Time Machine is stuck on "cleaning up" and now Finder is "not responding"

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Level 1

81 points

Time Machine is stuck on "cleaning up" and now Finder is "not responding"

I started a TM backup of my La Cie 650GB external drive last night - this morning TM says it's "cleaning up" and hasn't moved from 163.41 GB of 209.69 GB - likely it's been there for hours since it's been an hour already and it hasn't budged. This is my first backup in about a year (yes, I know, but time gets away from me...). I searched the forums and web for help, but nothing is comprehensible (like Pondini), other stuff is too arcane for me. Some people talked about deleting files that say ".inprogress" but don't say how to find those files, and others warn against that tactic anyway.

But now Finder is "not responding" and I'm afraid to Force Quit Finder - how would I do anything then? I tried turning off the backup on the TM interface, but all it says is "stopping backup" without actually stopping. I can't quit it by clicking the x at the end of the progress bar (which is a barber pole) because Finder isn't responding. Now the TM progress bar has disappeared and so has the TM interface - maybe because I clicked "stop backup", but the La Cie icon on my desktop is still green, indicating the backup is still in progress (I think). I can't access any apps because of the inoperative Finder, though I can access the web. I'm about to do a power-button shut-down but thought I'd ask here first. Other posts here have said TM is handled in OS X forums, while below I'm given the choice of TM and OS X forums, so I'm choosing both. Thanks all.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 3, 2016 9:21 AM

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Answer 1

william98 Author

Level 1

81 points

Jan 3, 2016 10:49 AM in response to william98

Update: I had to finally give up and restart because TM was slowing everything down without making any progress. Meanwhile, System Preferences joined Finder in "not responding." I Force Quit Finder, which let me access the top tool bar/Apple menu, but clicking Restart only swept my desktop clean without restarting. So I did a power-button shutdown. When I rebooted, Finder and System Preferences were back to normal, and TM had quit and the La Cie icon was back to orange.

Except that now my desktop display is Snow Leopard's default magenta-purple night sky - choosing my previous display in System Preferences/Display-Screensaver does nothing, though I can see the photo in that menu box. I ran Disk Utility on my HD and the La Cie with no complications. I've restarted twice trying to regain my desktop display, but no go. Everything else seems normal, though I haven't tried any apps beyond email and browser. This is all very weird.

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Answer 2

william98 Author

Level 1

81 points

Jan 3, 2016 2:05 PM in response to John Galt

I had already run disk repair on the La Cie, and it said the disk was fine. But I tried to do what you suggested here with no luck.

I selected the backup drive (640.14 GB HM641JI Media) - but I don't know what a Partition Map is and there's nothing that shows it exists. I clicked on Partition in the menu, to the right of First Aid and Erase - and that hung Disk Utility. I had to force quit - and when I did, the Time Machine Backup progress bar reappeared out of nowhere, showing it was "cleaning up" again, this time at 15.08 GB of 46.44GB. I thought it had ended the backup on its own. OH wait - duh! I had it turned on, and an hour had passed, so it was just doing a new backup.

At any rate, there's no Partition Map I can find and no GUID Partition Map. But the La Cie isn't partitioned (to my knowledge). However, I tried Info on the Samsung drive, and there's the only place I see "Partition Map", as part of "Partition Map Scheme: Apple Partition Map". Here's a screenshot of that:

So I selected the La Cie below the Samsung, which I guess must be the backup volume you're talking about (and no Partition option appears on the menu). Oddly (to me), Info shows "Partition Number 3". I did not know that. I never consciously partitioned it. Here's the screenshot:

And that's as far as I was able to get. Meanwhile, Time Machine claims to be still "cleaning up." Frankly, I think it left work on a doughnut run. Thanks for sticking with me, John.

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

155,534 points

Jan 3, 2016 2:56 PM in response to william98

Either one is possible. Time Machine has been known to "hang" when encountering an individual file or files, though that is extremely rare and I have only become aware of it through anecdotal reports when the late Mr. Pondini was still with us. The exact files can be difficult to isolate.

