Time Machine not doing hourly backups on El Capitan

cheeseb wrote:

I also examined my MacBook Pro, and it is experiencing the same failure. I ran a full backup of the MacBook Pro, and that worked correctly. The automatic hourly backups continue to be promised but never happen.

Automatic hourly backups are now working on my MacBook Pro, but still not working on my Mac Pro. I have no idea what I might have done to the MacBook Pro to get them working again. I unplugged the Time Capsule for 30 seconds and plugged it back in again yesterday, and the light quickly turned green again after it ran its internal tests on the hard drive. I ran Disk Utility and TechTool Pro 8.0.3 on both Macs yesterday. I ran Time Machine Verify on both of them today. I did a full manual backup of both of them yesterday or the day before. I think everything else I've done was done on both of them, too. Any suggestions?

As time permits, my next step is to set up a new, parallel Time Machine backup of my Mac Pro on an attached external Thunderbolt 2 hard drive, and see if hourly backups work on it -- they should alternate with the hourly backups to the Time Capsule, if those were working. Then I will delete the existing Mac Pro backup from my Time Capsule's internal drive and start a new one there and watch what happens to it.

There is a bug in El Capitan that prevents automatic backups from happening under some conditions—I'm not sure what they are.

If you have a portable Mac (MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro), Time Machine won't work on battery power unless you open the Time Machine pane in System Preferences, click Options..., and then check the box marked

Back up while on battery power

in the sheet that opens.

If you have a desktop Mac (iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro) connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with USB functionality, please disconnect the USB cable from the UPS, then restart and see whether there's any change.

Otherwise, until the bug is fixed, you'll have to initiate the backups manually by selecting

Back Up Now

from the TM menu in the menu bar (not the Dock icon.) If the menu-bar icon (a clock that runs backwards) isn't showing, check the box marked

Show Time Machine in menu bar

in the Time Machine preference pane.

I have same issue on my desktop iMac. Can do manual backups but no longer automatic hourly backups.

Linc Davis wrote:

There is a bug in El Capitan that prevents automatic backups from happening under some conditions—I'm not sure what they are.

If you have a desktop Mac (iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro) connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with USB functionality, please disconnect the USB cable from the UPS, then restart and see whether there's any change.

This was the solution. Thanks! I have a Mac Pro (Late 2013) with two Time Machine backups set up: one on a Time Capsule on my home Ethernet network, and the other on an external Thunderbolt 2 drive attached to the Mac Pro. Both have now properly performed an automatic hourly backup since I unplugged the USB cable from my brand new APC BackUps Pro 1500 UPS and rebooted.

My MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2013, Retina) is also performing automatic hourly backups. I do have the "Back up while on battery power" setting turned on, but it is usually running on house power anyway.

Apple should of course fix this bug immediately, because Time Machine backups are critical to so many Mac users. But, I must say, Apple should also immediately release an announcement of this problem designed to reach the widest possible audience, to alert everybody to the problem even before a permanent fix is released. Data is at risk.

Same issue here - using an APC UPS connected via USB to my iMac. Time Machine backups are not happening on an hourly basis as they did with Yosemite.

"If you have a desktop Mac (iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro) connected to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with USB functionality, please disconnect the USB cable from the UPS, then restart and see whether there's any change."

Hi, you are right ( very thanks for help) TM now work automatically but verify option dont work.

I try many time but I received "failed to verify pheraps network connection" or similar text.

Also I try mounting my TM device (Qnap TS410 nas) and same error appear.

I hope this help in debuggings.

PS I am sorry for my neanderthal english, i dont speak your language.

Equipment: iMac early 2008, os x EC 10.11.1, qnap ts410 last upgrade 4.2

This did the trick. I have a APC UPS connected via USB. With that disconnected, hourly backups have resumed.

I feel like El Capitan has introduced a number os USB problems. My Fitbit dongle is no longer recognized automatically when I turn on my computer. Now I have to remove and reinsert. That was not the case with Yosemite.

I can confirm that disconnecting a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) USB functionality allowed hourly backups to continue as normal. Definitely a bug in El Capitan.

Time Machine hourly updates not working. I tried unplugging my APC USB but that did not work.

Another problem is sometime I am unable to enter TimeMichine. The TM window will center in the screen but then fads out and my system return to normal operation. To enter TM I have to restart.

My system:

Mac Pro 5,1 (2010), 2x 3.46 (12 core)

Another problem is sometime I am unable to enter TimeMichine. The TM window will center in the screen but then fads out and my system return to normal operation. To enter TM I have to restart.

Hi, try to use directly tmutil from terminal (you can find help in man page).

I see it work when graphical TMachine fail to verify backup.

I had a similar problem with my 2015 5K iMac and a 2015 APC UPS. After the El Capitan upgrade, my hourly time machine backups stopped. (It took me a few weeks to notice.)

After reading the posts here, I unplugged my the USB cable from the APC to my iMac and then restarted my iMac. Now it the hourly backups have resumed. (By the way, this fix did not work until after I restarted my iMac with the APC USB cable unplugged.)

