Mojave time machine back up failing

I also have a 1TB main hard drive (iMac 27"), but I now only have 70 Gb "free" and THAT is with almost no photos on it (and 70 Gb is about what is necessary for it to run halfway decent). I do not even use the Photos App, because it eats storage! I do not even have any heavy games! Nor do I store music files on my main hard drive. But I do have "heavy" apps such as photoshopping, music editing, and genealogy. I don't bother to back up any minor apps that I can easily download again... just the ones that can't be replaced. Thus, my SUPER DUPER backup hard drive is also 1TB. All valuable stuff (photos, music, genealogy records, etc.) is continually put on separate drives TWICE, some even THRICE. [I've learned from two computer crashes!] So, for me Time Machine isn't even necessary, even if it did work. It would be "convenient" if Time Machine could backup all this "stuff" onto a separate hard drive, but it can't and it won't. Anyway, I would need at least a very fast 6TB drive to do it. And there ain't no such thing -- at least not that I can afford.

Not easy to tell which of my replies you are commenting on (Yes and I don't know how to do those clever quote boxes either)

Anyhoo,

I don't know what the official guide is but a TM of twice the volume of what is being backed up should allow for the full drive plus a heck of a lot of incrementals. Once TM is full it will drop the oldest incrementals off the end of the stack and keep going.

It is why my 1TB drive with 600GB used and a 2TB Time Machine drive has been backing up for about three years and not quite full yet.

If your Mac is very full, and not even any Photos, you need to check just what is being saved in the main drive.

From the Apple icon top left hit About This Mac

Storage

Then Manage

Then look at the files in each category in the side panel, and sorting the list by size by tapping (twice?) on the size column header.

Go for the biggest!

Do a cold boot on Mac, holding the Command+R keys down. Once you get to the main screen that comes up, go to Disk Utility>Macintosh HD, then Repair. Let it run and see if any of your snapshots are corrupt. Time Machine won't back up with a corrupt snapshot.

Hello, I use a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015), doing double backups on two Maxtor external drives at regular(ish) intervals with Time Machine.

I had the same problem after updating to Mojave about 10 days ago. Now, having just further updated the system to Mojave 10.14.4, I tried backing up again, but again the backup got stuck and would not complete.

In the meantime I remembered having problems with excessively slow backups some years ago, and getting around that by temporarily (just for the time of the backup) disabling my security software (in my case Sophos version 2.1.0). Eventually the matter got fixed and I did not need to do that anymore. However, in this case I thought I'd try the same strategy again: perhaps, as before, there was some incompatibility between the update and the security software, so temporarily disabling the latter may allow me to do a complete backup. Well it seemed to work!

I've just completed my first post-Mojave backup on one of my two usual drives. It took a bit over one hour (not surprising as it was a big, ‘system update’ backup), but it progressed steadily and finished in the normal manner without getting stuck. Apple and / or Sophos (and other security software brands?) perhaps need to be aware of this in order to fix the matter. In the meantime I hope this tip may be of use to someone.

BTW I do not think temporarily disabling the security software puts one at risk, provided nothing 'risky' is being done during the security suspension spell. If anyone knows differently, I'd be interested to know.

Regards, Bea

I just started having this problem today. 10.14.4. I'm super glad for Super Duper and BackBlaze, but yes, sometimes I need to go back a few days or weeks or so to recover something else.

I guess still not fixed. Sigh. Bless your hearts, Apple.

Is anyone using the App "NightOwl"? I've completely deleted it two days ago and since then, my backups are working fine again! Not sure if it was the app which causes problems but I didn't change anything since then...

I upgraded from High Sierra where Time Machine was fine. It has only been since I updated to Mojave that Time Machine backups fail.

Upon hearing this, I have to surmise that the 2012 iMac and my late 2012 Mini really aren't compatible with Mojave, even though they were both on Apple's compatible machines list.

Exactly the same with my backup situation. I can't get a complete TM ** since Mojave. Apple, please correct this as soon as possible. I need my TimeMachine!

You would be changing the format of the drive you are using to backup. Your macOS drive would remain APFS.

I removed the app, then reinstalled and had only one folder. I then formatted back to the regular not case sensitive and am trying to back up.

I was about to start changing my HD to an SSD and use TM to do it, however when I looked into the TM it showed I only had 62gb left and this is a 2TB TM. Im thinking about clearing everything out of it and starting over, a fresh OS and Mojive updated version and I hope to do this from the CLOUD or should I put the OS on an external SSD to install ? Plz tell me your thoughts! MY Email is jlett87@aol.com not what’s above.

Seagate Desktop 8TB External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STGY8000400) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07CQJBSQL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_TxRICbPGWK3F6

Hi Serge,

the thing is, I don't have a folder called "~/Library/Containers" at all.

I am on Mojave 10.14.4

Any other suggestions please?

Kind regards,

Peter

Thanks for this!

I haven't had a successful backup in a couple of weeks and it totally solved the issue for me!

B