Time machine not working after upgrade to Sierra

As others have found, Time Machine backups apparently never get started after upgrading to Sierra 10.12. When TM "preparing to backup" goes on indefinitely, I notice in the OS Console:

repeats indefinitely (with the time changing on each occurrence).

I have an Airport Extreme 6th generation with a 2 TB hard drive connected via USB to the Airport Extreme. It has been working reliably for backing up 2 MB Pro's across my LAN, in El Capitan and Mavericks, and earlier OS's--that is, working reliably for several years. I do have a vague recollection of having a similar OS upgrade issue with Time Machine a few years ago. My solution then was to directly attach the HD via USB to each MBP, move the .sparsebundle files to another machine's external HD or just remove the backups, and create new backup files on the original HD when reconnected to the Airport Extreme again. Of course, the backup history was lost in this process, but at least I had complete backups of each current MBP Pro's file systems after the OS upgrade.

As a temporary solution to the current Sierra issue, this past week I connected directly via USB an external drive separately for each MBP, which contained NO Time Machine backups for either MBP. After uninstalling or disabling Sophos, I was able to successfully backup both Macs. If Sophos was running, the backups were going to take weeks to complete (about 440 GB on one MBP and 110 GB on the other). With Sophos disabled or absent, the backups were completed within hours.

So several things appear to be relevant to this Sierra problem: backup across the LAN vs. to a directly attached external HD via USB, whether or not the .sparsebundle (Time Machine backup) file is brand new or being amended via Time Machine, and whether or not files being backed up are being scanned by Sophos in real time.

I have 2 Mac Mini's also running, each of which has a directly attached (USB 3) external HD for Time Machine backups (i.e., not attempting to backup each Mini across the LAN). Both of the Mini's have made the upgrade to OS Sierra without issue, and Time Machine backups are amending the .sparsebundle files as before, with no need to disable Sophos.

I sure hope Apple fixes this Time Machine issue very quickly! Having unattended automatic backups is absolutely essential, and must be rock solid. Being able to restore a machine from Time Machine backups is a must. I've been working with PCs, Macs and Unix systems for decades. When something bad happens to a file system, the ability to restore it from a very recent backup is mission critical. Come on Apple, without reliable backups is like driving a car with no brakes. Please get this issue resolved ASAP!

I experienced this problem after trying to back up a cleanly-installed Sierra system (MacBook Pro) to a new hard drive. I had activated Documents and Desktops in the cloud. Like others have noted, a backup took forever, and seemed to get stuck at some strange point.

Now, I had done a clean install of Sierra after already having my Documents and Desktop in the cloud. So it was downloading Documents while it was trying to back up. This may be important, because, on a hunch, I disconnected from the internet during the hanged backup. And it picked up and completed.

Now, later today, my iCloud Drive apparently finished syncing my Documents folder (which I thought it had already done, but whatever), and when I plugged my MacBook back into my backup drive and Time Machine started, it backed up quickly and flawlessly just as before.

I don't know if this will apply to your issues, but it seemed to work for me. I already opened a case with Apple about this and told them about this.

I too have experienced this same problem. However I did find the answer to the problem.

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.

Today 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.

It would be helpful if those of us with this problem could post their Antivirus.

I was using Sophos. I removed it and now Time Machine seems to be working normally. Thanks pb-Kilroy.

I'm not using antivirus. My backup archive had originally been an encrypted image on a drive attached to an Airport Extreme. I had moved that drive back to being locally attached and everything was fine until Sierra. By moving that image back onto a disk that hasn't been encrypted and then back onto the Airport Extreme everything works again. If I take that known-to-be-working backup and attach it locally again it's hit or miss. In my experience the problem seems to have something to do with how local Time Machine images are mounted. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After upgrading to OSmac Sierra 11.2, it took 30 hours before I was finally able to complete a Time Machine backup from my rNBP (mid 2112). You

As others have found, Time Machine backups apparently never get started after upgrading to Sierra 10.12. When TM "preparing to backup" goes on indefinitely, I notice in the OS Console:

repeats indefinitely (with the time changing on each occurrence).

