Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability Time Machine must complete a new backup for you.

If we only knew.. but you are not alone.. loads of people have the same issue.

Particularly bad on Sierra.. and if you are on Sierra.. it could be a bug that is not repairable.. think about how to not use Time Machine.. ie try alternative like Carbon Copy Cloner.. free to try for a month.. or use Time Machine with a local USB drive.

See..

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

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

You are receiving the message because your backups are corrupted, and Disk Utility on your Mac cannot repair them.

Countless users are having serious issues with Time Machine and Sierra. You don't indicate what operating system that you are using......but we'll bet that it is Sierra.

The issue has actually been with us for a long time, but it is much worse with Sierra.

Apple does not have a "fix", but they do claim to be "working on it". That being the case, they have been "working on it" for a long, long time.....almost 6 years.

What happens if you answer the dialog box to "Start New Backup?"

Since the message appears on his Mac, the message applies to the backups for his Mac. The message tells you what will happen:

Click Start New Backup to create a new backup. This will remove your existing backup history.

So, Time Machine will erase the backup history for his Mac.....(because the backups are corrupted)....and then start all over again with a new complete backup of his Mac. This will likely take 3-5 hours or more, depending on how much data will be backed up.

Our Time Capsule would not have room to create a new backup for his MacBook Pro unless Time Machine deletes his Sparsebundle image as a part of creating the new backup. Is that what it is going to do?

Yes. As the message says.....When you click Start New Backup.....This will remove your (his Mac's) existing backup history.

Or do WE need to attempt to delete his Sparsebundle image ourselves first?

No, as the message says....When you click Start New Backup.....This will remove your (his Mac's) existing backup history.

OR, do we need to erase the Time Capsule 3TB drive entirely and BOTH of us establish new backups?

No, unless you want to completely erase all of the backups for all of the Macs on the Time Capsule, and then start over again with a new backup of each Mac.

Does anyone also know, since the speculation here is that it is Sierra related, whether High Sierra resolves it?

The issue is unfortunately worse with High Sierra. Apple has yet to act on this. My opinion would be that they will not act on this.

I am very upset with apple about this. I am using Sierra 10.12.4 After sending them all my files so they could investigate their answer was I may want to use an external hard drive to back my files up. WHAT? I purchased their back up system. I paid good money for this and it's not working and they are still selling it. Something stinks. They should send me an external hard drive, or at least admit they are having a big seemingly unfixable problem. Am I correct? And what should be done to protect ones files?

Thanks,

Mike Cook

Apple has not publicly recognized this issue, as far I can tell....I doubt that they ever will, despite the fact that the issue has drawn the attention of major industry publications. For example.....

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

As Apple says, you may want to use an external USB or FireWire drive connected directly to your Mac to increase the chances of reliable backups using Time Machine.

Otherwise, try other backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner or Chronosync.

My husband and I have backed up our MacBook Pro laptops to a Time Capsule for YEARS. We've used an originally 1TB time capsule and subsequently swapped out the hard drive to a 3TB.

Now he is getting this message for the last couple days and his Time Machine backup no longer runs. I am not and my Time Machine backups continue to run. I am on El Capitan and he is on Sierra.

What happens if you answer the dialog box to "Start New Backup?" Looking for an answer from someone who has done this.

Our Time Capsule would not have room to create a new backup for his MacBook Pro unless Time Machine deletes his Sparsebundle image as a part of creating the new backup. Is that what it is going to do? Or do WE need to attempt to delete his Sparsebundle image ourselves first? OR, do we need to erase the Time Capsule 3TB drive entirely and BOTH of us establish new backups?

Does anyone also know, since the speculation here is that it is Sierra related, whether High Sierra resolves it?

Thanks in advance.

Thank you.

By looking at other threads it appears that at least for some people, they get prompted to do this repeatedly, as often as every few days. It also seems from other threads that it is believed to be related to Sierra and TimeMachine to a network HDD versus a locally connected HDD, is that correct?

Do you know whether having TimeCapsule create a new backup ever results in just needing to do it once?

The issue is related to Time Machine itself and backups that occur to a network drive.....like a Time Capsule. Some Mac operating systems have had more problems than others. Sierra and High Sierra have the most problems. The problem has attracted the attention of major industry publications. Here is an example:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3170844/macs/when-backups-go-bad-the-problem-wi th-using-network-drives-with-time-machin…

Time Machine is reliable when the backup drive is connected directly to a Mac, like a USB drive.

Do you know whether having TimeCapsule create a new backup ever results in just needing to do it once?

It's not possible to say. Some users are luckier than others in this regard. Other users....like me...have found that once the dreaded message appears, it can do so at any time thereafter. It might be days, might be weeks, might be months.....but the message will appear again.

Unfortunately, you should expect the message to appear on other Macs that have been backing up to a Time Capsule as well. It's not a question of "if"....it's a question of "when".

Gee. We have been using TimeMachine with a 1st generation Time Capsule since Leopard (OS 10.5, released in 2007) for our PowerBooks and MacBook Pros - just swapped out the hard drive in it from 1TB to 3TB along the way to gain space. VERY few problems over the nearly 11 year duration. This particular scenario has never happened till January 2018 for us, and now just for his which is Sierra for several months.

Call us lucky, I guess.

I guess if our luck has now turned, replacing our TimeCapsule with a newer generation model may or may not help, though I understand the wireless connectivity on the newer models may be improved.

Things would be far better, and your backups would occur faster, if you simply connect a USB drive to each Mac and back up that way.

You could continue to use the Time Capsule and have a "dual" backup system.

Even better would be to also use another application like Carbon Copy Cloner to back up to the USB drives.

It's cool that Time Machine can go back weeks, months, even years to see a file, but few of us ever need to do that. What is really important for most users is to have a current backup of their Mac, in case the Mac fails.

I'd probably opt for Firewire, as our current MacBook Pros have FW-800 and only USB-2.

We do have and use another application to make periodic bootable clone backups as a supplementary backup strategy to Time Machine (we use SuperDuper, rather than CCC, though).

Thanks.

FireWire is fine, as is SuperDuper.

The important thing is to have another backup plan in addition to Time Machine to a network drive. Nice work.

Frankly, it is nothing short of a miracle that a 1st Gen Time Capsule will even power up at all, much less function correctly. Most of these devices failed at 18-24 months and few made it to 36 months.

It is going to go any time now, so it is good that you have an alternate back up plan.