Level 1

15 points

Time Machine in Sierra messed up again!

Had all sorts of problems with TM when first installing Sierra (back in September???). Posted a couple of items to the community. (Can't find them - can anyone say how to retrieve your own posts?) Am running 10.12.1 version of Sierra now.

Finally it all settled down. Then today get this popup:

Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on “JDCTimeCapsule”. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.

This is just plain ridiculous! So now it wants to delete all my backups, and then put another full backup (250GB) on the drive (which if I remember took 12 hours the last time).

I specifically run TM because I want a complete trail of changes made to critical files, I certainly don't want all backups deleted every few months and then restarted from scratch.

Ran TM for years without a hiccup before installing Sierra. There must be something fundamentally wrong here.

TM was one of the key features that caused me to switch to a Mac, and now under Sierra it is failing badly.

In terms of specific questions:

-- is there any way to fix the current backup so TM is happy to continue using it? (Have tried both the Apple Disk Utility and Disk Warrior in the past when the same problem occurred, with no luck.)

-- is there any way to scan the backup drive to see what TM is unhappy with? (Again, to have some hope of fixing it.)

Appreciate any suggestions. Have already gone through most other posts on this topic, and thought that the troubles were behind me, but am now in a mess again.

The last time I physically mounted the drives and renamed the TM disk images so that they at least didn't erase them and there is some possibility of recovering an old file if ever really necessary - but to repeat, this is ridiculous.

Thanks

For the record: mid2012 MacBook Pro, Apple Time Capsule (on wired network). Have 2 3TB USB drives plugged into the Time Capsule (via powered USB hub) - these are the active TM drives (alternating between drives). The internal Time Capsule drive was taken out of the TM rotation when it got full - I really do want to be able to go back and get old files if ever needed.

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), macOS Sierra (10.12.1), Apple Time Capsule + 2 3TB USB

Posted on Nov 6, 2016 4:14 PM

24 replies

jcrowley99 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 8, 2016 6:07 PM in response to harryaliasjames

OK, finally gave up and reverted to El Capitan (10.11.6) from Time Machine. First made copies of all my projects and personal files, then restored the whole system from TM, copied back all the saved files, etc. 2 days wasted and still going.

Would not recognize either of the previous backup sparsebundles - including the one just used to restore the whole system. Finally renamed them, and now it thinks that it is doing the initial backup to each of the 2 drives. Will chew up a lot of space, and I've lost a lot of backup history, but think that at least I'll be back to a stable TM environment. At least the saved sparsebundles can be mounted so worst case can use Finder or Terminal to dig up old files if absolutely necessary.

Jeeze - feels like I'm back fighting with Windows!

Nov 8, 2016 11:54 PM in response to jcrowley99

I would be interested to know if you have successfully completed a TM backup.

My plan is to revert to El Capitan on my iMac but leave Siera on my MacBook. That way I will get notification when Apple sort this through a Siera update.

I think Apple has seriously let us users down with this macOS release; they must have known it was not fully tested either for glitches or compatibility. Vert disappointed!

Nov 9, 2016 6:10 AM in response to jcrowley99

Changing the name and doing a new backup is why it worked; but your are using up a lot of disk space with the corrupted backup. You really could have saved yourself a lot of angst if you had initially let Time Machine "do its thing".

If you want an archival backup solution, you will have to use another program. Time Machine will delete older backups once the backup disk begins to fill up. Also it cleans up after a successful backup by deleting older backup images.

Have a nice day.

jcrowley99 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 9, 2016 6:10 AM in response to harryaliasjames

Yes, finally finished the initial (full) backup on one drive this AM (9 hours). Still need to take the initial backup to the other drive, but will wait until tonight since that will be another 9 hour run. Everything seems to be OK so far.

Still bummed that Sierra destroyed so much of my backup history. I bought new drives when the previous drives filled - for the explicit purpose of being able to track back as far as needed to retrieve a file if needed, and TM was the perfect mechanism until Sierra. (When I converted from Windows, also bought VMWare and captured both old PCs as virtual machines, so can go back and dig into those if needed.)