Since it is so rare (and I have never personally encountered that problem) I think more pedestrian causes are likely. For some suggestions read Pondini's FAQ on that subject, here: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html. The pink box is applicable. Any one of the listed causes could apply.

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Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

155,534 points

Jan 3, 2016 1:26 PM in response to william98

Launch Disk Utility - it's also in your Mac's Utilities folder.

Select the backup drive - that is the leftmost icon under the External list. What is the entry adjacent to Partition Map? For Time Machine's use, it should be GUID Partition Map.

Next, select the backup volume – the icon beneath its drive icon, and there will be only one unless you partitioned the backup drive. Its name will be whatever you designated. Click the Info button. Make the resulting window long enough so that all its information is shown. If you wish, you can make the window narrow so that File System UUID and Device tree path are truncated, because they are not important.

Post a screenshot of that window's contents.

To post a screenshot read the Appendix in Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question.

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

155,534 points

Jan 3, 2016 11:01 AM in response to william98

william98 wrote:

... Some people talked about deleting files that say ".inprogress"

It's best not to do that. Time Machine will delete incomplete backups – those terminated prior to completion – so let it.

I'm about to do a power-button shut-down but thought I'd ask here first

There is nothing wrong with terminating a backup before it finishes, unless of course that is the only backup you created in a year's time, which applies in your case. That most recent backup will probably be lost but at this point there isn't anything you can do about it. The previous backup (a year old) will be unaffected (assuming there is nothing wrong with the backup device, an assumption for which there is no justification yet).

Start a new backup and allow time to let it finish. It has been so long since the last backup that there will be many expired backups to remove. Eventually you may decide to force your Mac to shut down. Since the Finder isn't responding you can also choose to force-quit the Finder. Either way you will need to initiate the backup again, knowing that it may take a long time to finish.

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Answer 6

william98 Author

Level 1

81 points

Jan 3, 2016 11:08 AM in response to John Galt

Thanks John. I'll give it a try. But if it gets stuck again, how long should I let it go before giving up? There haven't been a whole lot of changes since the last backup - no SL updates, of course, only Office for Mac, Firefox and Chrome, email, Java, Adobe Reader, etc. No new apps, few new documents. I can understand it taking a long time, but if it hasn't made any progress for hours, how much longer should I wait?

P.S. I got back my display photo.

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

155,534 points

Jan 3, 2016 11:22 AM in response to william98

Launch the Console app - it is in your Utilities folder. You can find it by selecting Utilities from the Finder's Go menu.

If the log list column on the left is not already displayed, show the log list by selecting Show Log List from Console's View menu. Select Show Toolbar if it is not already shown.

Locate system.log in the list and select it. In the Filter field at the upper right, type backupd to show only the entries relevant to Time Machine. That way, you can watch what Time Machine is doing while it's doing it. If you want help deciphering their meaning copy and paste those entries in a reply. If it contains any information you consider personal, delete or obscure that information before posting.

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Answer 8

william98 Author

Level 1

81 points

Jan 3, 2016 1:04 PM in response to John Galt

About 1/3 of the way thru a new backup, but it's of only 46.44GB of the 650GB La Cie. Last time it got stuck on 163.41 GB of 209.69 GB. So maybe some of the last backup held? But as you'll see, the new backup stopped on its own.

From the earlier failed backup this morning:

1. Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error.

2. Which seems related to an iTunes download I did sometime last year - #1 is at the same time as #2, and it's Error: (-36).

Looks like it tried once more to backup that file, then after that it's:

(Normal) DiskStore: Rebuilding index for /Volumes/La Cie 2/Backups.backupdb

Followed by several:

Error writing to backup log.

Input/output error

Somewhere in the middle there it noted it had copied 152.2GB. For the rest of the session it's all Error (-36) Creating directory. This could be when I was trying to stop the backup and ran into all kinds of weird troubles.

