Time Machine: "There isn't enough space on TimeMachine"

Question

Level 1

7 points

Time Machine: "There isn't enough space on TimeMachine"

I've recently encountered the Time Machine error "There isn't enough space on TimeMachine".

This specific backup drive configuration has been used successfully for Time Machine Backups since purchasing this particular drive in Nov 2012. It was successful in Yosemite, and until recently, in El Capitan.

Current Condition

MacBookPro 6,1, OS X 10.11.3, 8GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, reporting in Disk Utility 478.89GB capacity, 446.25 used.

1TB USB hard drive, reporting 999.86GB capacity in Disk Utility, dedicated to Time Machine. Plugged directly into any of the three USB ports on MBP.

I have made no hardware changes recently to which I could attribute the onset of this error. The only software changes I've made are to install or update apps, primarily through the App Store.

Steps Taken

SMC reset completed on MBP.

Boot disk permissions repaired from Recovery Mode Disk Utility.

Freshly erased Time Macine drive in Disk Utility, using OS X Extended (Journaled), to which it defaulted upon selecting Erase. Disk Utility shows 659.5MB Used, 999.2BG Available after Erase.

Previous Time Machine volume removed in Time Machine Preferences after restore, newly created Time Machine volume selected.

"Notify after old backups are deleted" is turned off.

Result

Time Machine error "There isn't enough space on TimeMachine".

Three backups showing when entering Time Machine.

It appears that Time Machine is no longer deleting the oldest backup, as it had been successfully doing until recently.

I do not want to have to delete the oldest backup to free space for continuing backup. That would 1) be necessary after every Time Machine backup, and 2) would limit me to having only two snapshots from which to choose.

Any idea what's changed, or what I can do to return to successfully using Time Machine?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), 17", 2.66 GHz i7, 8GB, 500GB SSD

Posted on Mar 12, 2016 7:51 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Mar 12, 2016 8:59 AM in response to iduff

That may mean that you've backed up more than one volume (what Apple calls a "disk") or machine to the same destination. It could be the result of erasing the primary volume, depending on how you restored it.

Time Machine will delete older snapshots when necessary to make room for new ones, but it will never delete the last snapshot of any volume or machine. So you can end up without enough space for a new snapshot.

You can try to delete old backup folders by dragging them to the Trash, but often the Trash will then fail to empty completely with strange error messages, and you then can't empty it at all without erasing the volume, nor can you put the folders back where they were.

The best course of action is to stop using the backup drive until you're sure you'll no longer need the data it contains. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start another backup on a different drive. You should do that anyway, as one backup is not enough to be safe. If you're backing up to a Time Capsule, you can connect a USB hard drive to it and back up to that.

Reply

Answer 2

iduff Author

Level 1

7 points

Mar 12, 2016 9:13 AM in response to Linc Davis

I think I may have buried some of my process, such that you overlooked it. My apology for not being more clear.

This error persists after a complete erase of the Time machine drive, so any residual/previous Time machine backups, from whatever volume, should be gone. I have only one volume on my MBP.

With a fresh 1GB Time Machine volume, I get only three backup snapshots of my one 500MB MBP volume before encountering the "not enough room" error.

It appears that Time Machine is not erasing the oldest backups.

I am currently backing up to CrashPlan, as well as Time Machine, as belt and suspenders is my usual MO. In addition, the majority of my important data is on DropBox, the local folders for which are included in my Time Machine and CrashPlan backups. Hopefully this is sufficiently resilient and redundant to withstand the stupidest user tricks I can throw at it!

What is really weird is that this error is fairly new, on the order of a couple of weeks or so, before which this same config was happily backing up with many snapshots available.

Reply

Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Mar 12, 2016 10:06 AM in response to iduff

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Please launch the Console application in any one of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an abnormal backup. Now

CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD

so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.

Reply

Answer 4

iduff Author

Level 1

7 points

Mar 17, 2016 10:08 AM in response to Linc Davis

Sorry for the delay in replying, I started from scratch to cleanly replicate this problem, and it took a while for it to re-occur. Here's an extract of the log, with a ton of Avira messages deleted, but everything else retained. Looks like it's reporting errors deleting old backups.

3/17/16 11:51:52.367 AM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Starting automatic backup

3/17/16 11:51:52.000 AM kernel[0]: nspace-handler-set-snapshot-time: 1458229914

3/17/16 11:51:52.789 AM com.apple.mtmd[250]: Set snapshot time: 2016-03-17 11:51:54 -0400 (current time: 2016-03-17 11:51:52 -0400)

3/17/16 11:51:53.000 AM syslogd[46]: ASL Sender Statistics

3/17/16 11:51:53.983 AM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Backing up to /dev/disk2s2: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb

3/17/16 11:51:57.393 AM com.apple.mtmd[250]: Failed to remove /.MobileBackups.trash, error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 "“.MobileBackups.trash” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it." UserInfo={NSFilePath=/.MobileBackups.trash, NSUserStringVariant=(

Remove

), NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd478e15bb0 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"}}

3/17/16 11:51:57.394 AM com.apple.mtmd[250]: Failed to delete /.MobileBackups.trash, error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 "“.MobileBackups.trash” couldn’t be removed because you don’t have permission to access it." UserInfo={NSFilePath=/.MobileBackups.trash, NSUserStringVariant=(

Remove

), NSUnderlyingError=0x7fd478e15bb0 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"}}

3/17/16 11:51:57.825 AM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

3/17/16 11:51:58.040 AM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

3/17/16 11:51:58.040 AM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Running event scan

3/17/16 11:51:58.643 AM com.apple.mtmd[250]: attempting to thin because of low free space on Macintosh HD ✅ by removing 2016-03-17 11:47:47 -0400, estimate 0 bytes to recover, 1 snapshot can be thinned

3/17/16 11:53:52.659 AM launchservicesd[85]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

3/17/16 11:53:52.715 AM launchservicesd[85]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

3/17/16 11:53:52.719 AM launchservicesd[85]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

3/17/16 11:53:52.743 AM launchservicesd[85]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

3/17/16 11:54:10.632 AM uxupdate[10236]: Update started.

