time machine slow in 10.7.5

Has onyone experienced some difficulties with this issue with 10.8 too? I have a Mac Pro with 10.7.5 with the issue with a slow Time Machine, but my MacBook Pro with 10.8.2 is also very slow. I have shut down spotlight on this machine, too...

Yes I have seen some threads about the same issue on 10.8.2

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4313832?start=0&tstart=0

I presume that when Apple comes with a fix on this issue (as I understand with 10.7.5 and 10.8) we have to enable spotlight before appending the MacOS X update...

What folder did you delete on the backup drive to improve Time Machine speed? Was it the .inprogress one, or whatever it's called?

I disabled Spotlight and started a Time Machine backup, like a number of people suggested. It looked OK to start with, but now it's slowed right down. After running for almost 3 hrs it had backed up 1.07 gb of 10.5 gb. That didn't seem like reasonable performance to me, so I cancelled that backup too. This is really getting past a joke.

"I believe once the restore is completed TM will have post-10.7.5 files still accessible."

I'm afraid I can attest that this is not the case. None of your post-10.7.5 files will be there if you restore from a TM backup made under 10.7.4.

This episode has made me aware how reliant I'd become on Spotlight.

I am back in business now following the same problem everyone else had. I 'downgraded' to 10.7.4, by which I mean: Immediately prior to the update to 10.7.5 I had created a full TIme Machine backup. I restored my system just now via Recovery HD to that backup and everything is just as it was. Prior to doing this I had used 3rd party s'ware (ChronoSync) to back up documents created since September 21st (day of 10.7.5 install).

I had contacted Apple Support on Saturday and their suggestions were to

1. Do as I have just done.

2. Reinstall 10.7.5 (was never going to even try this given how nearly all other submitters to this thread report this as not solving the issue)

3. Upgrade to ML (no need to for me)

The Terminal-level Spotlight Disable/Re-enable command worked for me too, of course, but this was only disconcerting as I am very unsure of the integrity of any of theTM backups created without Spotlight. Like several others, I was concerned at how the total size to be backed up somehow differed substantially between the pre-disabled and disabled backup estimation (total size was way lower without Spotlight)

I have submitted two feedbacks on the Apple site.

An Apple convertee of some two years, I have pause for the first time now to think twice before unquestioningly installing a Mac OSX update.

Media coverage on this is increasing. In addition to the LA Times feature and the Swedish Mac newspaper mentioned in other comments, I see it's also reported now on the German tech entertainment website Giga (http://www.giga.de/downloads/mac-os-x-10-7-lion/news/os-x-lion-10-7-5-kampft-mit -langsamen-time-machine-backups/).

Same here with a 2006 MacBook Pro with 10.7.5. I get currently 100MB backed up to Time Machine per hour!

I had it run for 7 hours and ~700MB were backed up, after turning off Spotlight I let it run over night, but still: 1.4GB backed up during ~ 14 hrs.

On the contrary, it looks like for me post-10.7.5 files WERE accessible from Time Machine after the TM restore to 10.7.4--they weren't on the HD anymore, but could be restored from TM. (I restored them from a separate backup, though, just in case.)

JackPot62 wrote:

Thank you FatMac.

The reason why I used 10.6.8 is simple. I have

no 10.7.4. My seocnd Mac is still on 10.6.8.

FWIW, the installers aren't available but the updaters are. The 10.6.8 and 10.7.4 combo updaters are on Apple's Support website. Pacifist can be used to open them, locate the Spotlight files which will be installed in the System/Library/Spotlight folder and install just them. I haven't tried that for this problem because I'm still at 10.7.4 but I have done such selective installs using Pacifist in the past and they've worked. As with most of these suggested solutions, make a clone first because YMMV.

BeverleyBB wrote:

"I believe once the restore is completed TM will have post-10.7.5 files still accessible."

I'm afraid I can attest that this is not the case. None of your post-10.7.5 files will be there if you restore from a TM backup made under 10.7.4.

Hi Beverley

An apparent misunderstanding requires explanation. If you restore from the TM backup, of course none of your post-update files will then be present. This is to be expected.

What you need to do is this: after restoring from the backup and restarting your Mac, select your TM icon in the menu, and select "Enter Time Machine". Locate the files or folders you modified subsequent to the restore, and select "Restore". The files you need will be restored, leaving your OS X 10.7.4 installation otherwise untouched. You will lose nothing.

You can still do this, even after upgrading to Mountain Lion, provided that your last complete OS X 10.7.4 TM backup exists.

From what others have reported, this workaround seems to be what Apple is suggesting for the time being.

John Galt wrote:

...What you need to do is this: after restoring from the backup and restarting your Mac, select your TM icon in the menu, and select "Enter Time Machine". Locate the files or folders you modified subsequent to the restore, and select "Restore". The files you need will be restored, leaving your OS X 10.7.4 installation otherwise untouched. You will lose nothing...

A question: since a lot of what makes a Mac "current" is stored in the User Library (e.g., if you use Thunderbird for mail, your profile with all your mail is in /UserName/Library/Thunderbird, and a lot of personal settings are in /UserName/Library/Application Support), is it possible to restore the latest state of an entire User directory, including the User/Library, rather than just files piecemeal?

That's right man… but… if my computer doesn't

working properly, I get nervous. I've had not the

patience to search DVDs and download Pacifist.

I'am like a stupid pitbull – not able to let go and

solve it in a quite state of mind.

😀

I took a stick and tried to solve the problem. Bite

it down. Roarrrr

After all the machine is still running well. More

or less…

And by the way: I could'nt go back to 7.4 cause

I bought a new harddisk on Friday! Uncle Murphy

said I should do it. My TM-BUp was gone – thanks

to O'Murphys advice.

JackPot62 wrote:

...After all the machine is still running well. More or less…

Well, if it works, more or less, leave it alone until an official fix is released and then wait to see if the complaints flow if the fix isn't before you use it yourself.

Wow - my TM says 14,894,686 days for backup. That means in nearly 41,000 years it will be finished! Amazing speed...

Good catch. I just looked at Spotlight and it is indeed indexing. Just six days to go "tho!

Ha. I just gave feedback as I am in the same boat. Incredibly slow backups under 10.7.5. The reply to my feedback under Time Machine was mislabeled as saying: "Thank you for your feedback on Time Capsule". I went back to make sure I hadn't accidentaly entered Time Capsule somewhere and nope. So how do I report a bug about bug reporting?