Time machine backup not running

These are the 3 workarounds:

1) Use the terminals commands. This allows you (according to the original person that found this) to keep the USB plugged in even during reboots. This workaround however will cause TM to run a backup if your machine is running on battery power.....which might not be a good idea since the machine could shut down during this time.

2) Use the Unplug during startup method which doesn't require any terminal commands. But you have to redo it if the machine restarts.

3) Just leave it unplugged which in most cases will allow TM backups to occur, but your machine won't know if it's on battery power.

Pick your poison until Apple fixes it.

-Kevin

netnothing -> nice summation of where we currently stand.

I Too got a call from Apple regarding my bug report, so if nothing else we do know that they are aware of the issue and working on it.

Yeah, let's hope it makes it into 10.11.2.

Can only imagine the number of people that don't yet realize no backups have happened. Doesn't it warn you after 30 days or something?

-Kevin

netnothing wrote:

<snip>

Pick your poison until Apple fixes it.

A nice summary of the workarounds! Personally, I am inclined to go with #2, since it is the safest, least poisonous alternative, & at worst will require a second restart with the cable unplugged if the Mac starts up with it still plugged in.

netnothing wrote:

Doesn't it warn you after 30 days or something?

If memory serves, it is on day 15 that it does that. And if you use multiple TM backups it will warn you individually for each of them, or at least that is how it has worked on Mavericks & Yosemite.

R C-R wrote:

A nice summary of the workarounds! Personally, I am inclined to go with #2, since it is the safest, least poisonous alternative, & at worst will require a second restart with the cable unplugged if the Mac starts up with it still plugged in.

Yeah, that's the method I'm using for now as well. First backup worked....just have to see if it keeps working. My machine is on 24/7 so it rarely reboots.

-Kevin

FWIW I discovered that I'm having the same problem since moving from Yosemite to El Capitan: manuals work fine. The System Preferences even skip an hour for when they say the next backup us due - but nothing actually backs up when left to scheduled.

Mark Sealey wrote:

FWIW I discovered that I'm having the same problem since moving from Yosemite to El Capitan: manuals work fine. The System Preferences even skip an hour for when they say the next backup us due - but nothing actually backs up when left to scheduled.

Do you have a UPS connected to one of your Mac's USB ports?

A UPS is connected, Yes. I suppose I could disconnect it; but would also like that extra protection of a graceful shutdown.

Is it really either-or now until this is fixed?

Mark Sealey wrote:

A UPS is connected, Yes. I suppose I could disconnect it; but would also like that extra protection of a graceful shutdown.

Is it really either-or now until this is fixed?

As has been explained several times now, you just need to disconnect the USB cable to it & restart the Mac. After you do that you can reconnect the cable & all should be fine unless/until you restart again, at which time you need to disconnect it again & repeat the process.

Thanks! I restart daily, so that's not an easy option in my particular case. Your help appreciated…

Is it really that hard to disconnect the cable once a day before starting up the Mac? 😮

Maybe more to the point, which would you have to remember to do: pull the cable temporarily or remember to do manual TM backups every hour or so?

R C-R,

You should see the space I'm working in!

Although I try to be as meticulous as i can be with s/w, the number of cables once neatly clipped together and pilled behind my iMac in such a way that I can hardly get to them makes it tricky, believe me :-)

The other odd thing here is that I did disable TM yesterday and tried running TimeMachineEditor; its backups scheduled for an Interval of 1 hour also failed!

Would you expect that if it uses core Apple TM calls?

Well I guess I finally have my answer on wether Apple monitors new information added to 'Closed as duplicate" bug reports. I got this reply back on my 'original bug report' from back when we were first discovering the link to the UPS USB issue.

Thank you for contacting us.

At this time, there isn't any new information available for this issue. I have checked with engineering. The issue has been investigated. However, there is no resolution available yet.

If your report was closed as a duplicate, please note that you will not be able to directly view the original report in order to keep its information confidential.

We will do our best to keep you informed as new information becomes available. Please check release notes regularly for changes affecting this issue.

If you have further questions about this issue or wish to check on the status, please update your report again using the Apple Bug Reporter.

They certainly seem to be taking no the issue seriously, between this reply and the phone calls from Apple engineering, I think this is the most direct interaction I've had on a bug in years (possibly ever).

I reported it yesterday (10/29) and received a request for a tmdiagnose dump, which I duly sent at the time today when TM was supposed to have run.