I discovered that I had this issue as well after reading about it on another site. I had actually clean installed all but one of my Macs with El Capitan. I will say that the problem "does not" occur with a clean install of El Capitan 10.11.1. My Mac Mini (which is also running Server as well as using an APC UPS) was upgraded from Yosemite and the backups were not working automatically - regardless of the various methods I had tried. I wish I had checked here before wasting time troubleshooting.

I can confirm with all of the Macs that I checked - that for upgrades (vs clean install) - the problem does not occur on Mac portable provided that you have checked the box in Time Machine options to allow backups while on battery. For desktops with a UPS attached - unplugging the UPS cable and rebooting does solve the problem.

I did go one step further for the desktop with UPS attached scenario. I took a look at the plist file for Time Machine ( /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist ) - and visually compared the one from a MacBook Pro with "allow backups while on battery" checked and the one from my upgraded Mac Mini. The only difference that I could see was the presence of an attribute named "RequiresACPower" and set to a value of NO - in the plist file from the MacBook Pro. Out of curiosity - I used Xcode to edit the plist file on the upgraded Mac Mini and I added an entry for "RequiresACPower" and set it to NO. I rebooted the MacMini - and the backups started running normally again. Seems that for desktops this attribute is not settable from the Time Machine preferences pane and typically not present in the plist file. However - adding it to the plist file seems to trick the backup process into running since I suspect that the backup process seems to erroneously think the Mac is running on battery power and is checking for it being present and set to NO. I can still make changes to Time Machine preferences via the standard Time Machine settings interface without losing the RequiresACPower attribute that I added.

Normally I would not recommend editing system files - unless you know what you are doing. However - for those who have the UPS situation and still want to be able to keep the UPS data cable attached to the Mac - this method seems to be a feasible semi-permanent workaround - until Apple resolves this issue. I have attached a screen print of the change that I made to the plist file.

I hope this helps and/or saves somebody unnecessary troubleshooting time.

~Scott

I have a portable, a Macbook Pro, 15" mid2010, I "upgraded" from Yosemite to El Capitan. I did a Time Machine back up before and after to a networked drive plugged into an Airport Extreme. Thereafter I got no further backups, had trouble mounting the drive etc. I did a complete backup to another disk plugged in directly by USB to the Macbook Pro. Seemed to work OK but no more, with or without power cord in, with the box to allow backups on battery power ticked. I am not expert at fiddling in system setting and would just like this to work like it used to.

Please, Apple, fix this!

Peter - The backup not running problem seems to be "consistent" across the various Mac models that I have checked since I discovered that I was actually having the problem. There isn't a need to try different backup devices or different methods of backing up (Network vs External Drive) - if you are having the problem - you are going to have it with all devices that you try. Deleting backups, erasing drives, etc. and doing new full backups isn't going to remedy the situation. I happen to have a Mid 2010 15" MacBook Pro - 8 gig - although it is not my primary Mac. Yours should be doing the backups every hour if you have the "backup while on battery power" box checked. Right now my Mid 2010 15" MacBook Pro has a clean install of El Capitan - and it is backing up (on both AC and battery). The clean install was done for other reason, before I had noticed the backup not running issue (on my Mac Mini - which is an upgrade not a clean install).

I had a lot of issues (mostly slowness) when I upgraded my 15" MacBook pro to El Capitan. I resolved a lot of these issues by doing the following. I suggest you try these on your MacBook Pro to see if maybe your backup will start running again (and yes - keep the backup while on battery box checked).

1. Reset SMC (remove mag safe connector - shutdown mac - simultaneously press and hold Left Shift-control-option and power buttons - then release. Press the power button to boot the Mac.

2. Reset NVRAM (aka PRAM) - shutdown mac - power on - when you hear the chime - press CMD-OPTION-P-R and keep holding until you hear the chime again. Release keys and allow Mac to boot.

3. Start up in Safe Mode. Shutdown mac - power on - press and hold left shift key (after the chime) and keep holding until the apple logo or progress bar appears on the screen. Allow the Mac to complete the boot process (might take longer than normal). At the login screen - you will see a red Safe Boot in upper right corner of screen. Leave the mac in the login screen (for several minutes) - without actually loggin in - then login - when the desktop appears - let the Mac sit at the desktop - don't run anything - just let it sit - for about 5 minutes. Shutdown the Mac normally. Restart.

4. Open disk utility. (search for it in Spotlight) or open from launchpad (t's in the "other" folder). Select your startup volume in the left pane where you see the drives. You want the volume (probably Macintosh HD) - and not the physical drive itself. Click the First Aid button at the top of the disk utility window. It will run first aid on your boot volume and potentially correct problems that it finds). Close disk utility.

5. Run a manual backup from the time machine menu in the menu bar. Just select Backup Now in the pull down menu. When manual backup completes - open time machine preferences - and not the time of next backup shown. After that time has passed - check the time of last backup again. It should be running.

Note: Apple Engineers typically don't read the posts in these forums - unless a very high-hit topic is brought to their attention.

~Scott

Scott,

Thank you. I don't know which bit did the trick but I have now had my first automatic hourly back up. There was an error reported when I did the disk repair on the Macbook Pro hard drive, so perhaps it was that?

Regards, and thank you again,

Peter.