maverick os x, time machine won't work

Level 1

0 points

Jan 17, 2014 6:18 AM in response to tilleybl

Just an update here on the status of my issue. TimeMachine Backup just started working. I have no idea why. I haven't done anything to try to change the situation either. I saw it was sitting there running and I went to kill it since I figured it was probably stuck again and noticed that the size backed up was changing. I left it go and it actually finished. I have no idea! Sorry I don't have any real conclusions for anyone.

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Jan 21, 2014 8:40 AM in response to Olssman

+1 for deleting the Time Machine plist preferences file. I've had my backup stuck for over a day and while I've had plenty of headaches because of Mavericks, this one had nothing to do with Mavericks.

I've had this very problem on and off with Time Machine and usually after being very patient for several days, the backup will finish and from that point on Time Machine behaves normally. I was about to tough it out again, but I decided to check online for a fix.

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drbobw

Level 1

8 points

Mar 1, 2014 2:20 PM in response to tilleybl

After installing Mavericks (10.9.2) my (125) installed programs worked well except for Time Machine which was stuck in a “preparing backup” mode . At that point, I used EasyFind to locate Time Machine .plist files in the Home directory and delete them. To do this I used Mountain Tweaks to change Mavericks settings and allow access to the Library and System files (click in Mountain Tweaks enable “Show the user Library folder”).

I also entered Time Machine preferences>options>and removed all HDs and SSDs except for Time Machine. (If you “excluded” any disk with the home directory or data, then it wouldn’t be backed up!)

I also went into System Preferences>Sharing> and disabled "File Sharing" since no other computers accessed my files.

After all of the above, I shut down the Mac restarted in “Safe Mode”; and after the Safe Mode came up, waited ~ 4 minutes, then restarted the machine in the regular fashion. Finally Time Machine worked and did a full back up.

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mkoth

Level 1

4 points

Mar 16, 2014 9:18 AM in response to schwinbp

My impression is that there are still some unpredictable corners in the time machine envirionment. I am running time machine on 5 computers at home (2 mac minis, 1 mba, 2 iMacs of different generations) all on Mavericks 10.9.2. Except one iMac with an external drive all time machine backups use time capsules (on the latest sw revision) from 2nd to the 4th generation. Four of these machines backup correctly every hour when active. Only on 1 mac mini that is configured as a server (on the latest sw revision) the backup only works occasionally and after my manual stop and start. The backup goes to a 3rd generation time capsule but I also tried a 4th generation device which showed exactly the same behaviour.

I tried out all the valuable tips in this stream including several complete resets and deletions of the backup sparsebundle but the problem staid. I monitored the backup in the log file but also with opensnoop -n backupd. There is nothing special neither in the log nor in the opensnoop trace except that in some cases backupd just stops. opensnoop doesn't show anymore opnening files and the process is stuck there for days.

Once I stop the backup and restart (sometimes several times) time machine runs as it should and completes the backup. Below I attached 2 opensnoop traces. The first one that got stuck in preparing and the second one that worked normally. The process always stops at the same position after having openend the file with the exclusion list. I am running out of ideas where to look at. Maybe one of you has an idea.

The trace that got stuck in "Preparing":

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

0 31466 backupd 5 /Users

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/Info.plist

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/English.lproj

0 31466 backupd -1 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/Base.lproj

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/OpenDirectory/request-schema.plist

0 31466 backupd 5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

Success:

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

0 72118 backupd 4 /Users

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/Info.plist

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/English.lproj

0 72118 backupd -1 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Resources/Base.lproj

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/OpenDirectory/request-schema.plist

0 72118 backupd 4 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist

0 72118 backupd 4 /.vol/16777226/22

0 72118 backupd 4 /Volumes/Time Capsule/machine_id.sparsebundle/.dat19b6.002

0 72118 backupd 4 /.vol/16777226/22

0 72118 backupd 4 /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/machine_id/2014-03-16-010741

0 72118 backupd 4 /.vol/16777226/22

0 72118 backupd -1 /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/machine_id/2014-03-16-114220.inProgress/Contents/PkgIn fo

0 72118 backupd 4 /.vol/16777226/22

0 72118 backupd 4 /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/machine_id/2014-03-16-010741

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Apr 2, 2014 12:38 PM in response to tilleybl

I had this problem. I set Time Machine to do a one-time backup, then connected to the drive. It sat in "Preparing Drive" for ~2.5 hours, then backed up normally with no further intervention.

I have a 500 GB RAID1 partition with 200 GB occupied, fwiw.

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mkoth

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2014 1:05 PM in response to cedrus_libani

For sure I would be patient for 2.5 hours but I have been waiting for 3 full days (72 hours) without anything moving in the backupd process. Currently I succeed to get one or two backups per day by just stopping the backup and hoping that the next one will work. Sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't and I didn't discover the prerequisite condition for a successful backup.

