Time machine not performing housekeeping - previous days' & weeks' multiple backups remaining

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Level 1

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Time machine not performing housekeeping - previous days' & weeks' multiple backups remaining

As you can see from this image, time machine stopped cleaning backups from previous days and weeks.

A bit of background, this is a networked backup for a MacBook Pro. (Thus, the backups only happen when I'm at home on my home network.) The MBP: OS 10.8.4 2.4 GHz, 8 Gb: 750 Gb drive, currently using 125 Gb - 625 Gb free.

The time machine "drive" is a 350 Gb partition on a 1 Tb drive, 75 Gb free; the other parition has the time machine backup for another MBP, also OS X 10.8.4; this problem does not occur on that time machine partition with that computer. The problem started on 5/12 with previous days multiple entries not being deleted. (The timing does not seem to align with a software update: 10.8.3 on 3/25 and 10.8.4 on 6/6.)

One more thing, backups take much longer (around 25 minutes for just a few Mbs) than they do on the other MBP which uses the other partition. The other MBP has many more files and folders and the .sparsebundle is bigger (252 Gb).

I have read through Pondini's wonderfully thorough website on time machine (pondini.org) and looked through discussions here. All seem to focus on ways in which time machine prunes old backups to make space. In my case, space is not (yet) a problem, but I am concerned that these problems indicate time machine is not working properly and that there may be other problems.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), 8 Gb memory 750 Gb disc

Posted on Jun 28, 2013 9:33 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jun 28, 2013 10:20 AM in response to mediaspace

Whew, if Pondini hasn't covered it, I don't know what it could be!?

BTW, your pic link doesn't work, to actually include a pic you have to use the tiny Camera icon in a reply to upload it.

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Answer 2

mediaspace Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 28, 2013 10:22 AM in response to BDAqua

Strange -- I did use the little camera icon to upload the jpeg image.

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Answer 3

mediaspace Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 28, 2013 1:37 PM in response to mediaspace

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jun 28, 2013 3:27 PM in response to mediaspace

Just wondering, Have you used Disk Utility to Repair Disk on that Partition, & Verify Disk on the slow MBP?

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Answer 5

mediaspace Author

Level 1

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Jun 29, 2013 2:38 PM in response to BDAqua

Following the directions at http://pondini.org/TM/A5.html, I tried that about a week ago. No problems found and no change in behaior.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

239,111 points

Jun 29, 2013 3:04 PM in response to mediaspace

Have you tried deleting the timemachine.plist mentioned somewhere by Pondini?

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Answer 7

mediaspace Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 30, 2013 10:47 AM in response to BDAqua

I gave it a try last night. For the record it is item A4 at the pondini.org site. The result:

- the back up was 1.43 Gb (rather large considering that the only activity on the MBP since the previous backup had been to read mail).

- no change to the list of previous back up entries and the mulitple backups from the last few days were not pruned (that is, the problem perists).

- I looked at the backups using the Time Machine interface and only the ones snce removing the .plst are visible. (All of the prior backups are still visible using the finder interface looking at the mounted virtual disk.)

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