FWIW: Bought 2 of the ioSafe drives (through Apple) - 3 TB each. Back up alternately to each drive so have redundancy, and even if the house burns down expect at least 1 of the drives to survive. All worked like a charm until I installed Sierra. It first destroyed a backup about 6 days after installation (also had some minor hiccups before that but they had seemed to be resolved.) Thought (hoped) that the 10.12.1 update would fix some bugs, but apparently not.

Would appreciate if you post back to this thread once you get a Sierra update that appears to have a stable TM, but even then will probably wait quite a while before taking the plunge again. Figure that overall Apple has wasted a week of my time trying to recover mangled backups, and lost a large chunk of the backup history.

jcrowley99 Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 9, 2016 6:38 AM in response to Boyd Porter

Posts crossed - see mine below for more detail.

Since "do its thing" involved deleting the entire backup history, was not willing to go along with that. For heavens sake, you'd think that they would at least give you an option to rename the old image and then start building a new one.

One image (unfortunately with the most history) was corrupted beyond repair - tried Disk Utility and Disk Warrior, but still could not even mount the drive. Did finally delete that one. Was able to recover the most recently corrupted image, although TM again refuses to use it. Can however mount it as a drive so in the worst case can dig around manually if ever required.

Know that TM will delete older images, but my understanding is that will occur only when the disk fills (please let me know if that is incorrect!). I monitor the space available and intend to retire that drive and buy a new one before hitting the point of deletions. (I do software development, so really don't generate a lot of changed files - 3TB will probably last for several years. I've still got all the materials from consulting projects 20 years ago.)

BTW: I've been around long enough to remember when 16KB of RAM was a lot, and 256MB of disk was huge! Now I'm sitting here with 7TB of disk available just for backups!

Finally, before I forget again, why are Verify Backups and Browse other Backup Disks ... hidden behind the option key? Did not even know they existed until this little kerfuffle. The TM menu is certainly not big, they should just be listed on the menu, or at least as buttons on the TM Preferences page. (Would also be nice if Verify Backups popped up a window showing some details about progress or any errors detected.)

.... and you are correct - should start investigating other backup solutions if TM is not trustworthy.

cwolsen

Level 1

9 points

Nov 9, 2016 6:45 AM in response to jcrowley99

I am stuck with Sierra (new company policy) so I will just have to wait for a fix before using TM again. Luckily we have another backup system that does a nightly that seems to be working, but no hourly recovery, which we have used more than you might think. Come on Apple fix this!

John Galt

Level 10

155,222 points

Nov 9, 2016 6:55 AM in response to jcrowley99

As I wrote your hard disk has been in a state of failure for some time. I understand that you are not yet ready to accept that fact.

.... and you are correct - should start investigating other backup solutions if TM is not trustworthy.

The software used with any other backup solution will be no more reliable as the hardware it uses.

Your TC's hard disk drive has failed. Get over it.

Whatever damage is caused can be repaired.

Then fix it. Hard disk drives are so cheap they should be considered the disposable wear items that they have become. Even a brand new 3 TB Time Capsule is not worth the time than I already devoted to your Discussion.

Nov 10, 2016 1:27 AM in response to John Galt

It seems to me that John Galt is biased or blinkered! He seems to be ignoring the fact that a number of users, me included, have stated they are having problems with TM in Siera that weren't there before they upgraded (if I can call it that).

How does he explain the TM problems disappearing after reverting back to El Capitan? Are the HDD fine for El Capitan but faulty when used by Sierra? That seems to me to be a conflict caused by Apples Siera compatibility capability??

Wake up John Galt, stop being rude, see the truth, Siera is flawed!!!!

cwolsen

Level 1

9 points

Nov 10, 2016 1:41 AM in response to harryaliasjames

I Have to agree there is more going on here than bad sectors. I have run multiple tests on my WD MyBook Duo and show no issues. And as you say they worked fine before the upgrade.

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Time Machine in Sierra messed up again!