Time machine backup not running

I'm gonna wait and see if the next scheduled hourly backup occurs in about 30 minutes and, if it does, I'll test bo moue's suggestion on my Mac Pro. I really, really, really don't trust the local power company's reliability.

I did plug the USB back into my machine and did the restore defaults and restarted my Mac Pro. Am waiting until 4:04 to see if it helps. I did notice that Restore Defaults for me didn't change anything under the UPS tab.....it just reset the settings under the Power tab.

So to test, I did change my UPS settings to something and then back to see if maybe changing the settings and having the pref be re-written fixes it.

On my Macbook I am testing keeping Computer Sleep at NEVER but changing Display Sleep to 3 hrs to see if it's one or the other.

We should all get paid from Apple for troubleshooting their shoddy update!!!

-Kevin

Thanks. I will wait on your results before proceeding.

So no go.......even after Restore Defaults and setting the UPS power settings.....my Mac skipped the auto backup.

So now I'm trying what I did on my Macbook on my Mac Pro. Keep the USB cable plugged into the UPS, but set the UPS schedule to NEVER for both computer and display sleep. The one thing that's different with a UPS is you also have the Shutdown options. I current left this has shutdown after running for 5 minutes on UPS.

I'm waiting on my Macbook where I'm testing if it's either computer, or display, or both. I changed just the display to sleep after 30 minutes but kept the computer sleep to NEVER. See if that makes a difference.

-Kevin

You guys may be on to something - I too have an APC plugged in via USB...

Before I saw this part of the thread I was poking about in my Time Machine and realized that I didn't have any "next backup at XX:XX" listed by either drive (I have both a local USB and the network drive). So, I removed my WDMyCloud drive and noticed that the "next backup at XX:XX" appeared for less than an hour later, and when I returned home I saw that the backup occurred at that time and completed about a half an our later. But... that was the last one, and technically I should have had at least one more complete since.

I'm going to go back to basics and try to be a little more systematic:

1) Remove both drives from Time Machine

2) Unplug the USB to the APC

3) Reboot

4) Re-attach the local USB drive only to Time Machine

5) monitor backups

6) if the backups go as scheduled - re-attach the USB to the APC

7) monitor backups

8) if the backups go as scheduled - re-add the network drive

9) monitor backups

If it breaks at step 8 I'm OK with that - I'll just use the WDMyCloud network drive to backup using CrashPlan rather than Time Machine.

No change with setting my Mac Pro UPS settings to Never......it still skipped the backup. Looks like it is different than the built in battery of the Macbook.

Going to unplug for now.

-Kevin

Crash restart self-repair

Mini (2009 on 10.11) crashed and restarted itself (Safari - Speedtest - Command-tab app switch - boom) early on the 21st and had to point it at the Time Machine target (wasn't finding Black_Hole from tool bar button) again and has since been making its own TM backups (to a Drobo 5N) with the UPS (Cyberpower 1500PLCLCD - no special software) plugged in and at no time unplugged. It hadn't before. But while watching, it has been slow to pick up one. Energy Saver panel Power tab Computer & Display: Never, UPS tab 10 & 2. None have been reset or changed recently. Stays on playing iTunes. Hope it's not something stupid like "looking at the Time Machine pref panel" that causes fails.

I'm going to go back to basics and try to be a little more systematic:

1) Remove both drives from Time Machine

2) Unplug the USB to the APC

3) Reboot

4) Re-attach the local USB drive only to Time Machine

5) monitor backups

6) if the backups go as scheduled - re-attach the USB to the APC

7) monitor backups

8) if the backups go as scheduled - re-add the network drive

9) monitor backups

If it breaks at step 8 I'm OK with that - I'll just use the WDMyCloud network drive to backup using CrashPlan rather than Time Machine.

Well, it broke at step 6/7 - when only the local USB drive was connected Time Machine was backing up like clockwork once an hour for the the last +12hrs. So I plugged back in the APC UPS and watched as the 08:30 backup time came and went with no backup performed (Latest backup: Today, 7:33 AM), and no backupd messages appearing in console and the next backup time jumped to 09:30 AM.

So, to me that points explicitly to the APC as the culprit

EDIT - how about that, literally as I hit send on this message the backup fired off - a few minutes late at 08:34, but it went anyway, and the Next backup time is now 09:33 AM.

So, now it's NOT a failure at step 6/7 and I'm going to continue step 7 and watch the backups throughout the day.

Did you restart after plugging the USB -> APC cable? Seems that in some situations it needs a restart to kick things off. So it might continue backups now, but if you restart it might go back to skipping.

It's clearly something in Energy Saver, as it affects Macbooks too. My test yesterday of replicating my Macbook settings with the Mac Pro/APC didn't work either......so there is something about the APC specifically.

If Apple gave us an official way of having backups every 15 minutes I'd test more.....but waiting an hour each time is painful ;-)

My new bug report got the typical "please send these diagnostics" and then it was closed again as a duplicate for that bug report ending in 22239884.

-Kevin

This is more a question posed out of curiosity than a reply but....would it be correct to assume that this issue affects all UPS products or just those from APC?

Because it affects my Macbook in similar ways and that's not on a UPS, I'm guessing it's just being connected to a UPS (or having Battery) that causes the issue.

I think I have a Cyberpower I might be able to test with. EDIT: testing with a Cyberpower UPS now.

-Kevin

I had a lapse in memory. I had forgotten about your MacBook results. So, I suppose now we wait and hope. I really hate not to have the option of making an orderly shut down if there is a power outage. That said, if you do have and test a Cyberpower UPS, I'd certainly be interested in your results-especially if they showed Time Machine functioned normally. Even in the moderately sized city in which I live, at least Cyberpower units are available for purchase.

I had a lapse in memory. I had forgotten about your MacBook results. So, I suppose now we wait and hope. I really hate not to have the option of making an orderly shut down if there is a power outage. That said, if you do have and test a Cyberpower UPS, I'd certainly be interested in your results-especially if they showed Time Machine functioned normally. Even in the moderately sized city in which I live, at least Cyberpower units are available for purchase.

Testing Cyberpower now.....just have to wait for the next scheduled run.

What is weird is that I could finally get my Macbook to do auto backups if I set the sliders to NEVER. That didn't work for the UPS on my Mac Pro. I'm testing some more on my Macbook today.

-Kevin

netnothing wrote:

Did you restart after plugging the USB -> APC cable? Seems that in some situations it needs a restart to kick things off. So it might continue backups now, but if you restart it might go back to skipping.

-Kevin

I did not restart, and the 09:34 AM backup did occur as scheduled.

I'm going to continue monitoring throughout the day and probably reboot at some point.