Q: Time Machine stuck preparing backup
Hi Community
In Time Machine, I get the iMac Backup - Time Capsule 371 GB of 998 GB available Preparing Backup phase for an eternity, as others have reported.
My system is an iMac (27-inch, Late 2009), 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor, 12 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Memory with a ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB video card and a 1 TB ST31000528AS Media Sata internal Physical Disk.
My last backup was 16 Sep 2016 @ 1257 GMT and my software was the last version of El Capitan. (I backup to another external HDD using Carbon Copy Cloner and Mac Backup Guru, unfortunately I haven't got another large enough ext HDD to run a Time Machine backup to as well).
When the TC is connected I can see the iMac Backup folder and iMac.sparsebundle and when I enter Time Machine I can see the timeline running back from 16 Sep and it allows me to access files from folders. Therefore, I assume that the TC HDD is OK.
Software changes were: 1 Sep a copy of CCleaner Free 1.14.451, 2 Sep Security Update 2016-001, 13 Sep Adobe Flash, 14 Sep iTunes 12.5.1, 16 Sep Digital Camera RAW Compatibility update. Never had a problem before with these downloads. Updated Safari on 20 Sep and then to Sierra on 22 Sep having first backed up using CCC and MBG.
Searched the various help pages through Google. Followed advice given to Reset the SMC and PRAM, deleted Sophos Home and the com.apple.TimeMachine.plist and com.apple.TimeMachine.plist.lockfile.
Rebooted and restarted the iMac and Time Capsule many times, carried out numerous Verify Backups on the disc even reset the Time Capsule but all to no avail.
I am still stuck at Preparing Backup when I reselect the backup disc.
Can anyone help further please?
I last had a problem in 2014 when Apple recalled the iMac for a HDD replacement programme. This was successful but a few days later the Time Machine and Time Capsule would not backup. This was due to the component change when the UUID was different. The advice I should have been given was how to Inherit Backup and the Associate Disc commands within Terminal. I foolishly started again when the TC asked me to and then discovered the Terminal commands a few days later. Actually the loss of 4 years' backups was no great issue, so I suppose if I have to, I will do so again unless a clever Community member can advise me better please?
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
Posted on Sep 25, 2016 12:20 PM