Time Machine has stopped automatically backing up

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Level 1

9 points

Time Machine has stopped automatically backing up

For the last couple of months, I have been unable to get my Mac Mini to consistently perform Time Machine backups. I have tried every possible solution I could find (completely reformat Time Machine disk and delete Time Machine plist, checked integrity of both Time Machine disk and Mac Mini disk), and nothing has been able to get the backups running again. The strange part is that I have my Mini on a sleep schedule, so that it wakes automatically at 9 AM every day, at which point the backup usually will run, and then it will not run again for the rest of the day unless I manually run it. The issue does not seem to be correlated with a major OS upgrade, but could possibly be related to an update that got installed at some point (I really have no way of knowing, as it seems that nobody else is having this issue). I am also using the Time Machine disk exclusively for Time Machine, as I know that is best practice. Any tips would be a great help

Josh

Mac mini (Late 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Dec 1, 2015 9:26 AM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Dec 1, 2015 9:43 AM in response to monkeemunk

Try:

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

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

140,942 points

Dec 1, 2015 10:55 AM in response to monkeemunk

What devices are connected to your Mini? In other words you probably have a display and perhaps a USB keyboard. What else is connected to it?

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Answer 3

monkeemunk Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 1, 2015 7:29 PM in response to lllaass

I have actually found that article before, and none of the relevant troubleshooting steps have helped; it's also a bit dated at this point, being from 2013

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Answer 4

monkeemunk Author

Level 1

9 points

Dec 1, 2015 7:30 PM in response to John Galt

All I have currently connected are two monitors, the Time Machine drive, and a USB hub that has a Logitech USB receiver plugged into it. None of these items have been added recently and were all present before the issue started

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

140,942 points

Dec 1, 2015 7:59 PM in response to monkeemunk

First, verify you are running the latest OS X release, which is 10.11.1.

Review that Mac's system log entries relevant to Time Machine: to do that open Console - it's in your Mac's Utilities folder. Select system.log or one of the archived system.log files open when the automatic TM backups should have been occurring.

In the Filter field, type backupd to filter only those relevant entries. One or more of them may indicate the reason for the failure to periodically back up. If you wish, copy and paste them in a reply, but please omit or obscure any information you consider personal before posting.

The strange part is that I have my Mini on a sleep schedule, so that it wakes automatically at 9 AM every day, at which point the backup usually will run,

That might not be so strange. There may be nothing for TM to back up when it wakes, but the log entries will capture that information. Ideally, to capture any relevant log entries use the Mac actively for longer than one hour during which some file modifications are being made, however insignificant they may be.

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