Initial Time Machine Backup Failures Increasingly Being Reported by Mac Users

[stuartbell]

Macbook Pro (mid 1916) upgraded to 14.0 and Time Machine started reporting backup failures about 30 seconds into the backup on both external hard drives.

Problem "cured" by upgrading to 14.0.

But, Time Machine now reports 200,000++ files not backuped and is doing a five our backup on the first drives. I presume it will do the same thing on the other drive - losing all the intermediate data that was backed up for a "woops" restore for years.

Seems Apple doesn't use a "installation procedure" that tests every aspect of a new release before shipping.

After years of mainframe system programming experience, our shop generated a test procedure that took a few hours to run and tested everything we run - and retested every reported every previous 'test deck' we created in the process of fixing every user reported bug for 10+ years of running a fairly large batch shop. While things are different now, testing functionality is still a good idea since fixes to previous bugs sometimes fall off. Special attention should be given to backup and recovery software since this helps the bugs that got thru the regular testing.

 

[Wando64]

Macbook Pro (mid 1916)

Looks like you are waiting a very long time before upgrading your Macs.

 

[Slimmyhendrix]

I'm trying to sort out this issue myself on 3 macs. Last solid backup was Novmber 9 2021 on what I recall as 11.6.0 on all devices.

Setup:
2014 MBP 15"
2018 MBP 15"
2020 Mini M1 8gb
Synology with individual shared folders for each device with 500gb each devices folder AFP backup. Drive has encryption turned on during setup but device backups are not encrypted.

All devices backed up via wifi no issues < 11/9/2021. Today I cannot complete backups as they just stop. I deleted the original backups which have been used for a while and started "new" backups non-encrypted.
Mini M1 - Backed up no issues 103gb via ETH connection
2014 MBP - wifi got to 80gb then stopped. Restarted got to 190gb, stopped. Shows no backup on time machine and shows 310gb space remaining on backup drive but folder on NAS shows 190gb space used.
2018 MBP - wifi Got to 10gb then stopped. Now not finding drive. Have to manually connect to drive via finder then start manual time machine backup again.

It seems that time machine was updated to favor M1 processors and OS over Intel. From what I've searched it seems that others using M1 setups are not really having any issues whereas any Intel users are struggling since 11.6.1 update.

 

[theipodgod16]

Looks like you are waiting a very long time before upgrading your Macs.

?

 

[anthonyd]

Had this happen to me, but quickly resolved by disconnecting Time Machine drive and trying again. Next backup was clearly a simple update (based on time it took compared to first that didn't register).

 

[theipodgod16]

Had this happen to me, but quickly resolved by disconnecting Time Machine drive and trying again. Next backup was clearly a simple update (based on time it took compared to first that didn't register).

Tried this, no dice. So over it.

 

[dead flag blues]

A few issues here in the past week. Going to phone Apple if I can't get resolved by tomorrow.

 

[donawalt]

My symptoms are a little different, and I tried a test. I did a full erase of my external drive, and let TM do its thing. Since then, it's probably done 2-3 additional hourly backups after the initial backup. The initial backup seemed fine speed wise, it backed up about a TB as you can see as I use a 10TB drive. But I am getting the "Waiting to complete first backup", and no indication any backups have been done as you can see:

So before one of the hourly backups, I created a folder on the desktop, and put 20 files in it. After the next TM backup, I deleted the folder. I was able to easily go into TM, find the folder from a previous backup, restore it, and all the files were fine. So other than the two reporting anomalies the images above show, backup seems to be working fine. I am on a MacBook Pro 2021 16", Monterey 12.1.

 

[dead flag blues]

My symptoms are a little different, and I tried a test. I did a full erase of my external drive, and let TM do its thing. Since then, it's probably done 2-3 additional hourly backups after the initial backup. The initial backup seemed fine speed wise, it backed up about a TB as you can see as I use a 10TB drive. But I am getting the "Waiting to complete first backup", and no indication any backups have been done as you can see:

View attachment 1936031

View attachment 1936032

So before one of the hourly backups, I created a folder on the desktop, and put 20 files in it. After the next TM backup, I deleted the folder. I was able to easily go into TM, find the folder from a previous backup, restore it, and all the files were fine. So other than the two reporting anomalies the images above show, backup seems to be working fine. I am on a MacBook Pro 2021 16", Monterey 12.1.

