Sierra and Time Machine

Hi the solution is Antivirus Program stops Time Machine from Working

i even had to uninstall my Avira Programm to make Time Machine working

So in conclusion Sierra have a Problem with diff Antivirus Programms

Would that things were so simple Bob. I had the problem without any antivirus installed, so it may be a factor, but as is often the case where file management, OS and network change, it's clearly multi-factoral.

For me, disabling iCloud file management worked, for you, it was a/v.

The real disappointment, as usual was Apple's weak response, but we're used to that.

Just another voice.

I can confirm that it was my Sophos Antivirus, too. It works if you disable on-access scanning in Sophos, but it cannot be a final solution to be stuck without anti-virus software 😟.

I tried to exclude my Time Machine Backups in the Anti-Virus, but it did not help.

Just to mention: After disabling Sophos I had to reboot to make backups work again.

As for the backupd process: It was running between 95 and 99% CPU load most of the time when it was stuck in the "Preparing backup" stage. When the backup is working, the load on my machine is between 10 and 50%.

This just as a further indication: If your backupd process stays at full CPU load (95-99%) in the activity monitor, your backup stage will likely never leave the "Preparing Backup" stage.

Was struggling with this for days on and off before I found this, trying out dozens of different things, repairing the backup disk etc. 😠

I'm having the same problem. I don't have Sophos installed, and I'm not sure if I've added the indexing exception correctly. Can you let me know how I might do that?

This depends on your setting. What I had to do:

• Connect your time machine volume as the user that is authorized to do the backups. (For me this is a special user named "backup", but it may be just your regular user with admin rights, especially if you are using time capsule)
• Mount a disk image that is normally called 'your_computer_name.sparsebundle' (if you connected as the wrong user above, you will not be able to mount and will see the disk image displayed with a red "stop" icon)
• In Finder, you should see a Volume appearing called "Time Machine Backups".
• Open System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy and drag the Volume to the list name "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations"

As mentioned, my issue was not the indexing, but the virus scanner.

I'm not sure if this worked or it was the fact that i unstalled the Avast Antivirus, as i uninstalled avast, and "Uncheck the Optimize Mac Storage" from iCloud and then tried the back up. Now working, and working fast, of course after restarting the machine first. For Me this started a few weeks after installing Sierra for some reason, and only affected my 2013 iMac. Not my 2011 or 2012 MBP's. That said i have noticed a performance and responsiveness loss with Sierra.......

I too have this problem. Since the update it takes ages to finish the first backup. The funny part is, when it is almost finished, like 95%...the amount GB left is increasing...my MacBook pro has 250gb...and appr. 80gb free space. My first backup (which did not finished) was already 225gb...so...explain this. I too have Avira antivirus installed. But will try today w/o Avira.

I just took my MBA from the drawer which is still running El Capitan. And guess what???

Backups are going VERY slow. Then I switched off Sophos and it was fine again.

It seems that this problem has got nothing to do with Sierra, at least not in my case.

How weird is that??

braveheart1 wrote:

How weird is that??

Not weird at all. If you elect to install non-Apple "anti-virus" products, many things that should work won't work. If you want your Mac to work, don't use such garbage.

So you are implying that all non Apple (anti virus)software is garbage? What official Apple Anti Virus product should I use then? I'm not aware that they have any! And don't tell me that I won't be needing it at all...

What official Apple Anti Virus product should I use then?

Please read Effective defenses against malware and other threats.

matzrh wrote:

Just another voice.

I can confirm that it was my Sophos Antivirus, too. It works if you disable on-access scanning in Sophos, but it cannot be a final solution to be stuck without anti-virus software 😟.

As there are no viruses capable of running on OS X, what difference would it make.

Technically there is no need of Antivirus in MacOS, although for malware there is nothing more effective than common sens: visiting safe spaces on the web, not clicking on links of unkown emails, there is no software that can really prevent you of this.

Did you read the links John provided?

Many thanks this was helpful and fixed my problem as well