backup stuck on "calculating time remaining"

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Level 1

16 points

backup stuck on "calculating time remaining"

I am trying to back up my Macbook 2015 for the first time. I am using an external drive that used to work on My Imac. Time machine is stuck on "calculating time remaining" for several hours. The backup data is not that big, around 70GB.

I have performed the following checks

-restarted the mac first

-erased the backup partition, and started with a fresh one

-tested copying a file to the backup partition. I can copy a single file, but i am prompted for credentials. It appears the partition is set to everyone read only, system read and write(is this normal for backup partitions?)

-tested the drive performance on another partition (comes up as 36 MB/s read/write, which is fine for a USB 2.0 laptop HD)

what further checks can i make?

MacBook, macOS Sierra (10.12.6), null

Posted on Sep 24, 2017 11:01 AM

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Answer 1

rossb2 Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 30, 2017 6:48 AM in response to Old Toad

I have not been able to establish the root cause, but I have a work around. I have found that if i disable wi-fi, backup starts straight away. I think the issue is caused, because Apple reduced the priority of TM on the Sierra release. This issue is discussed on this thread “https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7677444?start=255&tstart=0” .While disabling wifi worked for me, there appear to be differing work arounds. I guess it depends on whatever process has higher priority than TM at the time. It remains to be seen if this is
a reliable work around in the long term. I
hope Apple can be made aware of this, and release a patch.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

215,778 points

Sep 24, 2017 11:13 AM in response to rossb2

Are you doing the backup manually? Reformat the EHD and set the access to that shown in this screenshot and set the ownership to be ignored:

If you're doing the backup manually perhaps you should consider using a backup app that does incremental backups, i.e. copying only those new or modified files. It certainly speeds up the backup process. Apps that can to that include SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner and ChronoSync.

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,274 points

Sep 24, 2017 11:05 AM in response to rossb2

If a Time Machine backup takes longer than you expect - Apple Support

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

215,778 points

Sep 30, 2017 6:42 AM in response to rossb2

See if one of the topics in Section C, Troubleshooting, from this website: Apple OSX and Time Machine Tips. It's probably the most complete Time Machine informational site available.

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Answer 5

rossb2 Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 24, 2017 12:17 PM in response to Old Toad

thanks. the permissions were read only for me. I erased the partition in disk utility. Once erased/reformatted, i checked the info. I now have a volume which matches your screen shot. I ran the backup again. It appears to create some backup folders, and a file called 2017-09-24-194849.inProgress which sits at 156kb. It does not appear to go any further. I had a look in the console for any hostd entries. all i get is

Sep 24 18:08:46 localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd-status): The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.

Sep 24 19:21:42 localhost com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd-status): The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.

Sep 24 19:48:22 MacBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system): com.apple.backupd-auto: EnablePressuredExit is not compatible with KeepAlive=true. Ignoring EnablePressuredExit.

Sep 24 19:48:22 MacBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd-helper.status): The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.

Sep 24 19:48:22 MacBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.backupd-auto): This service is defined to be constantly running and is inherently inefficient.

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Answer 6

Old Toad

Level 10

215,778 points

Sep 24, 2017 2:49 PM in response to rossb2

Are you using an app to make the backups? If so what is it?

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Answer 7

rossb2 Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 24, 2017 3:04 PM in response to Old Toad

i am not using an app, its just Time Machine. I select "back up now" from the system tray icon

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