Mojave time machine back up failing

Ok, i understand, thanks, in my opinion i understand as "clean" install a fresh virgin system without data at all an then install thing by thing.

I will do the "clean" when my Carbon Copy Cloner Backup will be done, which is also broken before on The App Cleaner & uninstaller folder.

Strange.

So we have two "bandits" found - the app and the case sensitive thing.

Adobe had this for years also i remember.

But in 4 inside your link:

4. Once you boot into recovery, simply use the Disk Utility to wipe off your main HDD or SSD, go back to the main screen and click on Reinstall macOS on the drive you just wiped. It’s that simple

This means clean your drive!

For me it means data are gone, or how you did the wipe?

I just simply chose, "clean install aka reinstall" instead of "Restore from time machine backup" without wiping the drive using disc utility. Just don't wipe your drive, thats all. Just follow every step, minus the part about wiping your hdd or ssd. 😀 Basically, it is just a re-update. It leaves all your personal files in tact, but it can fix system files that may not have copied over correctly the last time you updated. It is not a true clean install, but if your download was corrupt or the install of that downloaded file was not installed correctly (one line of code is all it takes) then you could easily have problems like you are having. A "re-update" has saved a few mac installs already for me. including my girlfriends macbook pro mid 2012 model.

I am having the same issue on HighSierra. I created log for this:

log stream --style syslog --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info

Filtering the log data using "senderImagePath CONTAINS[cd] "TimeMachine""

Timestamp (process)[PID]

2018-10-06 00:05:00.697923+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Starting manual backup

2018-10-06 00:05:01.263394+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Backing up to /dev/disk2s2: /Volumes/Adata HD710/Backups.backupdb

2018-10-06 00:05:01.902425+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeFSEventStoreUUID' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.902719+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeLastFSEventID' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.902833+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.SnapshotVolumeUUID' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.902943+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.PreviousSnapshotVolumeUUID' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.904551+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.PreviousSnapshotVolumeName' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.904861+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.VolumeBytesUsed' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.905049+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.VolumeIsCaseSensitive' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.905460+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.fstypename' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.905631+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to remove attribute 'com.apple.backupd.VolumeIsEncrypted' from 'file:///', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:01.914808+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Starting age based thinning of Time Machine local snapshots on disk '/'

2018-10-06 00:05:01.924310+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Completed thinning of snapshots on disk '/' in 0.0 seconds - current free space: 116,55 GB (116 551 569 408 B), target free space: 25 GB (25 000 000 000 B), initial free space: 116,55 GB (116 551 569 408 B), urgency: 0, remaining snapshots: (

"com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-10-05-105037"

)

2018-10-06 00:05:03.182964+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Failed to write unlock record UUIDs as extended attribute for disk '/', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2018-10-06 00:05:03.280591+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Created Time Machine local snapshot with name 'com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-10-06-000503' on disk '/'

2018-10-06 00:05:03.288148+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Declared stable snapshot: com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-10-06-000503

2018-10-06 00:05:03.518980+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Mounted stable snapshot: com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-10-06-000503 at path: /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro (Grzegorz)/2018-10-06-000503/Macintosh source: Macintosh

2018-10-06 00:05:03.811376+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Initial backup of source: "Macintosh" (device: /dev/disk1s1 mount: '/' fsUUID: A667477E-764D-4E23-BB80-88BCEF9C7C87 eventDBUUID: 0282DECA-678A-43E2-8B7C-14973EC1D394)

2018-10-06 00:05:04.119454+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] Found 771177 files (125,95 GB) needing backup

2018-10-06 00:05:04.174070+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogInfo] 147,84 GB required (including padding), 597,34 GB available

2018-10-06 00:07:29.354539+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Error: (-48) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro (Grzegorz)/2018-10-06-000503/Macintosh/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n 00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond/1E63E8DC1D830BBB0C56F20CBC3704604A8057D0 /14F8026CDF3C4E7FA1E21ACC1B0569499AB84464 to /Volumes/Adata HD710/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro (Grzegorz)/2018-10-06-000503.inProgress/C969ED15-B1F6-4AC2-968E-3F6F4378C4FE/Ma cintosh/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurls essiond/1E63E8DC1D830BBB0C56F20CBC3704604A8057D0

2018-10-06 00:07:29.354945+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Stopping backup.

