Time machine backup not running

Glenn -> I have no doubt that there are people who Time Machine is not performing backups for who haven't noticed. That being said I think it likely that the issue is fairly isolated and for most people Time Machine is working just fine.

GreekGeek -> in my case, my El Capitan is most definitely an update. I suspect that the issue is software related and not hardware and that if I was to go to the effort of making a clean install of the OS and then copying my data over and reinstalling my software, that Time Machine might work just fine. At this early stage thats way more trouble than it's worth though, so I'm going to hold tight and hope for a fix from Apple (sigh probably 10.11.2 now).

netnothing -> I also submitted a bug report and some diagnostic data and had it closed as a duplicate. The original report that mine appears as a duplicate of also shows as closed now (Duplicate of 22239884 (Closed)) which concerns me as I don't know if this means that they have a fix and it just didn't make it into 10.11.1, or if they THINK they have a fix and are wrong.

That could have been my report. I've been dealing with this either since late 10/01 or early 10/02.

I completely powered down my Mac Pro and left it off for about an hour and 15 minutes. No Time Machine backup occurred.

Strange enough, my issue was resolved after I updated my QNAP NAS firmware to 4.2 about a week ago. The icons in finder for my NAS also corrected after that update. Previously, the icons for my NAS were just displayed as a question mark icon under El Capitan. I have not updated to 10.11.1.

I am wondering if people having issues are using a NAS based time machine backup, and it's up to NAS manufacturer to correct issue. Would be helpful for people to post whether they are using a NAS or directly connected external hard drive, to try to narrow down the problem.

I do have a Promise Pegasus RAID system hooked up to my Mac Pro that is only used to store my original photo files and iTunes media. It isn't now nor ever has been used as my Time Machine. For that, I have used a LaCie 3Tb Thunderbolt 2 external hard drive that functioned perfectly as a Time Machine until I upgraded to El Capitan.

I doubt the issue is fairly isolated. Most people won't notice because they either use laptops that sleep when not used or desktops that sleep. Backups do happen when they wake from sleep. The only people that would notice are people that stayed on their computers all day or those people who set their machine to never sleep. I have never seen anyone in this discussion (until after your post) or other discussions on this topic say that their machine is backing up hourly like it suppose to. However, also can't say for sure that it is working for many.

I have 2 computers here and neither work like they are suppose to.

My Time Machine drive is an internal drive in a 2010 Mac Pro.

-Kevin

A clean install of El Capitan, reinstalling all of my apps and data didn't work for me.

My computer is actually backing up to an internal drive for Time Machine.

My other computer is backing up to an external time capsule drive.

Neither work hourly.

MIne was also closed for the same duplicate. Typically in my experience closing our reports just tells us that Apple is aware of the bug, and they are tracking it under the earliest submitted report.

-Kevin

My drive is an external hooked up via USB.

Glenn -> it's anecdotal but in talking to two of my friends who are running El Capitan, both of their machines (a MacBookPro and an iMac) are backing up normally. The other reason I can't imagine it being very widespread is that I think it would be less likely to have slipped through beta testing, but in any case it's hard to know for sure, you may be right.

Swamp Fox -> wow, I'm impressed that you made the effort and surprised it didn't work. Good information to have though.

net nothing -> the reason I'm wondering is this line from Apple's reply (emphasis added):

Engineering has determined that your bug report is a duplicate of another issue and will be closed.

The open or closed status of the original bug report your issue was duplicated to appears in the yellow "Duplicate of XXXXXXXX" section of the bug reporter user interface. This section appears near the top of the right column's bug detail view just under the bug number, title, state, product and rank.

I interpret this to mean that the original bug report 22239884 is now closed. When they originally closed my bug report 23004554 as a duplicate, I think 22239884 still listed as open. Again though I'm not sure whether this means that they know whats casing the problem and have a fix that has not yet been implemented, or if they think they've fixed it but are wrong.

Honestly I have no idea. I hope that all of it means that Apple is aware and working on a fix. I've always hated how we take the time to submit the bug, and it's closed and we have no way of tracking the issue.

The only time if ever been told in a bug report that a fix is coming is when I had the original report....basically the one now closed as a dup.

-Kevin

Agreed. I've wanted the Bug Tracker to have better feedback for years. I always click on the report number for the original report in the futile hope that it will somehow be a link that will give me more information 😀

In any case I guess I'll just wait and see for now, but if the problem doesn't go away by 10.11.2 I'm going to end up filing a new bug report 😕

I may be grasping at straws here but, moments ago, I noticed a couple of oddities while talking to AppleCare support. First, when I opened my Time Machine disk, there was a listing for an "in progress" backup. Second, the agent had me check Time Machine System Preferences to see if the correct disk was selected which, of course, it was. Still, he had me re-select the disk which, in turn, initiated a backup. When I took another look at my external Time Machine disk, the "in progress" backup entry was gone. I've got about 45 minutes to wait to see if the next one automatically occurs. This is where I'm grasping at straws. Even though the correct disk may be shown, would it be possible that Time Machine is somehow "forgetting" what drive backups are to be stored? I realize this is way out there.

Swamp_Fox -> it's worth a try and by all means let me know how it turns out. For what it's worth on my time machine drive there is no 'in progress' backup. I performed something similar to what you describe in that one of the things I tried was 'resetting' my Time Machine backup by deleting the prefs file, restarting the computer and then reselecting the backup drive (and recreating my exclusions list). As you described this resulted in an immediate backup, but after that same issue as before.