I have nearly given up on this problem and I am waiting for the next MacMini generation to replace my current server hardware. As the OS installation will start from scratch I hope that the problem will disappear.

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Kiero60

Level 1

0 points

Apr 26, 2014 5:45 AM in response to tilleybl

Hi everyone, this is what I did

1. upgrade disks to the latest firmware

2. de-install ntfs-3g and MacFuse.

3. Install NTFS 3G without Macfuse.

4. Next step: Install OSXFUSE latest version with selection MacFUSE compatibility layer.

5. Last step: Install Fuse Wait

Note: between steps 2 and 5, I restarted my machine.

It worked for me.

While I’m happy for anyone to tell me whats not necessary, after 4 hours, i’m simply letting you know what worked for me.

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Jun 23, 2014 9:20 AM in response to NickA58

I have the same problem running my Macbook Pro and a second monitor. Same black rectangle the same size as the laptop screen, obscuring the time machine window on the second monitor. Move the open desktop window to the laptop screen and try again. No rectangle but can't open anything on the time machine windows. Can select a backup but can't type into search box or click on anything. Time Machine won't work and won't load onto the laptop screen. I've even reformatted my backup drive having stashed a DMG of backups to date onto another hard drive (which is a pain in the butt if I want older backup files). The fix is to disconnect the second monitor and open Time Machine on the laptop display - and, hey presto, it works... I wish I'd found that out before reformatting my back-up drive. Bah! 😠

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Jun 24, 2014 12:49 AM in response to tilleybl

I was having similar problems on my Mac but I was reading through this thread and the light dawned. I had 2 external hard drives connected that were FAT32 and although these were shown in the exclusion list TimeMachine was a non starter. I ejected and disconnect both these HDDs and tried TimeMachine again. Bingo - all is now whizzing along as it should be.

Chris

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Spike689

Level 1

8 points

Aug 11, 2014 1:02 PM in response to tilleybl

I too was having problems. I concur with other posters that whilst Spotlight was indexing, virtually nothing appeared to happening with the back up.

To get around this problem I:

a. Deleted any back up that was showing as inProgress on the back up disk drive.

b. System Preferences/Spotlight/ added all external drives to the "Privacy" section to stop them being indexed.

c. Started Time Machine back up again.

Backed Up 111Gb in about 2 hours and is working great.

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Sep 5, 2014 12:29 PM in response to Spike689

Just to keep the thread going, I am running an iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3. I have Parallels installed and am running one virtual machine in Windows 7. I use a 3 TB Seagate Goflex external drive for my Time Machine backups. I also have a Macbook Air that uses a 500 GB Buffalo external drive for TM backups (obviously, no virtual machines in the Macbook Air). I updated both machines from Lion to Mavericks about six months ago. While the Macbook Air has run well (in all respects but here specifically re: Spotlight and TM) since the update, the iMac has experienced all the problems with Spotlight and TM that have been described in this thread. I have followed the thread ever since the update and tried almost all the proposed fixes. About a week after I updated the iMac, I simply restored the system from my TM updates to it's previous Lion state and everything began working well again. I followed the progress (as indicated by the Mavericks updates I was seeing on my Macbook Air) in Mavericks thereafter and decided to retry the update on my iMac just this week (now at 10.9.4). Same faults in Spotlight and TM. I again tried (almost all - I, like many who participated in this forum, glaze over at the more detailed ones) most of the fixes proposed in this thread, i.e., excluding the Seagate from Spotlight, deleting the Time Machine .plist file and restarting, deleting the mdworker(s) from the CPU, etc., with no improvement in the performance of TM. Finally, I disabled Spotlight completely and tried a TM backup with no improvement in performance (only 3GB of 12GB backed up in over 7 hours). I gave up and, once again, restored my most recent Lion backup. I did write Apple support a note after my first update try cautioning, as many of you have noted, that they are looking too much like their competitor (the one that drove me to Apple in the first place). I would love to see that former Apple customer service kick in with regard to this matter but am losing hope. This has simply dragged on for too long.

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Cyberfed

Level 1

13 points

Sep 25, 2014 8:24 AM in response to tilleybl

I just wanted to share my solution.

I've been running Time Machine with no issues in Mavericks since it came out. I use a WD 1TB Passport drive.

Yesterday I went to kick off a backup (I do 1 backup a month). This time it was stuck at preparing backup.

I tried most of the steps people listed here. Nothing worked.

Solution:

For me I had to format the drive using disk utilities and then present that drive to Time Machine again.

After that it kicked off fine and completed the backup. Everything is working now. It performed a full backup of my drive in just under 2 hours.

Note - I have never installed any of the WD software on my Mac. I just plugged the drive in and formatted it.

Specs for references - Macbook Pro 15" with 512 SSD with 16GB RAM running Mavericks.

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