In the current backup, it's run into

Error parsing SystemMigration.log to determine source volume of system migration

No pre-backup thinning needed: 60.45 GB requested (including padding), 417.65 GB available

Error writing to backup log,

Input/output error,

Error (-36) on one iTunes file (not the same one as above)...and then

"Stopping backup." I didn't do that. The progress bar disappeared from the desktop, but the TM interface shows it's stopping backup. This came just before it did another Error writing to backup log, Input/output error, and Error (-0062) on the same iTunes file as the Error (-36) before stopping backup.

Just chockful o' errors!

I'd delete the music files it stumbled on, but then I have beaucoup music files and I guess it could seize up on one after the other. These particular files aren't at the alphabetical beginning of my iTunes files.

And the "stopping backup" barber pole is still barber poling...

Jeez!

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Answer 9

notcloudy

Level 4

1,258 points

Jan 3, 2016 2:24 PM in response to william98

TIme Machine weeks and days calculations go forward from the date of the first time machine backup -- I missed a month when my Mac was in for repairs and the hourly backup did do a clean up over the gap.

I think you should clear your Time Machine drive - and either use it as a straight backup -- or use time machine as it was intended.

To clean up completely - do a shutdown.

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Answer 10

John Galt

Level 10

155,534 points

Jan 3, 2016 2:42 PM in response to william98

Apple Partition Map is OK.

If no progress appears to be occurring, restart your Mac and attempt to perform a manual backup again. The Time Machine backup disk may be in a state of failure, but there is no harm in attempting another backup.

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Answer 11

william98 Author

Level 1

81 points

Jan 3, 2016 3:03 PM in response to notcloudy

What do you mean by "straight backup"? The La Cie has always been only for backup. I stopped using TM because I couldn't schedule it to run when I wanted it to - say once a week in the middle of the night. Instead, I was just dragging things into it - files and apps.

But your suggestion here makes me wonder if I have any clue about what I'm doing. To me, TM was backing up my computer HD onto the La Cie external drive. But is that actually what it's doing? Or is it just backing up the La Cie on the La Cie? This would mean that without an external drive, when you run TM, it backs up your HD on your HD?

Oh man, I'm confused. This is all happening on my iMac. I took my Macbook Air in for repair and as usual they asked if I'd backed it up. When they ask that. are they talking about backing it up on an external drive? I always assumed that was what was meant by backing up.

...

OK, I tried to close TM - it was allegedly "shutting down" and I had moved the slider switch to Off, but the shutting down was still going - or hanging. So I clicked on the X in the upper left corner to close it - and once again that immediately caused Finder to hang. I tried to restart, but again it wouldn't - my desktop cleared of all icons but that's as far as it went. So I had to use the power button again.

I've had this iMac for 5 years and never had such weird problems. It's always been a tank of a computer.

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Answer 12

notcloudy

Level 4

1,258 points

Jan 3, 2016 3:24 PM in response to william98

Time machine is an incremental backup - if you back up everything you can restore your hard drive to a point in the past - hourly - last 24 hours - end of day and end of day for one month then - end of week until Time machine starts consolidating for room.

Time machine does an initial full backup - all other backups are files that changed only. You will get large backups if you rebuild IPHOTO library as that entire library will be backed up rather than only that which changed.

Cleanup is the point where daily is merged into weekly (most recent in the time frame is kept) and hourly is merged into a daily so you may see GB used on your time machine drive decrease or fluctuate around a point for a period of time.

Also means you can restore folder, items, and at least in snow leopard - if you want one IPHOTO picture - simple open IPHOTO - then go into time machine and you can get it.

In Yosemite - time machine if active will keep missed backups on your hard drive until you connect the TM drive (that is new for lap tops I guess)

Desktop I keep time machine connected and the hourly backups and cleanups don't cause any problems.

If a file does not change there may be only one backup on the TM drive.

If you want to keep a backup of something you downloaded - but want to delete it off your hard drive - back it up to a separate device - as time machine will eventually remove it from TM.

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