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Time Machine Backup File Indexing Failure

I've been trying to perform a backup for the last 2 days (Porsche Lacie from Lion 10.7.5), but every time I get the error described at http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html with the following Console Log report


ReportCrash: DebugSymbols was unable to start a spotlight query: spotlight is not responding or disabled.

com.apple.backupd: Indexing a file failed. Returned 1 for: FILE, /Volumes/LaCie/Backups.backupdb/MacBook/2016-01-01-125749.inProgress/096F92EB-5 DB6-4494-AFAE-08F9D0D020D3/Macintosh HD/Users/FILE

com.apple.backupd: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.

com.apple.backupd: Stopping backup.

com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.metadata.mds[4862]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault: 11

ReportCrash: Saved crash report for mds[4862] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/mds_2016-01-02- 143300_localhost.crash

mds: (Normal) FMW: FMW 0 0

com.apple.backupd: Copied 1004757 files (51.1 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.

com.apple.backupd: Copy stage failed with error:11

mds: (Error) Volume: Could not find requested backup type:2 for volume

com.apple.backupd: Backup failed with error: 11


Initially, I tried to validate my disk, but ran into errors with that, and followed the solution outlined here https://calvinseah.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/volume-bitmap-needs-minor-repair-for -orphaned-blocks-an-easy-solution/ That cleared up the errors, but did nothing to get a backup to actually work. Next, I came across http://eedle.com/tag/backups/ that suggests that my issue is related to Spotlight. So, I disabled Spotlight and reenabled it. However, I've had Spotlight indexing for about the last 8 hours. I'm not sure if that's a reasonable amount of time, but it's been indexing in a curious way. It's been going through a cycle of "Estimating Indexing Time" and doing 45 minutes worth of indexing, and this has been going on for the 8 hours. Again, I'm not sure if this is to be expected or not. I should also mention that, previously, whenever I had any backup issues, I would reformat the backup, and then everything would backup smoothly. That is not the case here, and now I have no backup of anything. Although, I have copied my Documents and other files onto my external, but I'd prefer to avoid trying anything that could wipe out my system. In summary, I'm at whit's end on this problem, and any recommendations would be very appreciated.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Jan 2, 2016 7:07 PM

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4 replies

Jan 3, 2016 8:49 PM in response to smilingassassin44

I'm not sure if this is important, but I suspect it is. It appears that every time Spotlight attempts to perform an indexing, it crashes at the end. Console keeps showing messages such as


ReportCrash: DebugSymbols was unable to start a spotlight query: spotlight is not responding or disabled.

com.apple.launchd: (com.apple.metadata.mds[10939]) Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault: 11

mds: (Normal) FMW: FMW 0 0

mds: (Warning) Server: No stores registered for metascope "kMDQueryScopeComputer"

ReportCrash: Saved crash report for mds[10939] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/mds_2016-01-03-154149_localhost.crash


After allowing Spotlight to run for about a day, and produce results such as the above, I shut it off with sudo mdutil -E / and then ran a backup in the hope that this would alleviate my issues. It got through about 200 GB of 400 GB, and then failed on a file, producing the same Console output as in my initial message. Out of curiosity, I deleted the file that was cited in the crash, and tried again. Again, the backup got through about 200 GB of 400 GB, and then failed on a different file.

Feb 8, 2016 12:57 PM in response to smilingassassin44

I am having the same issues, suddenly backup is failing over and over on the last back up and spotlight has fallen into an indexing loop just as you have described. I have tried restarting both of these systems and changing various elements and have gotten no change in behavior.


Anyone have any ideas?


os X v10.7.5

2 x 2.8 Quad-core intel Xeon

2gb 800 mhz ddr2 fb-DIMM

Time Machine Backup File Indexing Failure

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