Filed under: OS, Software Update, Troubleshooting, Leopard
Frozen in Time by Time Machine
There is more fallout from the current Leopard update to version 10.5.6. Many users are flocking to the Apple support forums to share their tales of woe about Time Machine failures after the update. (Ironically, Time Machine was on the list of items that received bug fixes).
Upgraders are seeing Time Machine stall, fail to identify the target hard drive, lock up while Time Machine is 'preparing' to backup, and other assorted glitches. There is no guarantee that these issues were caused by the update to 10.5.6, but users are seeing a lot of problems in parallel to the software changes.
MacFixit has quite a bit of guidance on the Time Machine issues. One of the most interesting observations is the long pause while 'preparing' to backup. It seems TM needs to do a deep traversal of the data because it sees a lot of file changes to copy, as would be expected with a major software update. The advice is to wait it out and and eventually TM is likely to get going. I had the same issue and eventually stopped the process, erased my TM drive and started again. That was after more than 2 hours of 'preparing'. It looks like I might have been better off to wait.
I had hoped 10.5.6 would fix the occasional TM error I get telling me that the backup failed, but then when I try again, everything is fine. I spent a good hour on the phone with Apple support on this problem some months ago, but didn't get anywhere. Many others have seen this rather arcane message and reported it. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next OS update.
It's good to keep in mind that most people updated without any dire consequences, but there are enough people grumbling that it merits a closer look by Apple.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
MisterSquared said 5:13PM on 12-17-2008
How very odd. I had my Time Machine lock up with the 'preparing backup' a few weeks back (before 10.5.6)...
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twoeightnine said 6:31PM on 12-17-2008
Same here. It was freezing all the time for me and I originally didn't notice for a week. No problems recently.
iGO said 5:30PM on 12-17-2008
Before the update to 10.5.6, my Time Machine would post a daily error stating a particular back-up failed.
Subsequent or previous back-ups that same day always worked, so I grew to disregard the one error and would just close that error message.
Since the update, 3-days running now, not a single error message.
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Darren said 5:33PM on 12-17-2008
If your hard drive is not unmounted cleanly (due to power failure, crash, etc.) then OS X tosses the FSEvents log and requires Time Machine to do a deep traversal of your disk on the next backup, meaning it will sit at "Preparing Backup" for possibly a very long time.
The same is true if your disk is changed while FSEvents isn't watching the disk. This is what happens during the 10.5.6 update, (during the first reboot) as the kernel is updated.
In other words, the first Time Machine backup after a system update will take a lot longer than usual to complete.
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davis said 5:36PM on 12-17-2008
My Time Machine backup would freeze every time I did a backup. I would let it sit for hours and it would always fail.
Someone suggested that I try going into system preferences and disable "put hard disks to sleep when possible"
This solution worked for me. Time Machine backs up everytime now with no problems.
cheers
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babyfett said 1:32AM on 12-18-2008
This same suggestion actually fixed another problem of mine. Time Machine kept waking my iMac from sleep every hour to do a backup. When I disabled the "put hard disks to sleep whenever possible" it fixed that problem.
No other TM problems here before or after 10.5.6
Clement said 5:37PM on 12-17-2008
No problems with TM backup after update on two Mac's (iMac & MBP).
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Flunky Carter said 5:47PM on 12-17-2008
I noticed this too... a realllllyy long "preparing" process.
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Tony Bowman said 5:50PM on 12-17-2008
Glad I went with a ReadNAS Duo instead of a Time Capsule for my backup solution.
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the old man said 12:44PM on 12-18-2008
I had the same thing with a Hammer drive.
Eric said 5:52PM on 12-17-2008
I've been running TM off an unsupported SMB mount and short of the occasional issue with sibling link errors it's been running fine since 10.5.1
Honestly while better than nothing, storing backups as a spagetti mess of hard links inside a sparse bundle inside a filesystem on a remote volume is a bad idea. I'm really surprised it works as well as it does.
