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Time Machine Backup is now always delayed!

tejaykay

tejaykay

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
279
53
Edinburgh
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this..

Previously the time machine icon in the menu bar would only change to an exclamation mark if there had not been a backup in the last 10 days. I normally backup once every 5 days as my MBP is not for work.

The icon now always seems to be notifying that there has been a delay since the last backup. I don't use a time capsule, and instead opt for an external drive. Even though the last thing I did in te evening was backing the drive up, opening my MBP this morning it says that there has been a delay!

I can't seem to find a setting to change the time period back to the Snow Leopard definition. Anyone else finding an issue with this? Are Apple trying to make me buy a time capsule for more regular backups?
 
T

tubal81

macrumors newbie
Jul 24, 2011
6
1
Switzerland
I have found this too. Had a look at my time machine settings and couldn't find any differences with when I was running Snow Leopard. There is now a permanent exclamation mark on the time machine symbol at the top on the screen.
 
tejaykay

tejaykay

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 22, 2008
279
53
Edinburgh
OK. Thanks for your responses. Its very irritating as it makes me feel like it needs updating, which it doesn't every 6 hours!

Hopefully fixed soon.

Tim
 
M

mrkgoo

macrumors 65816
Aug 18, 2005
1,178
3
I was annoyed at first, because I thought it might be a bug in my setup. But everyone has it so it's not.

It's possible that with such a reliance on Time Machine, such as Local Snapshots, Versions and so on, that it's much more important to back up regularly so they shifted the warning.

Really, it's not such a huge deal if that's the case. It's just an exclamation point. The only reason we are upset by this is because Apple have trained us to notice it when it comes up after ten days in Snow Leopard.

It's purely psychological when you think about it.
 
testcard

testcard

macrumors 68040
Apr 13, 2009
3,720
2,761
Northumbria, UK
it seems to kick in when you miss the "next backup at xx.xxpm". So after an hour from the last backup it's looking for my Time Machine external drive and not finding it.
 
A

aresinferno

macrumors regular
Oct 13, 2008
173
0
In Snow Leopard there were 3rd party applications to adjust the backup time period. Some of them probably still work.

The point of Time Machine is to do regular backups every hour. If you do not have a connection to the backup drive all of the time then just make it a manual backup. Go to the Time Machine preferences and change the switch on the left to off. The menubar icon will be grey but you can easily trigger a manual backup with it.
 
R

RWinOR

macrumors 6502
Sep 11, 2010
269
0
Greenest and wettest place in North America
I have been using a WD 2 TB NAS drive hooked to my airport extreme. It always ran fine with snow leopard. Since I upgraded to Lion, time machine will no longer recognizes my NAS drive. The network still sees it, and can move files to and from, it is just time machine.

My other computer has a USB drive hooked up and time machine see that one fine. As far as I can tell it is only the NAS Drive on a network the Time machine has trouble with.

Funny thing is when I first hooked this all up about 1.5 years ago, I did need a bit of help from tech support. I was told that it would work but was an unsupported implementation. Apple must have closed this window. :mad:
 
baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
3,877
2,924
Same here. I thought Time Machine takes Local Snapshots when your external drive isn't connected, so why does it put an exclamation mark? It should be backing up like normal, just to the internal drive. I have a laptop, I would be crazy to take my giant external with me everywhere I go. I mean I do like to have a backup, but I really don't need to have a notification if I don't have everything backed up every hour. Once a week should be fine.
 
P

podsorcerer09

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2008
132
0
baryon said:
Same here. I thought Time Machine takes Local Snapshots when your external drive isn't connected, so why does it put an exclamation mark? It should be backing up like normal, just to the internal drive. I have a laptop, I would be crazy to take my giant external with me everywhere I go. I mean I do like to have a backup, but I really don't need to have a notification if I don't have everything backed up every hour. Once a week should be fine.
Click to expand...

It gives you an exclamation mark because the local snapshots only work for so long. Time machine assumes that you would like to keep all the local snapshots, so it's reminding you that you haven't backed up in over an hour. While I agree that it's not completely necessary that we be notified on the hour, it's part of a push to get users to back up more I assume. Backing up as often as possible is always a good idea, especially for those of us with external drives that don't always do it every day. Even if you don't have mission critical work on your computer, you're better safe than sorry.
 
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