Time Machine stalls and never completes

Question

tgagle OP

Created Jul ’19

Replies 5

Boosts 0

Views 1.9k

Participants 3

After installing catalina, I have not been able to get a successful time machine backup.

The backup will get about half complete and then go back into "Calculating time remaining" mode.

If I issue the terminal command: TMUTIL STATUS

I can see that TM is still active. In the output from the "TMUTIL STATUS" command below, the "files = 5363850;" value will continue to increase, but no other values change. This is after a total of about 24 hours and a stall of 12+ hours.

Is anyone else experiencing something like this?

Any ideas?

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Answer 1

tgagle OP

Jul ’19

I forgot the include the output from TMUTIL STATUS

Backup session status:

{

BackupPhase = Copying;

ClientID = "com.apple.backupd";

DateOfStateChange = "2019-07-25 04:30:40 +0000";

DestinationID = "670BCD86-49A4-48E7-A29E-CFC7D59FC682";

FirstBackup = 1;

Progress = {

Percent = "0.6445864588662863";

TimeRemaining = 327689783460;

"_raw_Percent" = "0.6445864588662863";

"_raw_totalBytes" = 445955018752;

bytes = 287456566351;

files = 5363850;

totalBytes = 445955018752;

totalFiles = 24516998;

};

Running = 1;

Stopping = 0;

}

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Answer 2

Bill Standen OP

Jul ’19

Don't know if it's directly related but the mess of issues with iCloud Document & Desktop sync might be the culprit.

I've actually had machines in a state where directories will sit inaccessible for hours on a simple terminal cd command whilst fileproviderd tries and fails to grab files. I imagine it would have the ability to choke Time Machine pretty good.

Really hope this gets resolved before release. It's in a terrible state at the moment.

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Answer 3

tgagle OP

Jul ’19

Bill,

Thank you for the response.

What you describe actually sounds very likely in my case.

I have several directories/folders that appear to be inaccessable.

Lot of time outs.

Not sure how to prove it.

Not sure of the TM will every complete, but I am letting it run.

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Answer 4

tgagle OP

Jul ’19

The backup does finally complete after several days.

Clearly something is not correct.

I cannot find any errors in logs.

I have done an SMC and PRAM reset.

Did not seem to help on 2nd backup. It has been going 18hour to backup 9GB.

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Answer 5

marnixva OP

Jun ’20

Yes, I see this often. I've monitored the output of 'tmutil status' during a backup. A lot of what I see doesn't make sense. Time Machine prefs will show "Backed up ***.XX GB", but the backup continues going for hours with 'tmutil status' showing that the backup is more than 100% done. Sometimes I see 'files' and 'totalFiles' increase without an increase in 'bytes'. I'm trying to find out what those 'tmutil status' values are supposed to be. I have a 2020 Macbook Air and have only been able to back it up to an attached hard drive. For 3 months I've tried to complete a backup over the network. I haven't succeeded yet, even while hard-wired to the router.

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