Same results from same hardware.

 

[CamiMR]

Been following this thread for a while, dreading the Time Machine transition on my new laptop.
Previous setup: MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012, 2 Airport Time Capsules, 1 external HDD plugged to one of the time capsules - working as intended for the best part of a decade.
Current setup the same, but with a MacBook Pro M1 Max - Monterey 12.1
Initial backup (wired) took 5-6 hours, as expected. After that initial backup, Time Machine stated no existing backup. Subsequent backup went as expected, quick and only with minor changes, and after that registered correctly. Same behaviour on all 3 disks. Incremental wireless backups now working as before.
Lucky or not an issue any more?

 

[montycat]

I wish I saw this thread earlier. I wasted so much time trying to get a back up to a new HD. I have a M1 Mac Mini running 12.1. I hope Apple has an update soon to fix this.

 

[Treyp75]

I've had the same issue since Big Sur. The drives transfer large files quickly, but TM gives me issues. Even bought a T7 and it's just as slow on that, and that drive is super fast! It's definitely frustrating!!

 

[Carlnjpn]

Apple's built-in Time Machine backup solution for macOS appears to be causing problems for some Mac users running the latest versions of Monterey and Big Sur, based on a steady trickle of reports on both the MacRumors Forums and Reddit.

While some users are complaining of different issues with Time Machine on different Macs and versions of macOS that are hard to replicate, one common complaint in particular has surfaced regarding Time Machine backups not completing for M1 Mac users running Monterey 12.0.1 or Big Sur 11.6.1.

The issue seems to occur when Time Machine runs its first backup after either Monterey/Big Sur is first installed or the operating system is updated to the latest point release. Time Machine says it is "Waiting to Complete First Backup," but as it appears to be reaching its conclusion, Time Machine suddenly reports "Oldest backup: None" and "Latest backup: None," and then fails to offer any notice that the initial backup has successfully been performed at all.

MacRumors forum member likegadgets reports:
Reddit user muhdakml reports:
Reddit user jg66ue reports:
MacRumors forum member netnative reports:
Some users report clean installing macOS or running the first backup in Safe mode has sorted out the problem for them, but that's not the case for everyone and a universal solution remains hard to come by for most of those affected.

Some users speculate that the issue could be related to an unspecified change to the APFS format that Apple has quietly implemented in recent versions of macOS, but it's still not entirely clear what's going on. We've reached out to Apple for comment and we'll update this article if we get more clarity on the problem, but for those afflicted by the error, the advice for now is to use a third-party backup solution like Superduper! or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Article Link: Initial Time Machine Backup Failures Increasingly Being Reported by Mac Users

I have a 2019 iMac ? that I updated to Monterey last night and my Time Capsule (2TB), disappeared after the update. A couple of System restarts didn’t fix the problem. Then I unplugged the Time Capsule from power for about 10 min then plugged it back in and it showed back up in the Finder sidebar. It also placed an Icon on my desktop. I then started Time Machine. It said last back up was 4 Jan. I then clicked to start a Backup.
Well, it’s been several hours and nothing else has happened…. The WiFi of the Time Capsule (2TB) is still working fine but no progress on the backup. The rest of the update/install to Monterey seems to have worked Ok. Can anyone assist me with how I should proceed??

 

[pamelagr]

I had this problem with my new Macbook M1 Pro (2021) running Monterey 12.1. I tried a number of different things before I got TM to work. One of the last changes I made which resulted in a successful backup was unplugging everything from the machine except the power cord and the backup disk. I also switched the backup disk to the Thunderbolt port on the right side of the machine and excluded 'Applications" from the backup (but included in later backup successfully after initial backup success). I don't think the latter two things had much impact on the backup working, just including for a thorough accounting. Other things I had plugged into ports before removing for the successful backup were an external trackpad and an hdmi connected external monitor.

