Mojave time machine back up failing

Interesting, I went to that folder and found 2 folders with the same name, but neither of them had a ? in the name.

They did however have seemingly the same name. And for standard HFS+, two folders with the same name in the same parent folder would cause an issue. But going case sensitive worked for me.

Hi guys,

I'm the developer of this application.

I apologize for the inconvenience you could have with the issue.

We have prepared the application update with the bug fix and sent it to App Store. Now App Cleaner v.6.2 update is being reviewed by Apple. I hope Apple will approve and release the update to App Store in a few days.

Since update v.6.2 is released and launched the folders will be removed, the issue will disappear.

Now, there is a simple way to bypass the issue - just add the folder

"~/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner"

to Time Machine exclude list.

The detailed guide how to exclude the folder from backups that is available on our website

https://nektony.com/mac-app-cleaner/troubleshooting

Regards,

Serge

The simplest solution is to add the folder to the Time Machine exclude list.

Look at my previous answer in this thread how to do that.

One of the folders was created by App Cleaner v.5.4, another one was created by version 6.0.

You can remove those folders, if you are using only application v.6.0, there will be only one folder.

Serge

I had the same problem with TM, and I believe you're right it's a Mojave problem. I've written an analysis that might help address some of your problems, too, particularly in re large and possibly fragmented files. What it comes down to is the file I/O process responsible for reading data may be getting stuck on things it thinks are corrupt.

Here's my writeup: Frequent system hangs and freezes in macOS Mojave 10.14: Notes, reproducible errors, and possible workarounds

How many of you have filed a but report with Apple ? Feedback - macOS - Apple

Applecare just tried to fob me off saying I must have a malware (on a clean install!) and said "it cant possible be a bug in our software!".

Not impressed.

I don't have Mac-App-Cleaner or anything similar. I raised a bug report on Apple feedback page, but I dont think i will get a reply.

I suggest everyone who has this issue reports it. Feedback - Time Machine - Apple

Like so many people, I am having Time Machine trouble. I am afraid a great deal of this thread is beyond my technical knowledge, but I am concerned (as I have already said in earlier posts in this thread) about the formatting of the drive (strictly, the partition of the drive) I am trying to back up to. At the moment It is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but I have seen suggestions that it should be APFS. The document reached by the link below seems to suggest HFS+.

I have found this statement: 'Important: You can back up from an HFS+ or APFS-formatted disk to an HFS+ disk; however, Time Machine can’t back up to an APFS-formatted disk. If you select a back up disk formatted as APFS, Time Machine offers to reformat it as HFS+.' (my italics). It comes from https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/types-of-disks-you-can-use-with-time-machine-mh15139/mac. I should welcome comments, including any about case-sensitive formatting.

Now I submitted a feedback on

https://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

and I got:

Thank you for your feedback on the Time Capsule.

We cannot respond to you personally, but please know that your

message has been received and will be reviewed by the Time Capsule Team.

If we need to follow up with you on your ideas for improving the Time

Capsule, we will contact you directly.

We appreciate your assistance in making the Time Capsule better.

Time Capsule Team

Apple

So wait and see ......

To show willing, I posted a simple description of the TM problem in the Bug Reporter, https://idmsa.apple.com/IDMSWebAuth/login.html?appIdKey=77e2a60d4bdfa6b7311c854a56505800be3c24e3a27a670098ff61b69fc5214b&sslEnabled=true&rv=3a, a couple of weeks ago and updated it just now, adding a sysdiagnose file as requested by the Apple engineers (this facility being the especial advantage of the Bug Reporter). Earlier today I also posted a description in https://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html. Please, everyone affected by the TM difficulties, post in both these places and thus apply a little pressure on the Apple engineers. Strength in numbers!

"Unlocking" of the time machine settings in the preference pane.

Just open the standard lock ( I know this sounds a bit humble but just try).

I think most of the issues we face are related to the knew Mojave security architecture where rights are limited for security reasons by the os.

You can check this if the workaround above does not work for you. Just follow these steps:

1. Shut down your MAC
2. Start your make holding the command ⌘ and R button to boot into recovery mode
3. If you are in recovery mode then open the Terminal app via the utilities
4. Copy the following command into the Terminal.app "csrutil disable"
5. You should see a message that confirms "success"
6. Reboot
7. Now the MACs new security concept is disabled. Just try again if your apps are working as they should. Of course you should perform all the things mentioned in this thread e.g. checking your disks for integrity etc. Just have one thing up and running at a time (e.g. do not use a disk cloning tool like "Super Duper" oder "Carbon Copy" at the same time you have time machine running a backup job.
8. If your are hopefully successful with it - you will know if Apples new security level for the MAC is affecting your system giving you and me a hard time. Some apps maybe can not already deal with it.
9. When finished shut down the system again and boot again into recovery mode.
10. Open again the Terminal.app to turn the integrated security back on.
11. Therefore copy the following command into the Terminal "csrutil enable"
12. reboot
13. To check if it is back to normal open in Standard mode again the Terminal app and enter "csrutil status"
14. You will see then a message "System Integrity Protection status: enabled

That is it. Hope this helps you.

My latest test was with a long exclusion list (see attached).

Again I erased the external 1TB disc and TM started a fresh initial backup.

But despite all that exclusions there was again TM creating way too much of backup data:

I expected about 100GB to be backed up, but TM only ended after around 800GB.