3/17/16 11:54:12.120 AM appleeventsd[55]: SecTaskLoadEntitlements failed error=22

3/17/16 11:54:15.466 AM Microsoft Excel[8906]: Stream 0x84afa5e0 is sending an event before being opened

3/17/16 11:55:31.678 AM WindowServer[193]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "CrashPlan menu bar" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.

3/17/16 11:55:32.489 AM WindowServer[193]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "CrashPlan menu bar" after 1.81 seconds [0.55fps] (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds [1.00fps])

3/17/16 11:55:37.623 AM WindowServer[193]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "CrashPlan menu bar" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.

3/17/16 11:55:38.598 AM WindowServer[193]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "CrashPlan menu bar" after 1.98 seconds [0.51fps] (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds [1.00fps])

3/17/16 11:55:59.860 AM Safari[9833]: tcp_connection_tls_session_error_callback_imp 33 __tcp_connection_tls_session_callback_write_block_invoke.434 error 22

3/17/16 11:59:05.761 AM Microsoft Lync[727]: Replacing namespace soap

3/17/16 11:59:52.770 AM Microsoft Excel[8906]: Stream 0x86b921d0 is sending an event before being opened

3/17/16 12:00:07.000 PM kernel[0]: process prl_vm_app[8088] caught causing excessive wakeups. Observed wakeups rate (per sec): 167; Maximum permitted wakeups rate (per sec): 150; Observation period: 300 seconds; Task lifetime number of wakeups: 1909121

3/17/16 12:00:07.734 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[10314]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.ReportCrash.DirectoryService

3/17/16 12:00:23.115 PM spindump[855]: Saved wakeups_resource.diag report for prl_vm_app version 11.1.3 (32521) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/prl_vm_app_2016-03-17-120023_Ians-Computer.wake ups_resource.diag

3/17/16 12:01:54.000 PM syslogd[46]: ASL Sender Statistics

3/17/16 12:04:56.007 PM Microsoft Excel[8906]: Stream 0x80d34d20 is sending an event before being opened

3/17/16 12:04:56.008 PM Microsoft Excel[8906]: Stream 0x80d34d20 is sending an event before being opened

3/17/16 12:06:49.610 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Finished scan

3/17/16 12:06:49.827 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Saved event cache at /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-17-115157.inProg ress/767A0214-6F2C-4A29-8F77-FCF0E9657633/.F1B66153-5854-3901-AE43-765B142B5CF8. eventdb

3/17/16 12:06:49.869 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Not using file event preflight for Macintosh HD

3/17/16 12:07:55.316 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Will copy (165.7 GB) from Macintosh HD

3/17/16 12:07:55.396 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Found 4350 files (165.7 GB) needing backup

3/17/16 12:07:56.118 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: 190.01 GB required (including padding), 160.84 GB available

3/17/16 12:07:56.205 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-13-214423

3/17/16 12:07:56.236 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-14-044139

3/17/16 12:07:56.292 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-14-161406

3/17/16 12:07:56.381 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-005023

3/17/16 12:07:56.415 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-070127

3/17/16 12:07:56.435 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-183245

3/17/16 12:07:56.484 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-16-041012

3/17/16 12:07:56.521 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Deleted backup /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-17-115157.inProg ress/002BF473-24F2-4811-9573-DEE493081253 containing 37 KB; 160.84 GB now available, 190.01 GB required

3/17/16 12:07:56.650 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-17-115157.inProg ress/B2ABC79D-4E66-498E-BB2E-B3B7E8EAD8B3

3/17/16 12:07:56.654 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-13-214423

3/17/16 12:07:56.657 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-14-044139

3/17/16 12:07:56.661 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-14-161406

3/17/16 12:07:56.665 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-005023

3/17/16 12:07:56.669 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-070127

3/17/16 12:07:56.672 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-15-183245

3/17/16 12:07:56.679 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-16-041012

3/17/16 12:07:56.682 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-36 "ioErr: I/O error (bummers)" deleting backup: /Volumes/IanTimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/Ians-Computer/2016-03-17-115157.inProg ress/B2ABC79D-4E66-498E-BB2E-B3B7E8EAD8B3

3/17/16 12:07:56.682 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Removed 1 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room

3/17/16 12:07:56.684 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Deleted 1 backups containing 37 KB total; 160.84 GB now available, 190.01 GB required

3/17/16 12:07:56.684 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Mar 17, 2016

3/17/16 12:07:56.703 PM com.apple.backupd[10194]: Backup failed with error 7: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.

Reply

Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Mar 18, 2016 2:02 PM in response to iduff

The backup drive is malfunctioning and must be replaced.

Reply