2018-10-06 00:07:29.356134+0200 localhost backupd[17059]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro (Grzegorz)/2018-10-06-000503/Macintosh/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n 00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond/1E63E8DC1D830BBB0C56F20CBC3704604A8057D0 /14F8026CDF3C4E7FA1E21ACC1B0569499AB84464/configuration.plist to /Volumes/Adata HD710/Backups.backupdb/MacBook Pro (Grzegorz)/2018-10-06-000503.inProgress/C969ED15-B1F6-4AC2-968E-3F6F4378C4FE/Ma cintosh/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurls essiond/1E63E8DC1D830BBB0C56F20CBC3704604A8057D0

Like I mentioned earlier, the case sensitive workaround is masking an underlying issue that Apple still needs to address. The good news is that formatting your Time Machine backup drives as case sensitive should have no negative side effects since the disk that Apple uses in the Time Capsule version of their Airport product comes formatted this way. So even when Apple fixes the underlying issue you can continue using your case sensitive formatted Time Machine backup disks.

Note that the format of your Time Machine backup disks do not have to match the format of your Mac's operating system disks. Your Mac can be using any supported format, e.g., APFS, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), etc., and still back up to a Time Machine disk formatted in any of the supported formats that Time Machine works with. By the way, Time Machine backup disks cannot use APFS.

In a perfect world all disks would be formatted case sensitive. It is more secure and logically correct. Unfortunately some legacy operating systems were only case insensitive and programmers took advantage of this sloppiness allowed by those old operating systems. There are some very large applications, for example some of Adobe's, that break if you try to run them on a case sensitive drive. These apps probably have a lot of legacy code in them and the developer doesn't want to clean it up because it's still working. But since you're not running applications on your Time Machine disks, using case sensitivity fro Time Machine is not a problem. Time Machine disks are simply used for storage and all of the disk formats supported by Time Machine are fully "case preserving" which means they will never change the name of a file even if the case insensitive file system doesn't care.

In any case, Time Machine was designed to work with case sensitive and case insensitive formatted drives. There is currently a bug in Time Machine that is masked when case sensitive formatting is used on the backup drive. From reading this forum it sounds like there may be other things like the name of an App Cleaner & Uninstaller file that is triggering the bug. But deleting that app is not a fix either, it's simply avoiding a condition that causes Time Machine to fail when it should either tolerate the file naming error or flag it. Time Machine should be resilient to such user/app induced anomalies and not fail the entire backup process.

Finally, others have mentioned deleting the "inprogress" container from the Time Machine backup disk. At least on my machine, I am not able to delete this container. It gets marked for deletion and moved to the trash bin, but I cannot remove it from the trash bin even with admin privileges. This container stays in the trash bin forever until I reformat the Time Machine backup disk, which means it is still on the Time Machine disk. Not sure if this matters, but it's another piece of information for the Apple engineers to consider.

Hi,

you're absolutely right !

By the way, I've remove the .inProgress container from trash bin with success and from finder with admin privileges.

1 - Open Trash in finder

2 - rename (don't know why..) the container

3 - Right click (click + control) on the container

4 - Select "remove immediately..." (note: In French this is "Supprimer immédiatement...", I don't know the right name of this option in English)

If you follow those steps, you can remove .inProgress containers that reside in trash bin.

I am not up to speed with shell stuf. So what do you suggest? As of now I changed the drive to Case Sensitive, What next? I did remove the App Cleaner and reinstalled it. Do I change the drive back to regular format non case sensitive?

