB roughly the total of all the drives TM is backing-up?  It sounds like the old backups are simply not recognized. 

There is certainly not 908GB of new or changed material since June.  Should I stop it? If so, how?

I'm not clear -- did the backup fail for lack of space, or is TM deleting old backups trying to make room?

If the latter, just cancel the backup, either from the Time Machine icon in your menubar, or the Preferences panel.  That may take a while;  you can also force-quit the backupd process via Activity Monitor (see #D6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting if you don't know how to do that).

Let's regroup a bit:

How many drives is TM backing-up, and roughly how much data is on each one?

Do you have an empty drive you can use (or one you can erase)?

I do very much appreciate your help in this. Thank you.

The situation is that I have the Mac HD system drive (1 TB -  155 GB used) and a 2 x 2TB mirrored RAID pair as my data disk (1.85 TB of 2 TB used). I use a LaCie 3 TB USB 3 HDD to back up the lot in TM. I also use a 2 TB LaCie USB3 disk to back up (TM) the Mac HD plus my video files (155 + 967 GB). Thirdly I have a Lacie eSATA drive to back up (TM) the system drive plus my non-video files (155 +487 GB). This third drive is the one that is presently running and had a complete back-up of around 642 GB already on it when I started it this evening. I only ever have one connected at a time. I notice since ML that the drive icon usually (but not invariably) fails to change from yellow to green once it is selected and back-up starts. As you can imagine I am now getting pretty scared that my whole business is going to get corrupted. I don't have any empty drives and dare not sacrifice anything I have with back-ups on.

PS I've stopped the back-up in the usual way from the task-bar, and it did so readily.

rhjph wrote:

. . .

I use a LaCie 3 TB USB 3 HDD to back up the lot in TM. I also use a 2 TB LaCie USB3 disk to back up (TM) the Mac HD plus my video files (155 + 967 GB). Thirdly I have a Lacie eSATA drive to back up (TM) the system drive plus my non-video files (155 +487 GB).

That's a fairly unusual setup, so let me explore it a bit.

You seem to have the RAID/data disk divided into video and other;  are those separate partitions, or separate folders in a single partition?

Are you going into TM Preferences each time you switch destinations and changing the exclusions, or have you written an AppleScript or the like using the tmutil command to do that?

Have you considered different options for these different backups?

From your earlier post:

 

It requires 908GB to back up, with 329 GB available. It says there is no previous back-up while it is backing up, though the last back-up on the disk is dated June.

And from the current one:

 

Thirdly I have a Lacie eSATA drive to back up (TM) the system drive plus my non-video files (155 +487 GB).

If I haven't lost the trail, these refer to the same drive, right?  If so, needing 908 GB when there's only about 642 in total doesn't make sense.    The widget messages should show the amount TM is trying to back up from each volume, and the total required (after it adds at least 20%).  Please use the widget to locate that backup attempt, and copy and post them here -- maybe we can make sense of them.

It still sounds like directory problems might be at the root of this -- have you verified your internal HD, and repaired the RAID/data drive?

I notice since ML that the drive icon usually (but not invariably) fails to change from yellow to green once it is selected and back-up starts.

Some folks have noticed that, too.  In most cases, it doesn't seem to indicate an actual problem.

As you can imagine I am now getting pretty scared that my whole business is going to get corrupted.

Yup. 

I don't have any empty drives and dare not sacrifice anything I have with back-ups on.

Rats.  That would simplify sorting this out.

Sorry - had to get some sleep.  The back-up regime is historical. Originally I had the two 2TB LaCie drives running TM, one connected, the other in the safe, alternated weekly. When the back-ups got too large, I added the 3 TB drive as the main TM back-up and then did additional TM back-ups using the old disks, backing up video folders to one disk and all my other folders to the second (plus in each case the system drive). I just set the exclusions appropriately depending on what was being backed up. (The working/editing video files are on a 12TB RAID 5 array, but this is turned off unless I am doing editing). If you have a better suggestion I should welcome it. I am waiting for LTO6, which I hope will make life a bit safer.

I have now ordered a 4TB drive and will just copy everything to that (not using TM). Once that's in the safe, I can play with one of the other disks, reformat it etc to troubleshoot TM.

I verified all my disks yesterday and they were fine, including the TM disk.

Here are the Widget messages for the eSATA 2 TB drive ("Horsa") last night up until the time I stopped it.  The preferences window said that about 170GB had been copied then (which squares with the message) :

Starting manual backup

Backing up to: /Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb

Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume.  Enabling.

Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Mac Files

Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Finished scan

Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac Files reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Finished scan

Found 686370 files (756.23 GB) needing backup

908.02 GB required (including padding), 328.92 GB available

Deleted backup /Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-09-27-223629.inProgress/2237722F-C8DA-4AD5-B9A1-F03AB0CEC791 containing 1.12 TB; 1.45 TB now available, 908.02 GB required

Deleted 1 backups containing 1.12 TB total; 1.45 TB now available, 908.02 GB required

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d02bbd0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Add Color Profile.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Add Color Profile.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35d02b220 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d503340 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Enable or Disable Tracks.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Enable or Disable Tracks.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35d02f650 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35cf5e8f0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Encode Media.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Encode Media.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35cf5d720 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d501330 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Hint Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Hint Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd368411dd0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d403e60 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Audio Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Audio Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35cdbf1f0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d4098e0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Audio Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Audio Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35cdd4f70 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35a482bb0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Screen Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Screen Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35cd0af00 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d406d30 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Screen Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Screen Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35cd5af80 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ca22310 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Video Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Video Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35ca208c0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ca27d70 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Video Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/New Video Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35bdf4260 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ce8a8a0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Pause Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Pause Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35ce9f990 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ce95600 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Pause Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Pause Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35ce73f70 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d629520 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Play Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Play Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35d6296c0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d042f50 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Play Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Play Movies.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd368411770 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d044230 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Resume Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Resume Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35d046b20 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35d044650 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Resume Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Resume Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35d043850 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ce8e4d0 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Start Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Start Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35ce7ef80 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ca3a620 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Stop Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Stop Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/keyedobjects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35af271a0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “objects.nib” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo=0x7fd35ca3a900 {NSURL=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Stop Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSFilePath=/Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-06-13-193538/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Automator/Stop Capture.action/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/main.nib/objects.nib, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd35ca3ab90 "The operation couldn’t be completed. Not a directory"}

CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary on line 1. Parsing will be abandoned. Break on _CFPropertyListMissingSemicolon to debug.

Copied 478924 files (57.06 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.

Copied 170.33 GB of 756.23 GB, 496481 of 686370 items

Cancellation timed out - exiting

rhjph wrote:

. . .

I just set the exclusions appropriately depending on what was being backed up.

. . .

If you have a better suggestion I should welcome it.

Just a thought -- it might be a bit safer and easier to use a different app for some backups.  Besides the hardware redundancy you already have, that protects you against problems with either app.  It's probably not something you want to change now, but take a look at Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for some general info. 

And/or, with the new tmutil UNIX command introduced with Lion, it's possible to write scripts to change the destination and/or exclusions, etc., so you don't have to do that manually, where mistakes are fairly easy.  But I wouldn't recommend it unless you're comfy with UNIX and Terminal. 

I verified all my disks yesterday and they were fine, including the TM disk.

I hate to say it, but I was hoping you'd find something wrong there -- an easy fix!

Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume.  Enabling.

That's quite odd for a volume with TM backups already on it.  The Finder won't let you disable ownership on a TM volume, and the only way to do it with Disk Utility is by erasing/reformatting.  It's probably doable via a UNIX command, but it's not something we see unless there's serious corruption on the drive.

Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Mac Files

Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Finished scan

Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac Files reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Finished scan

Normal under many circumstances, especially on the OSX drive if it's been a long time since a backup, or something like an OSX upgrade has been done;  or an improper shutdown, where the "trail" of file system changes is compromised, etc.  

Found 686370 files (756.23 GB) needing backup

I'd forgotten that it doesn't specify the amount for each volume when it does a deep scan.     But see below.

Deleted backup /Volumes/Horsa  Even TimeMachine BackUp/Backups.backupdb/Richard’s Mac Pro/2012-09-27-223629.inProgress/2237722F-C8DA-4AD5-B9A1-F03AB0CEC791 containing 1.12 TB; 1.45 TB now available, 908.02 GB required

That's interesting.  The backup it deleted was the leftover from a failed or cancelled one from Sept 27 (with ".inProgress" in the name).

Since it contained 1.12 TB, it probably wasn't the only one that failed -- there were probably previous failed backup leftovers in the ".inProgress" package, too.

Error (256): fetching properties: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “keyedobjects.nib” couldn’t be opened." . . .

. . .

TM on Mountain Lion sends a lot of these for no good reason (it's trying to treat a file like a folder).  But it is an indication that it was backing-up most or all of your system files (most of the messages are for language files that don't change, so they're normally seen only on an initial backup).

Copied 478924 files (57.06 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.

That's interesting, too.  First, it means TM was going to back up about 700 GB from the Mac Files volume.

Second, apparently your system files were all or mostly backed-up (per the bogus messages above), but not your Applications library (no such messages for apps);  plus a lot of other things, but not the entire volume.

Had you excluded System folders from being backed-up (to that drive) on a previous backup (probably before the failed/cancelled Sept 27 one)?  That might explain why TM found so much needing to be backed-up this time (if the previous successful backup didn't contain them, the deep scan would tell TM to back them up again). 

It's far from clear what's going on here -- it may be a combination of things. 

Just guessing, but a couple of things look like some of the exclusions may not have been removed/added properly, so some of the backups contained the wrong things. 

I have now ordered a 4TB drive and will just copy everything to that (not using TM). Once that's in the safe, I can play with one of the other disks, reformat it etc to troubleshoot TM.

Excellent plan.   That will also give you some flexibility if you decide to do some regular backups with another app.

Keep us posted . . .

I thought I was going to be able to report that everything was safely Super Dupered to my new 4TB drive this evening. However having waited 5 hours to back up 1.8TB on to the drive I then asked it to back up my (small) system drive. With no coherent warning it simply deletes the whole of the data back-up and replaces it with the system drive back-up. So apparently, unlike Time Machine, you can only back up one drive. How 'smart' is that? Is Carbon Copy any more intelligent?