10.5.3 and TC - Stuck on 'Preparing...'

Just let it go. I just got through with the 10.5.3 update and the first backup after that took about 45 minutes of "preparing", then backed up a larger chunk than usual. Patience.

The internal drive needs to be indexed before it can be backed up; the external HDD needs to be checked for the oldest files, etc. and it all takes a lot of time.

The download and installation of 10.5.3 didn’t cause the slightest problem for me with Time Machine backups to Time Capsule. I did leave my MacBook Pro running all night to insure that all was working well after 10.5.3 was installed and it is.

Preparing an incremental backup to a Time Capsule after downloading and installing the 10.5.3 update took about 35-45 minutes on a Core 2 Duo Mac mini over Ethernet. I can only presume this is due to the large number of small files that an update such as this must contain.

Last night my first 10.5.3 backup took forever to "prepare" but it eventually did what it had to do.

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I thought the whole purpose of time capsule was to backup ur system wirelessly. I bought a time capsule the first day it was released and set it to backup and just let it do its thing. I very rarely ever check the status of what its doing. I will see the icon in the menu bar spin when its backing up. When its done it stops. People are too obsessed with whats it doing or how long its taking etc. Just set it and forget it people and it will get the job done. Quit obsessing with preparing and what not.

What he said ^^

Who cares if it takes 5 minutes or 45 minutes if it's doing it in the background automatically?

I did my initial backup to Time Capsule wirelessly, too. It took the better part of a day but it got done. All of my incremental backups since have been fine, too, including those done since I installed 10.5.3. In short TC and Time Machine have performed as advertised for me.

In addition to Time Machine backups, I use TC to store my iTunes movie files. I also learned to my delight that XP running in a VMware Fusion partition can find the TC, so I use it for backups of my Quicken 2008 for Windows data files.

I had the same problem with 10.5.3 - it took about 2 hour preparing and then it got stuck at backing up 15.3mb out of 1.5GB - I tried stopping the backup but when that took an hour I tried restarting. After the restart preparing took about 30 minutes and the backup finished perfectly.

Because of the warnings given in this thread, for which many thanks, I knew that I didn’t want to watch my first Time Machine to Time Capsule backup after the 10.5.3 installation. I set all of that to happen after I went to bed so I wouldn’t have to watch and it all went perfectly, too boot. Lucky me!

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One thing that could help people is to run a utility program once a month that will clean up system files, caches etc and do all the maintenance for you. I use an app called Ice Clean that I downloaded from Apple's website and I run it once a month. I don't think the problem that people are having with the preparing issue is a TC or TM problem but in fact something with their CPU instead. Having to reformat your TC all the time is pointless I think. Look into maintaining and cleaning up ur files on yr CPU. I have not had any issues with backups and I backup up 5 machines.

Unfortunately, cleaning up system files will not help with the Time Machine speed, at least it hasn't in all the cases I've seen. A Macbook straight out of the box took just as long to backup as other similar machines. Sorry, but it just won't help.

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Augmented 4th said:

Unfortunately, cleaning up system files will not help with the Time Machine speed, at least it hasn't in all the cases I've seen. A Macbook straight out of the box took just as long to backup as other similar machines. Sorry, but it just won't help.

Click to expand...

I wasnt referring to the speed of TC. It is what it is. I was referring to the preparring issue.

As was I.

I have been successfully using my Time Capsule for a month. After updating to 10.5.3 the other day, my TC did about 10 hours of successful backups, then got stuck in the endless "Preparing backup..." mode. After unsuccessfully fiddling with it, I erased the TC and started over. It seemed to work. Now my 125GB backup is *almost* finished, but it is now hung up endlesslessly while "Finishing backup...". It has been doing this for three hours or more. I have read accounts of others running into this and letting it run for 24 hours without it ever finishing. I can hear my TC ticking, the sound it makes when it is reading or writing data, so something is happening. I'll let it run some more...

Based on what I have read in these forums and others, I would say TC is a seriously flawed product.

MrFrankly said:

I had the same problem with 10.5.3 - it took about 2 hour preparing and then it got stuck at backing up 15.3mb out of 1.5GB - I tried stopping the backup but when that took an hour I tried restarting. After the restart preparing took about 30 minutes and the backup finished perfectly.

Click to expand...

That's funny, I had the exact same problem....long time preparing, then it got stuck during the transfer at about 15.3MB out of 1.7GB.

I stopped the backup as well and restarted and everything went fine the second time around.

-Kevin

I do think that Apple maybe needs to put a popup warning message into Time Machine that let's users know that the first backup after a system update will take a long time due to the Deep Traversal of the drive. This might prevent people like the original poster from wiping out the entire backup drive.

A lot of people aren't patient, and certainly don't read Support notes when it comes to this.

I let my Mom know about the long time doing the first index after an update. She said thanks because she, as an average user, would have been concerned that it was taking a long time.

-Kevin