Result: I still didn't find a directory beeing responsible for this behaviour.

This seems like a problem that needs some press coverage to get some attention within Apple to solve.

Long story short: After finding this thread, I tried reformatting my Western Digital external drive (used exclusively for Time Machine) as Mac OS Extended Journaled Case-Sensitive. Time Machine was able to complete its first backup. Success! (I hope).

The history: I have an iMac 27” (2015) with two external drives - one for media, one for Time Machine. six months ago (running High Sierra), my iMac would randomly lock up with the spinning beach ball cursor whenever Time Machine would start a backup.

I did a complete wipe-and-reinstall High Sierra from recovery. I also wiped the Time Machine drive. I couldn’t complete the first Time Machine backup without beach-balling. I thought the Time Machine drive might have been failing. I decided to replace my media drive with a higher capacity drive and repurpose the media drive for Time Machine.

Bought a new Western Digital drive and transferred the contents of my media drive. My first Time Machine backup worked. Problem solved, I thought.

A couple weeks ago, the problem resurfaced. Whenever Time Machine attempted a backup, the iMac would beach-ball. I figured it was drive failure again — fortunately, the drive was under warranty. RMA’d with Western Digital and a few days later I had a replacement. Formatted it with Disk Utility and started Time Machine.

A few hours in, the first backup failed. After that, whenever Time Machine started a backup the iMac would lock up. Even opening a Finder window from a fresh boot would cause the beachball.

Looking at the various forums and just getting desperate, over the next several days I:

• Booted into recovery and ran Disk First Aid on all drives
• NVRAM reset, SMC reset
• Wiped and reinstalled macOS Mojave
• Wiped my media drive and did a secure erase to try to identify/avoid bad blocks (that alone took 18 hours)
• Copied the contents of my media drive to my (now initialized) Time Machine drive and vice versa (no errors)
• Used an old Mac running pre-High Sierra to initialize my Time Machine drive (I don’t remember where I read this suggestion)
• Turned off (or excluded) the Time Machine drive from Spotlight
• Confirmed I was not running AppCleaner or anything else other than the bare Mojave install
• Opened a support case with Apple - spent an hour trying various troubleshooting steps to come to the conclusion that Western Digital drives are not compatible with macOS and that I should take it up with them
• Went through my media drive and found that I had previously copied an old Library folder from years ago— I threw it away in case there were any files in there that may have been causing a problem
• Reformatted the Time Machine drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Case Sensitive)

One of the last two (or both) appears to have solved the problem. Time Machine was able to complete its first backup. I can open a Finder window without locking up. So far, Time Machine backups aren’t locking up the iMac.

While I’m happy that my problem appears to have been solved by one of the workarounds, it still mean the root cause needs to be solved. I’ve also reported this using Apple’s feedback page, but given how many threads I’ve found with the same issue (going back to High Sierra) and with two bug-fix releases of Mojave that haven’t fixed this, is there any other way to get some visibility on this?

I wonder how many hard drives have been neeedlessly discarded (and how much money has been spent on new drives) because people assumed it was hard drive failure?

After multiple failed attempts to get Time Machine to complete a full initial backup, I seem to have hit upon a workaround solution.

I noticed in Activity Monitor that two apps were always eating up a LOT of processor cycles during the failing backups - SPOTLIGHT was apparently trying to index the new backup disk as it was being written and I think NORTON SECURITY was also trying to virus-scan it at the same time.

1. I erased the old Time Machine drive with Disk Utility and gave it a new name
2. I shut off all Norton scans temporarily
3. System Preferences>Spotlight>"Excluded" the new Time Machine drive from indexing and also the entire Macintosh HD (temporarily)
4. Time Machine> unchecked "Back Up Automatically"
5. Deleted Macintosh HD>Library>Preferences>com.apple.TimeMachine.plist and emptied the Trash
6. Restarted the computer
7. Quit Norton Security
8. Double-checked to make sure everything was Excluded from Spotlight indexing
9. Time Machine> deleted the prior Time Machine drive name and replaced it with the newly created one
10. Time Machine> checked "Back Up Automatically" and started backup
11. This time the full 390GB backup ran at "light speed" and completed in about two hours (via USB 3.1)
12. Restored Norton to original settings
13. Removed the Spotlight "Exclusion" for Macintosh HD, but retained the exclusion of the new Time Machine drive
14. Restarted the computer and let it resume "business as usual".

PROBLEM SOLVED! You're welcome. :-)

Here's what I (since the update) have:

It stays this way (several mbs of ... and 100% CPU backupd) until the forced poweroff: finally all disk IO operations and programs using them hang and the disks (all of them) don't umount so the system can't shutdown gracefully.

By the way: external drive goes to sleep while the local struggles (it's audible) -- with that hung IO thread perhaps?

I get a "backup failed" error message in notifications after but not before the backup finishes and Time Machine shows the files have been backed up. I assume a restore would fail but wouldn't want to find out. I have removed the latest backup folder which has been suggested by some and this does not cure the problem. I now have an "inprogress" file suffix running with Time Machine inFinder and the System Preference for Time Machine indicates it stuck calculating the time remaining and shows it is backing up 1.3 MB of 11.38 GB. My Time Machine folders are much larger that than 11.38 GB. I am going no going to disconnect Time Machine but I think it would only work for restoring an individual file and not everything as before.