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Time Machine constantly making new backup

My Time Machine is periodically but pretty constantly giving me the message that verification has failed and a new backup needs to be created. It has been an irregular but constant issue, happening 3 or 4 times in the past 12 months.


Could it be a failing hard drive? Or another issue with the Airport?


Rob

Posted on Dec 2, 2016 5:40 AM

Reply
135 replies

Nov 17, 2017 11:00 AM in response to AndyOrmsby

This has worked flawlessly since September until this week. The Time Capsule is now on its third rebuild of the week. The other backup devices report no errors and appear to be working fine.

And yes annoying at the very least.


After almost a year.. TM decided it was time..


The dreaded corruption..


User uploaded file


I was also running Carbon Copy Cloner to the same Time Capsule.. for about a year.. no problems at all.

(As well as Time Machine to a Synology).. I have since turned off Time Machine.. it is not worth the hassle.. It is fairly reliable to local disks.. but I would give up network drives once you go to Sierra or later.

Feb 18, 2017 9:42 AM in response to teeschmid

Having had this problem I archived the three "Apple sparse bundle" from the 3 TB disk of my TimeCapsule. It was not easy, archiving requires to connect an external disk that can hold all the "sparse bundles" that you have on the TimeCapsule at the same time.

Next I erased the internal disk (from the AirPort service program), did a Hard Reset of the TimeCapsule according the Apple FAQ "Resetting an AirPort base station".

That was on February-12.

I started a new backup on the emptied TimeCapsule disk. Yesterday February-17 I had the message again "… must create a new backup …".

Thus five days of backup only. Apple, that is not what I paid for. I want reliable operation for my good money.

- TimeCapsule 3 TB, Version 7.7.8

- iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), macOS Sierra, Version 10.12.3, Memory 8 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

Mar 18, 2017 10:45 AM in response to hjt48

It "might" be possible that doing it manually is better, but your probably just stretching out the mean time between failures.


Typically it does a backup every hour:

  • ~24 times a day
  • ~168 times a week
  • ~672 times a month


I don't think your manual backups are working at that type of consistent frequency.


I just don't understand how any "responsible" company can let a critical and costly feature failure continue for so long.

Jan 19, 2017 7:15 PM in response to Flyingdp

Just for some more observations, I have two Late 2014 iMac's and a 2012 MBA, all running 10.12.2, all backing up to a 2014 AirPort Time Capsule. The MBA and one of the iMac's have never had the first problem, but the other iMac about every month or so throws this error. It has been doing this for probably the past year, both before the Time capsule firmware update and after, and going back to the OS X 10.10. Thus, it seems this has to do with the computer and not the backup device. FWIW.

Jan 22, 2017 5:33 AM in response to Mitch Stone

For me, the problem started 2016-December-05, under Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10), with my 3 year old 3 TB Timecapsule:

in German: ", muss Time Machine ein neues Backup für dich erstellen. "
(in English: "… Time Machine must create a new backup for you." )

The message reappeared in 2017-January, whereup I connected a firewire disk for Time Machine.

On 2017-January-15 my Mac failed (graphics board), I had to buy a new Mac.

The new iMac under macOS Sierra (Version 10.12.2) used the existing TimeCapsule for five days. Today it came up with the usual …must create a new backup….

… Yosemite does not have this issue, so it seems to be a bug in Sierra.

I conclude: the problem exists with MacOS Yosemite and with Sierra.😟

I called Apple support, the friendly supporter did not find any useful information, just old stuff.

⚠Apple, find a solution. Please, do that fast!⚠

Jan 22, 2017 11:18 PM in response to Flyingdp

I am cross-posting this suggestion from another thread on this subject since it might represent a short-term fix.


After two weeks of successful backups, I ran Disk First Aid on my Time Machine disk, knowing if I waited for it to fail, DFA can't repair it. DFA found a massive list of errors (far too lengthy to post the transcript here). In the end DFA reported making a huge number of repairs, and then at the very end of the process, reported that a repair had failed. However, the next backup was successful, so I wasn't any worse off. When I ran DFA again a week later, it found no errors. To date I have gone three weeks without being forced to start from scratch. It was every week or two before.


If anyone else with this problem would like to attempt the same fix, here are the steps:


Launch Disk Utility.

Force Time Machine to "Back Up Now"

Wait for the Disk Image "Apple sparse bundle" to appear in the list.

Select the volume "Time Machine" under the "Apple sparse bundle" toggle (quickly, as it will only appear for as long as the backup requires).

Click the First Aid button.

Wait (took about an hour for me when it was repairing errors, much less when it found none)

Feb 3, 2017 1:47 PM in response to Flyingdp

I'm having this same issue with a MBP 15 (last real Pro, 2013), and have been for a while now (since sierra). It seems every month it fails and 'needs to make a new backup'. I'm using an Airport Extreme with a Synology as the TimeMachine drive. The very odd thing is that I have a MacMini running El Capitan thats been backing up to that same drive for YEARS, with no issues.


MBP - Jan 7 backup failed Feb 3. as did it in Dec, Nov, Oct, etc.

Mini - June 2015 backup still going.

Feb 19, 2017 2:27 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Thanks for this tip, Mitch. Is it still working without any back-up errors? I'm going to try this as well.


Have had the same Time machine error for several months now. I have a late 2012 iMac and a Timecapsule purchased from the same period. Latest version of Sierra on the Mac and latest Firmware on the TC. First time it occured (sometime 2nd half of last year) I've tried to resolve it by totally erasing the 2 Terabyte harddrives of the Time capsule through disk utility. I choose the most comprihensive method (7 times overwrites the disks), took about 3 days to complete. Did help for a while (think one or two monts), but here we are again with the same problem.


I was thinking on using SpinRight on it (a disk repair tool from Steve Gibson), but from these posts I'm starting to believe it's a Mac OS problem, not a HDD problem. Did anyone tried this already and did it fix the problem?


I will try Mitch's solution first and post the results in a while.

Feb 19, 2017 4:14 PM in response to Bouac

Seemed to help for about a month, then I got zonked again. I'm not convinced that it doesn't help at all, since it does often find errors in the disk image, and it did keep me going longer than before. The impression I am getting is TM errors are cumulative, but it can sometimes throw off enough errors to make the disk image unrepairable in just one session.

Feb 22, 2017 7:03 AM in response to Flyingdp

Well... The same issue came back today. The backup lasted about 60 days.

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

I have a question for those having this same issue. I'm trying to find some common denominators here. As I was thinking about what else I've changed around the time this started happening, I was losing connection from time to time to our Time Capsule (in an upstairs bedroom) so I ran an ethernet cable downstairs where computers are and setup an airport express, extending our wireless network. That may have been around the same time that Time Machine began having issues. Do others with this same problem use another Wi-Fi router to extend the Time Capsule network?

Feb 22, 2017 7:18 AM in response to DoctorPatient

Makes no difference whether you are extending using wireless or using a wired Ethernet cable connection. Major industry publications are now picking up on Apple's refusal to address the issue. For example.....


http://www.macworld.com/article/3170844/macs/when-backups-go-bad-the-problem-wit h-using-network-drives-with-time-machine…

Time Machine constantly making new backup

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