Select the disk you just formatted as the backup disk in Time Machine preferences and let it run. It will start automatically in a few minutes or you can tell it to start immediately by selecting "Back Up Now" in the menu.

yd290276's discovery about Nektony's App Cleaner solution for the Time Machine failure works for me as well. Someone, maybe I will contact Nektony about the issue so they can correct whatever the problem is, likely with their updates. Thanks again for a solution that solves my problem with Time Machine.

I had a perfect backup, even with it saying 18 hours finished in two. Removing the app and installing created a new folder which is correct for version 6.1 Pro. new version 6.2 on review at Apple with the fix.

This is odd for so many reasons.

From other posts it sounds like one of the "duplicate" folders shown in Finder actually has a non-displayable (from Finder's perspective) character appended to the folder name that is visible from the terminal. However, this has nothing to do with case sensitivity. Case sensitivity only deals with file/folder names that differ only in case. For example, without case sensitivity all lower case and upper case variations of the file "dog.txt" are considered the same file, e.g. "dog.txt", "Dog.txt", "dOg.txT" and so on. If you try to overwrite "dog.txt" with any case variation of that name the file system should intervene and warn you that you are trying to overwrite an existing file and give you options like cancel, replace, or copy (where it will append something to the file name like "dog.txt (1)" to ensure no duplicates exist. With case sensitivity ON you can have all case variations of the file "dog.txt" and each one is a separate and unique file. Case sensitivity is usually the preferred option for all text strings and manipulations, but Mac OS diverged from its Unix roots to support case insensitivity, for reasons unknown. This allowed the proliferation of apps that count on case insensitivity to operate correctly.

In any case, if the duplicate folder shown in Finder has an extra non-displayable character it should be treated as a different folder name regardless of case sensitivity. The folder name length would be different, so the names could not be equivalent from a string comparison standpoint unless the extra character is treated in some special way. If there is an illegal character in the second folder name the file system should never have allowed the folder to be created in the first place. Since the differences are not case related, it presents no obvious reason why a case sensitive file system works and a case insensitive file system does not.

Great work!

The lingering concern for me is how folder name confusion is related to case sensitivity, unless these are two separate issues in Time Machine.

The duplicate folder shown in Finder appears to have an extra non-displayable (in Finder) character but it should be treated as a totally different folder name in the file system. Case sensitivity doesn't even come into play. Any correct string comparison function would start off by first comparing the string lengths (strlen), i.e.,

if ( strlen("App Cleaner & Uninstaller") == strlen("App Cleaner & Uninstal?ler")) ...

From a string comparison perspective these names can never be considered equivalent. That would be a big problem for Apple.

Perhaps the "?" character in the second folder name trips up the file system string comparison logic? From a security standpoint this could very well be a critical error and exploitable vector that makes the Time Machine failures we've dealing with appear trivial by comparison.

I am having the same problem with Time Machine and my new external hard drive. Last night I tried using my AirPort Time Capsule, and it worked fine (took forever).

So I've concluded that its an external hard drive issue with Mojave and needs attention!

Ok,

I did the reformat thing, etc.. launched a new TM backup.

Failed: not enough space.

Again.

So obviously for me, the case sensitive journaled extended format doesn't help at all.

It had to backup just 180Gb and filled the 1Tb disk. When reaching 170GB, then the total volume of data to backup started to grow from 180Gb as the backup processed, until it reached 1Tb and stopped.

Now I spent too much time with this and wait for an official fix from Apple.

Steve J

Yes obviously TimeMachine is screwed big time. It keeps growing in parallel of the whole backup process.

So there is a temporary folder involved in the TM process that has to be excluded, but it's not /Users/name/Shared/adi like it used to be before Mojave.

I just relaunched TM and it pretends to be backing up 6Gb out of 7Gb...

After 3 minutes it already states 8.26 Gb out of 9.2Gb

After another 3 minutes: 11.2 out of 15Gb...

This is totally stupid.