Sierra and Time Machine

matzrh wrote:

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 have tried uninstalling Sophos and turning it off, either way Time Machine is stuck preparing backup. I never had any problem before Sierra. The load on my cpu fluctuates between 10% and 50% while it is stuck preparing backup. When the backup is stopped the system idles around 0.50%.

There is some discussion on the Sophos site about this problem, but I can't get a backup no matter what I do.

I've also been stuck on "preparing" the backup after having upgraded to os Sierra. I've tried all the reboots, PRAM resets, etc. listed so far and am not running any 3rd party antivirus software - so confused as to how to proceed. Any ideas are welcomed.

It seems that most probable causes could be anti-virus software (especially Sophos) and NAS (+ Spotlight?) according to many people here, although there can be many others.

Applying a new fresh HDD with USB direct connection to your Mac, if you don’t mind spending some, could be a possible temporary measure.

That’s what I did eventually and is successful at the moment after many trial and error. In my case: Sophos prevents backing up; NAS puts backing up very much unstable, some times so far completed although very slow, other times stuck in different stages of backup operation; USB HDDs directly connected to the Mac behave very differently in backing up though they have the same specifications. I haven't got clear understanding and solution yet.

removing Antivirus

and formatting time Capsule for a brand new first backup

that was the only way here to make it work

hi

i have the same problem

no save time machine since upgrade to macOS sierra

i don't have an antivirus software

it doesn't work in wifi

i turned off standby screen suspend hard drive in system/energy saver

Same thing.

Not sure why...but now Time Machine is backing up without a problem?!

FYI: I have the same Time Capsule issue like all of you since updating to Sierra. I do not use anti virus software. I do remember that I had this issue before, after updating to OS Mountain Lion. The problem sorted out it self after several weeks and possibly after a firmware upgrade of Time Capsule. I vaguely remember this Time Capsule firmware update. I have rebooted Time Capsule manually by removing its power cord and also through the AirPort Utility app on my iPhone 6 but the malfunctioning back-up problem persists.

@All of you. I've uninstalled Avira Antivirus and backups works fine now...

Its been 2 weeks now since I updated my mac to macOS Sierra and my Time Machine Backup still stuck on "preparing backup" I tried to backup to different partition from the same External hard drive (Seagate) and to my spare hard drive from scratch (new), Please note that I do not have any anti-virus or any anti-malware installed on my mac.

Hope this helps those running antivirus software and Sierra (10.12)

I had been using Sophos pre/post upgrade to Sierra. My backup device is a 2T Time Capsule.

After upgrade to Sierra Time Machine did the same thing...stuck in preparing backup...I also notice when I would attempt to browse the Time Capsule shared drive it would prompt me for a password to connect despite it being cached in keychain.

Yesterday I googled for ideas and found Sophos AV and Time Machine hits.

https://community.sophos.com/products/sophos-home/f/sophos-home-for-mac/80195/ti me-machine-running-slow-problems

Sophos confirms they have a problem and are working on fixing it.

After reading this thread I removed Sophos and sure enough I could kick off a backup and it went to immediately backup and has successfully complete while I am leaving this post.

So I took this one step farther and tried another antivirus client...I installed Avira...exactly the same problem with Avira. If I disable Avira Real-Time Protection (which is easier to do than Sophos) Time Machine kicks right off and performs a back.

At first I thought it was a Sophos issue I wonder if this is an Apple problem now 😐

I had this yesterday, after upgrading to Sierra. I have an external hard drive which I back up to.

I'm not really much of a techie, but I looked at these answers and followed other trails as well. None of the other answers on this thread, worked for me. However, one of the trails I followed, led me to opening 'console app', and looking at CPU usage, to see what was going on when it tried to back up. I noticed that 'keychain' kept appearing on the Console App. I don't use Keychain, and I wondered if it was getting stuck, looking for some kind of password.

I enabled Keychain, and turned both my computer and it's external hard drive off, for several minutes. When I turned it all back on, with Keychain enabled, TimeMachine worked! I have since disabled Keychain, but TIme Capsule is still backing up.

Before anyone seizes on the reboot - I had rebooted with each of the other possible ways to solve this. And I had done that thing with 'cmd', 'alt', 'p' + 'r' on start up.

As I said, I'm not much of a techie, so it could be chance. Although, I have been taught by a techie to only change one thing at a time, and it was after changing Keychain the problem was solved.

I found that Sierra sets System Preferences/Energy Saver to logout in 15 minutes. It would seem that Time Machine is not recognized as being "in use" as far as the Energy Saver is concerned. I saw the advice to check Energy Saver and after setting it to Never, TM did proceed to completion in about 2 1/2 hrs for the 16GB backup. However, three times during the backup, at random intervals, I got a popup that the system would logout in one minute. I cancelled that logout each time.

Apple needs to make TM recognized as "using" the system and not use the Energy Saver logout.

For those of you having problems with Time Machine backups, I finished a support call with Apple today regarding this very problem and I'll run through the steps that the support rep suggested. Like the OP, my Time Machine backups were reaching the "Preparing backup" stage but wouldn't move beyond this point. The Apple support rep told me that they have been getting some calls about this problem and they are looking into it. In the meantime, here is a fix:

1. Go into the System Preferences and click on Security and Privacy to turn off the firewall (if it's turned on).

2. Stop any Time Machine backups that are running either through System Preferences or via the Menu Bar TM icon.

3. Open Finder and scroll down to "Shared" in the left-hand pane, where you should see the name of your Time Machine drive. Double click on the drive.

4. In the window to the right of the pane, you should see "Not Connected". Click on the "Connect As..." button to the right.

5. You should now see the name of your MacBook (and other MacBooks that have been backed up previously, if the drive is shared by several MacBooks). Double click on the name of your MacBook in order to view the Data folder.

6. Double click on the Data folder and find the Backups.backupd folder. Double click on this folder to reveal the Time Machine backups.

7. Delete any “xxxx-xx-xx-xxxxxx.inProgress” files. If no such files exist (as they did not on my MacBook), delete the folder named Latest.

8. From within the left-hand pane of the Finder window, locate your MacBook hard drive (usually called Macintosh HD) and select it. In the group of folders that appear in the window on the right, open the Library folder and find the Preferences folder.

9. Open the Preferences folder and locate the file named "com.apple.TimeMachine.plist". Delete this file.

10. From within the left-hand pane of the Finder window, dismount the Time Machine drive (see Step 3) by clicking on the upward arrow next to the name of the drive.

11. Restart your MacBook.

12. Open System Preferences and select the Time Machine preferences. Select the Time Machine backup disk and enter the password (if necessary).

13. After Time Machine connected to the backup disk, allow the Time Machine countdown timer to proceed so that the first backup begins.

14. Leave your MacBook running for 24 hours, if necessary. If you have a lot of data on your MacBook, it may take several hours to prepare and verify the backup, before the backup occurs. Be patient. It took my Macbook about 14 hours to run through the preparation and verification stages, before the backup occurred. If you don't have a lot of data on your MacBook, these stages (and the backup) may be completed within an hour or so. Do not close the lid of your MacBook, nor shut it down, until at least the first backup is done. You can use your MacBook during this time, however.

15. Open System Preferences and turn the firewall on (see Step 1).

At this point, your Time Machine backups should proceed without any problems. I hope this helps!

I've figured it out with the help of @dwb, i just stop TM backup or temporarily turn off TM backup on TM preference then go to TM drive and navigate to backup folder and delete inprogress file, empty the trash and open again TM preference and turn on TM backup and start manually the backup. hope this help.