I have an Airport Extreme 6th generation with a 2 TB hard drive connected via USB to the Airport Extreme. It has been working reliably for backing up 2 MB Pro's across my LAN, in El Capitan and Mavericks, and earlier OS's--that is, working reliably for several years. I do have a vague recollection of having a similar OS upgrade issue with Time Machine a few years ago. My solution then was to directly attach the HD via USB to each MBP, move the .sparsebundle files to another machine's external HD or just remove the backups, and create new backup files on the original HD when reconnected to the Airport Extreme again. Of course, the backup history was lost in this process, but at least I had complete backups of each current MBP Pro's file systems after the OS upgrade.

As a temporary solution to the current Sierra issue, this past week I connected directly via USB an external drive separately for each MBP, which contained NO Time Machine backups for either MBP. After uninstalling or disabling Sophos, I was able to successfully backup both Macs. If Sophos was running, the backups were going to take weeks to complete (about 440 GB on one MBP and 110 GB on the other). With Sophos disabled or absent, the backups were completed within hours.

So several things appear to be relevant to this Sierra problem: backup across the LAN vs. to a directly attached external HD via USB, whether or not the .sparsebundle (Time Machine backup) file is brand new or being amended via Time Machine, and whether or not files being backed up are being scanned by Sophos in real time.

I have 2 Mac Mini's also running, each of which has a directly attached (USB 3) external HD for Time Machine backups (i.e., not attempting to backup each Mini across the LAN). Both of the Mini's have made the upgrade to OS Sierra without issue, and Time Machine backups are amending the .sparsebundle files as before, with no need to disable Sophos.

I sure hope Apple fixes this Time Machine issue very quickly! Having unattended automatic backups is absolutely essential, and must be rock solid. Being able to restore a machine from Time Machine backups is a must. I've been working with PCs, Macs and Unix systems for decades. When something bad happens to a file system, the ability to restore it from a very recent backup is mission critical. Common Apple, without reliable backups is like driving a car with no brakes. Please get this issue resolved ASAP!

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Additional comments:

First, as noted on the Sophos site, the version of Sophos that worked with El Capitan appears to be causing an issue with Time Machine backups across the LAN hanging indefinitely. So completely uninstall Sophos.

When trying to backup over the LAN (i.e., not to a locally mounted drive), the key AFTER upgrading to Sierra 10.12 is to do a full backup to a new .sparsebundle file. Perhaps one way is to change your computer name (in Settings>Sharing), but my preference is to move the previous backup done with El Capitan to another storage device (gives me the option to restore from that backup, if all else fails). That way, in Sierra, when Time Machine looks for the backup file (.sparsebundle), it finds none, and creates a new one on the original backup drive. This seems to resolve the FindFork failure issue after installing Sierra. Otherwise, stick with El Capitan and its Time Machine backup (.sparsebundle), and wait until Sierra is fixed.

I had the same issue, disabling Sophos was the solution !

Good morning.

I have no Sophos installed; my external HD is a FireWire 800 on a Late 2009 iMac.

Since I upgraded to Sierra, Time Machine is starting the backup and it stop at 2-5 minutes before ending. I cannot even finish 1 backup after one night of waiting. No errors appear, nothing.

I read here in the community it could be Sophos or antivirus softwares, but I never installed these kind of software.

I had a similar issue. Called Apple support but they must not be aware of the Sophos issue. Here is a follow-up email I just sent to the Tech who had been assisting me. Removing Sophos definitely fixed the problem. I believe the folks at Sophos are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it. My backups now complete within minutes of initiation:

"I have an update for my Time Machine issues. I browsed the support forums last night for similar issues, and it didn’t take long to find them. The most common issue/resolution that I found involved Sophos antivirus. Several people reported Time Machine acting exactly the way mine was after upgrading to Sierra, and once they disabled or removed Sophos, the problems went away.

I attempted to just disable my Sophos, but could not find a way to do so, so I removed it completely. I initiated a backup when leaving the office at 17:07 yesterday. This morning I saw that it had completed at 01:39 this morning - a total elapsed time of 8 hours and 32 minutes. The backup was done wirelessly to my Airport Time Capsule, which I had reconfigured and cleared out all old backups from. I expected the initial backup to take a long time but had no idea how long. Today, right before leaving for lunch, I initiated a backup. Total backup time was less than 8 minutes.

