How do I correct this problem: "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Robert's Airport Time Capsule." The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Robert's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

Simple.. reboot the TC.

Since it has no power switch.. either shut off from the wall, or pull out the power cable.. count to 10.. then plug in or power back on again.

Thank you! Solved my problem, too. 🙂

Great!! me too, my same problem is solved 🙂

This is the second time this has happened to me. The last time I re-formatted the TM and started again. Followed this rather crazy solution and it worked like a charm. Really sophisticated, elegant stuff apple...lol.

I switched off the TM for 10 seconds and my laptop still complains about the backup image ... is in use.

Some ideas?

It always happen to me, I think this may be connection problem:

Same step I am...I switched off the TM for 10 seconds then restart it again, and open TM Preferences, then I click "back up now" after it's re-connected showing backup to normal. Suggest not to re-formatted the TM.

Hope you success.

xor. wrote:

I switched off the TM for 10 seconds and my laptop still complains about the backup image ... is in use.

Some ideas?

There is some more details here.

C12 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Tell us more if you cannot get it working.

D....d! I did what was suggested and took me 3 days to clear 800GB. And it was this simple! 10 seconds and it works again.

Why Apple sleep and don't fix this very, very annoying thing? I mean, we are not all computer geeks. I am close to computer illiterate and how could I even contemplate such a easy quick fix???

Brrrr.....

This happened to me, and I worried that if the time capsule was "in use" then perhaps someone else had gained access to it. But then on another website, I saw this: "This means that some other user or computer is using the network backups (or was using them, but didn't get disconnected properly), so Time Machine now can't access them.

Before I got this error message, my computer had frozen and I had to force it to shut down. So that explains the "in use" error message. Whew.

Hi!

Could not find any on my problem anywhere on either google or the forums here, and this is almost similar to my problem.

I wiped my iMac clean, new OS and what not, and wanted to install the old backup from the Air Port TC, but when using the migrant assistant to recover the backup through the TC I could not connect to the TC in the MA. I can't continue after choosing the TC, it just searching for other sources...

But, I can find my backup in Finder, as a sparsbundle, but its on 700ish GB. So is it it possible to recover from the bundle, without saving it to a HDD?

Karl

I use a WDCloud network drive for backups. I purchased it in the fond belief that I would be able to just leave it permanently connected to the router and not need to touch it in use. Some hopes: at quite frequent intervals it tells me it can't verify the backup and I have to start again, losing the old backups (I have others on hard drives that I attach directly for backups every few days), and TM backups on any drive can't be made till it is through. SuperDuper which I also use seems not to have these problems though of course that does not keep the history as TM does. At least BT's new hub speeds up TM backups so that the initial one takes less than a day instead of nearly a week.

But, to get to the point, I do get the message about the drive being in use now and then and it has just done it again. WD's software lets me do a reboot without disconnecting the power but that didn't make the problem go away. So I've used the software to remove the old partition and replace it. TM is starting up OK now and is telling me it will be through in 13 hours (for 276 GB).

It seems to me that someone needs to stand over Apple's developers with a [name redacted], and require them to make the backup process much more robust, in the way that (some) other manufacturers do.