My time machine is stuck saying 'Preparing backup' and then nothing happens. Can someone advise?

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Level 1

9 points

My time machine is stuck saying 'Preparing backup' and then nothing happens. Can someone advise?

Hi,

I am having two difficulties with my macbook pro.

First one:

1) Time machine is stuck and keeps saying 'Preparing backup'. Nothing seems to happen. It has been stuck at this stage for days. I cancelled the backup and then restarted my macbook pro. When I retried to backup, it said the same thing. Any ideas how I can fix this?

2) The other issue, but maybe not connected, is my macbook pro has completely slowed down. It takes a really long time to simply open and close applications, and switching between applications that are open is becoming increasingly sluggish. The safari browser is also quite slow, but I believe this is probably due to my internet connection at times. I have emptied my search history in safari, I have tried Repair Disk Permissions, I have closed all applications and then tested to see if this makes a different, but the system still feels very slow. I have over half of my drive disk space free so I don't think it is a memory issue.

Thanks everyone in advance.

MacBook Pro

Posted on May 16, 2015 8:41 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

lllaass

Level 10

210,417 points

May 16, 2015 8:44 AM in response to Treborcool

Try:

http://pondini.org/TM/D1.html

D1. Stuck in "Preparing" or "Calculating changes"

BTW, this is the Mac Pro desktop forum

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Answer 2

May 29, 2015 2:45 PM in response to lllaass

I am experiencing a similar problem.

Have just returned from a trip and restarted home desktop system that includes a Mac Pro backing up with Time Machine to its share on a Drobo 5N.

But it won't back up. Seems that Time Machine is stuck in "Preparing Backup" mode. It always backed up normally before.

Running OS X 10.10.3. Drobo 5N firmware is 3.2.2. Drobo Dashboard is 2.6.8.

Drobo Dashboard says device health is Good, the Hot Data Cache is ON, and the Active Interface is Ethernet.

Separately, my MacBook Pro is backing up normally with Time Machine to its respective Share of the same Drobo 5N.

I have attempted to delete the Time Machine preferences file as stated outlined on the referenced Pondini.org website. It did not help.

Would appreciate any recommendations.

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