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CaptSaltyJack said 5:56PM on 12-17-2008
Time Machine is a horrible mess.
I strongly recommend CrashPlan as a backup solution for those of you who are having trouble with Time Machine. Not only will it back up to a secondary hard drive, but it will back up to one or more computers either on your LAN, or even over a WAN (to a friend's computer, for instance). All your files are, of course, encrypted before sent over the network.
I bought CrashPlan a while back and it's been gathering dust, but I think I might dust it off and turn off Time Machine. I was mostly using Time Machine just because of the cool interface, but when it comes down to it--who cares? If the app is failing and giving me problems, what good is it?
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Al said 6:02PM on 12-17-2008
The last time I made a backup using Time Machine was on 12/4(prior to the last update). I just created a new backup and it worked fine with 10.5.6
It took longer than normal and did appear to lock up in "preparing backup" mode, but after 5 minutes, it resumed back to normal and created a new backup, roughly 2.2 GB.
Hope that helps.
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Jim said 6:03PM on 12-17-2008
I updated from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6 (server/combo).
Time Machine apparently forgot the username/password for the Time Capsule share. Once I got that sorted out (which was not exactly straightforward), the next backup took a long time (for the above-stated reasons) and then the next 3 backups worked, too. After that, it seems to have lost the login info again.
On a lark -- as I've not had to do this in quite a while -- I ran Repair Permissions. Surprise! Almost every file that got updated had incorrect permissions and/or owner/group, although none of Time Machine.app's stuff was incorrect (hrm).
I rebooted and then kicked off a TM backup manually. That one ran fine, and so have several since then.
I checked my 10.5.6 client machine (Repair Permissions) and, aside from stuff that's always incorrect, it was fine.
I checked another server that was updated from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6 using the delta package and it was just as messed up as the combo update machine was.
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Bistro Y said 6:05PM on 12-17-2008
I have had some Time Capsule issues before as well.
re: preparing:
It really does pay to wait. What happens is, when the backup is interrupted, it assumes there is a problem, so it goes back and checks everything again. Takes a very long time. This can also happen if computer is manually powered down (hold down button) while a backup is happening.
re: failed backup:
In my experience, this can happen for a lot of reasons, including the computer going to sleep, or being turned off or restarted (the right way) in the middle of a backup. In my experience, it is nothing to worry about and usually works on the next time.
It seems that it is not unexpected that Time Machine would do a long prepare after a new OS install. Just ride it out. Don't watch it. Do it in the morning, and then go to work, and you'll be rewarded when you get home.
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nicleT said 6:23PM on 12-17-2008
I remarked that when it been a long time between Backups, TM make this long "preparing' to backup" thing. Since I have a MBP, I don't always plug my external HD. The trick is to make backups (or plug the HD) the more often as possible. In this case, TM do only a few minutes routine.
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Dave said 6:58PM on 12-17-2008
After the 10.5.6 delta update on my 2.16GHz MB Pro, my Time Machine backup took about 90-minutes. I thought about aborting it, but decided to have a nap instead. It eventually finished and continued working normally from that point forward.
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Gary said 7:02PM on 12-17-2008
No biggie for me...TM has never worked correctly...restores that couldn't, fatal crashes when running, etc. Happy using the more-than-adequate (and reassuringly reliable) alternates out there. TM is, and always has been IMHO, overrated.
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vik said 7:10PM on 12-17-2008
Here's an original thought. Something i usually follow.
When there's an update...any kind of an update for anything...DO NOT INSTALL IT!! Just don't. Wait like a week. See what happens. Then do what you want. After all, how many of us reallllllllyyyyyyy need that update right then and there...?
That's what i thought.
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alansky said 7:44PM on 12-17-2008
Actually, I never experienced a Time Machine backup failure until right after installing 10.5.5. The problem seemed to disappear after a day or two. For me, no problem with Time Machine after the 10.5.6 update except that I had to reset TimeMachineEditor, the utility I use to tell Time Machine to backup only once a day.
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