I’m also noticing an improvement in my Apple Mail. Before removing Sophos, the email messages in my inbox all visibly “jerked” on the screen anytime I received new mail or deleted messages from my inbox. Post-Sophos removal, that phenomenon has gone away."

Similar situation:

Macbook Air (2014), Macbook Pro (2013), iMac (2011), Macbook (2010); all worked perfectly on El Capitan backing up to two separate Time Capsules (2TB and 3TB). I upgraded all of them to Sierra and they ALL continued to back up without a problem.

Last weekend I re-formatted my iMac and did a clean Sierra install to 10.12.1. Now it hangs and has not completed a full backup since. I have tried over a dozen times.

Steps I have tried:

I have stopped the TM service. Gone into the backup folder and deleted the .inprogress file

I have gone into Library... Preferences... and deleted the com.apple.timecapsule.plist file

I have restarted BOTH the iMac and the Time Capsule.

I have tried changing to 3 different Time Machine destinations (in case it was specific to one Time Machine).

It seems as if the process starts fine, but then runs out of steam.

Console Logs show information below. This seems like a genuine hang and hopefully it will be sorted soon. I don't like the idea of not having Time Machine running properly. Just as well I also backup with Carbon Copy Cloner (at a different time of the day).

Process: ALPIndex [38949]

Path: /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware/*/ALPIndex.app/Contents/MacOS/ALPIndex

Identifier: ALPIndex

Version: 1.6.0 (219.28)

Code Type: X86 (Native)

Parent Process: perl5.18 [38932]

Responsible: ALPIndex [38949]

User ID: 0

Date/Time: 2016-11-04 22:43:21.257 +0000

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.12.1 (16B2657)

Report Version: 12

Anonymous UUID: DA1A4700-7174-7A1F-27E2-E08B2F57F59B

Sleep/Wake UUID: FE0E7A63-6725-4BCB-AFAB-28690FAB19F7

Time Awake Since Boot: 320000 seconds

Time Since Wake: 98000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0

Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)

Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Reason: DYLD, [0x1] Library missing

Application Specific Information:

dyld: launch, loading dependent libraries

Dyld Error Message:

Library not loaded: @rpath/MALoopManagement.framework/Versions/A/MALoopManagement

Referenced from: /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware/*/ALPIndex.app/Contents/MacOS/ALPIndex

Reason: image not found

and library/logs shows:

I am having the same issues, Is apple offering our money back for these devices? I bought it with the intentions of using it.

I am having the same issue. Time Machine will start at will seem to freeze at one point as if caught in a loop. Apple has an issue that it needs to address ASAP. This should be a priority fix.

I've reformatted. repartitioned and even tried running Time Machine in safe mode. Nothing has worked. I even replaced my external backup hard drive but nada. I tried excluding just about every app on my hard drive in batches of 5 or 6 but that didn't work either. Time Machine worked flawlessly until I upgraded to Sierra. You can't tell me that there isn't a log file somewhere that can identify the problem. If there isn't then woe to the programers. The Apple people seem to be in denial. They act like I'm the only person that has ever had this problem. I've become so frustrated that I've vowed to never use Time Machine again. I currently have two additional backups. A clone of my internal HD and I also use drive genius 4 Bootwell. I believe there are currently three beta versions of Sierra released but what's taking so long. Will we have to wait 6 months for a release to the general public. Isn't that what beta releases are for. To work out the kinks before releasing to the general public. How could they have been so clueless. It seems like ever since Steve Jobs passed Apple has been in a downward spiral. Let me give you an idea of what it's like to deal with them. They ask you have you tried booting up in safe mode. And you reply yes 23 times. And they reply well can you try one more time. At that point you just want to say, "if I was in the same room as you I would rip your head off and shove it up your butt!"

Is there any progress on this yet?

I have 2 x Air devices and an iMac trying to back up to my 2TB AE TC but all are failing.

I do not run Sophos or antivirus either.

The issues reported are "preparing backup" hanging for hours and hours. Then pop ups saying the device cannot be found. Followed by two HDD's showing in Time Machine.

All backups stopped the day I upgraded to Sierra 10.12 and all are now running 10.12.1 without success.

This is VERY frustrating considering Apple have also decided not to continue development or work on their wireless routers.