Mojave time machine back up failing

Obviously, the Mojave OSX has a bad bug problem with its TIM, which has been known and reported for many months. No update in sight, either, I guess. Best to simply forget about TM and use 3rd party programs from now on -- until Apple gets its thumb out.

some people had deleted a folder in Library/Application Support related to MacCleaner and TimeMachine seems to work normally after that.

Check Mojave time machine back up failing

Forget Apple's "screwed-up" TM -- there are better apps, such as SUPER DUPER, or CARBON CLONE, that actually work!

Use the About this Mac storage review function described above and look for the biggest (multiple GB) file. It is most likely to be that.

Could even be something like the imovie library.

I spoke with a technician and they had me set up another user profile. When I did this and tried to back it up again it did the same thing. The other interesting thing is the same external hard drive did work on another computer using Mojave. The only different thing I did with the two computers when I downloaded Mojave was one used a hardwire and one used a WiFi. I can’t imagine this would make a difference.

namuang26, as an added bonus, my external drive is now a bootable disk after running the initial full backup with SuperDuper. Tried it yesterday, and it worked perfectly. This is a really nice option in case an issue arrises with the main internal boot drive. Thus, TM's failure turned into a positive solution for me – one that I may not have tried otherwise. Even if a TM fix is coming, I won't be going back.

Hello, the folder was in /Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data/Library/Application Support/App Cleaner & Uninstal

The error reported by TM was

2018-10-05 19:03:16.731350+0200 0xbdf38    Error       0x0                  4042   0    backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Error: (-48) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/iMac de Yann/2018-10-05-165601/Macintosh HD/Users/tigrou/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data/Library/Application Support/App Cleaner & Uninstal ler to /Volumes/timemachine/Backups.backupdb/iMac de Yann/2018-10-05-165602.inProgress/E9EAED7D-3CAC-47DE-AFB4-1F6108684730/Macintosh HD/Users/tigrou/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data/Library/Application Support

Look at how in error the problematic folder is shown (the space in word "Uninstaller") : .../Application Support/App Cleaner & Uninstal ler

This is because the "real" folder name on the disk is ".../Application Support/App Cleaner & Uninstal?ler"

Thanks for replying. Yes, I had read that and have not used App Cleaner before.

The odd thing is that, after about 15 seemingly aborted attempts at backing up, my Time Machine has now completed a full backup. Gasp!

Each time it would back up about 200 GB (of my 3 TB) then stop. It did that about 15 times, only once popping up a generic "An error occurred while copying files" error. The InProgress file on my backup hard drive stayed the same size the whole time when I used Get Info on the Finder. However, I luckily noticed that each time it was attempting to backup less of my computer, and in Disk Utility each time it said the hard drive contained more content. So I persisted in restarting "Back up now" each time it stopped.

After three days now, I now have a complete and seemingly operational backup again. I hope it's OK.

So that's one thumb up from me for the option of reformatting Time Machine to Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).

Based only on what I've read on this forum and my experience with one Mojave install. I'd not reformat my drive and especially not reformat as APFS. Wait till the dust settles on this issue. You might wish to consider obtaining a new drive and format it to Mac Extended Journaled not case sensitive. See how that works. BTW if something happened to what appears to be your sole backup drive with two backup schemes on it wouldn't your pants be in danger of falling?

I wonder how many of the reports of TM/Mojave problems are caused by TM wrongly reporting times, dates and sizes of backups?

My computer is a Mac mini with MacOS 10.14.2 and my backup drive is a Samsung 1 TB one, partitioned into two equal 500 GB partitions, one of which I use with Time Machine. It is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted.

I last backed my HD up onto this backup drive relatively recently and my usage of the computer has been routine and modest (emails, a couple of small document downloads, etc.), so 'Preparing Backup…' should not have lasted long. Yesterday afternoon at about 15:35 I initiated a new TM backup, but, to discourage hold-ups, I deleted the 'in progress' file from my backup drive and allowed Spotlight to do a complete indexing first.

'Preparing Backup…' lasted about 5 hours. From about 22:30, TM began to show 'Backing up'. At 23:20 the amount to be backed up was shown as '3:80 GB of 6.93 GB' and remained unchanged thereafter; the time till completion was shown as about 40 minutes, but gradually increased over the hours. After about 5 hours, I stopped TM and disconnected the backup drive.

This morning I reconnected the drive and examined what had been backed up. I obviously could not examine every file, but as far as I could tell everything had been completely backed up and was up to date. There appeared to be no way of reliably ascertaining the time of completion, but it was probably before 23:20 last night, relatively soon after the start of 'Backing up'.

I conclude that in my system TM does eventually do a complete backup to a drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), that, however, it takes its time to start backing up after starting 'Preparing Backup…', and that it shows misleading information while backing up and even when backing up may already have been completed. Whether 3.80 GB or 6.93 GB or the difference, 3:13 GB, were not backed up I have not been able to ascertain, unfortunately.

I have updated my report in the Bug Reporter accordingly. I really think that that is the best place to report these problems and failures, because the Bug Reporter allows one — indeed, asks one — to attach a 'sysdiagnose' file containing a wealth of information about the inner workings of TM, generated while TM is working, by means of a Terminal code or a combination of key-strokes. I know that the Apple engineers read these reports, because when I first submitted a bug report about TM but failed to generate and attach a sysdiagnose file, the engineers replied within the Bug Reporter, asking me to repair my omission.

You definitely need an Apple Developer plan to report the bug.

It checks this beforehand and offers to subscribe. If you have a developper plan, then you can go further and post.

You also need to include a sys diagnostic zip file that takes about 10 minutes to be generated, otherwise, you can't post.

I just went through the entire process and used my developper account, not my personal one.

And submitted the details and tests, all hard disks tried (HP, Toshiba, Samsung, Seagate,WesternDigital), all of them formatted with each and every available format. I did actually attempt about 60 backups. All formats, all disks, all failed and grew forever until the disks were full.

We'll see whether we have an answer.

I have had trouble with Time Machine for months and months.....I turned EVERY THING OFF and let Time Machine run all night, which it did.... only to see "FAILED" in the morning. I changed drives, reformatted, switched to a Thunderbolt drive, bought a new drive -- nothing works! But, thankfully, SUPER DUPER works! I'll use that from now on. Everybody reading this should, too.

Two or three posts earlier in this string, Kolrasten tells us he is 82 and is fed up with Time Machine not working as it should. I am 88 and have used Apple computers for 30 years for all common domestic purposes, for editing photos and for work as a composer — typesetting my musical scores — precisely because Apple's design philosophy used to be directed towards intuitively straightforward procedures for common tasks, leaving subtleties and intricacies to be explored and dug into to those who specialize in such things. I know highly intelligent and competent people of my generation who use their computers for correspondence, accounts, booking tickets and buying things online and do not even know what a browser is.

Backing up one's disk should be a routine procedure of such simplicity that one can get into the habit of doing it almost automatically while one gets on with more interesting tasks. To expect 90% of Mac users to have to go through what Fopsy describes is nonsense. Like Kolrasten, I have given up on Time Machine; I now use Carbon Copy Cloner, which does basically the same as SuperDuper, and, like the latter, does its job very simply and quickly and without being affected by other running applications. It is time for Apple to pull its socks up, stop trying to emulate other designers of computer systems in trying to make every possible refinement and option equally accessible in every system and application, and get back to making their own native apps — like Time Machine — just work.

Jeepers creepers! All this crap is the responsibility of Apple. Not all of use are nerds, hello! Anyway, we have other things to do with our day. Just download SUPER DUPER and use that. Problem solved in five minutes.....