 

[dead flag blues]

I had this problem with my new Macbook M1 Pro (2021) running Monterey 12.1. I tried a number of different things before I got TM to work. One of the last changes I made which resulted in a successful backup was unplugging everything from the machine except the power cord and the backup disk. I also switched the backup disk to the Thunderbolt port on the right side of the machine and excluded 'Applications" from the backup (but included in later backup successfully after initial backup success). I don't think the latter two things had much impact on the backup working, just including for a thorough accounting. Other things I had plugged into ports before removing for the successful backup were an external trackpad and an hdmi connected external monitor.

Per your recommendation, I unplugged everything, save for MagSafe and me TM drive. Things are finally working as they should. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[singhs.apps]

I have been having this issue too. I keep getting this "waiting to complete 1st backup" issue.
Reformatting the TM drive ( for new mBP 2021 ) ans starting afresh doesn't fix it. Something's seriously wrong with TM

 

[eamiel]

After upgrading to Monterey, I'm having problems getting TM to do incremental backups. It keeps wanting to do full backups even though there is an initial full backup on the external WD Passport backup drive. Has anyone encountered this problem and found a solution?
I've rebooted in Recovery Mode and ran First Aid in Disk Utility on the external drive and everything checks out ok. Now thinking I might have to reformat the external disk to APFS. It's now formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

 

[singhs.apps]

After upgrading to Monterey, I'm having problems getting TM to do incremental backups. It keeps wanting to do full backups even though there is an initial full backup on the external WD Passport backup drive. Has anyone encountered this problem and found a solution?
I've rebooted in Recovery Mode and ran First Aid in Disk Utility on the external drive and everything checks out ok. Now thinking I might have to reformat the external disk to APFS. It's now formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

I have mine as APFS and it still wants to do full backups, even though backup size should be around 1.2TB..the TM drive is 4TB full and counting

 

[jace88]

Also joining in this party as I've had numerous TM issues over the past couple of months since picking up my 14' MBP. It was working for a while after I deleted the old TM on my Synology NAS but a few days ago I noticed it hasn't backed up since 31 December 2021 (ie nearly 2 weeks ago). It said it couldn't find the backup drive so I was happy to start fresh again and create a new TM but am now stuck on "waiting to complete first backup".

Running 12.1.

 

[eamiel]

After upgrading to Monterey, I'm having problems getting TM to do incremental backups. It keeps wanting to do full backups even though there is an initial full backup on the external WD Passport backup drive. Has anyone encountered this problem and found a solution?
I've rebooted in Recovery Mode and ran First Aid in Disk Utility on the external drive and everything checks out ok. Now thinking I might have to reformat the external disk to APFS. It's now formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Now that I've reformatted the drive to APFS and created a separate volume for TM, I kicked off an initial backup but it's excruciatingly slow. It's been running all day and says 10.2% done 800MB copied whereas I have 900GB to back up! If the progress indication is to be believed I think the wise thing to do is give up on TM under Monterey until Apple fixes it. Will just use SuperDuper until then.

 

[montycat]

After many attempts of getting a first time backup (653 GB) on a new external hard drive, TM finally worked. I briefly had a "waiting to complete 1st backup" message but it changed to "cleaning up". My friend recommended not letting the Mac sleep for the initial backup. I have a M1 Mac mini, 16GB memory and a 1TB hard drive. The external hard drive is a Seagate Slim 2 TB spinner formatted APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted). Either I was lucky or not letting the Mac sleep enabled Time Machine to perform an initial backup. I am getting normal Time Machine backups now.

 

[tardx]

Anyone still having this problem? I just migrated from 2014 Mac mini to M1 and claimed previous backups on TM (ext 4TB HD) but - as others reported - it fails to complete backup part way through and shows last backup before migration. Running Monterey 12.1. Any suggestions?

 

[jace88]

Started to work for me after I stopped using a dedicated Time Machine login for my NAS and just used my regular username/password. *shrug* Maybe there was an issue with having two sets of logins to access the same shared folder on my Synology.

 

[flyingmopsy]

I was having this problem on Macbook Pro M1max, that I had ported from my previous mac (not clean install). Upgrade to Monterey 12.1 fixed it for me

 

[likegadgets]

I was having this problem on Macbook Pro M1max, that I had ported from my previous mac (not clean install). Upgrade to Monterey 12.1 fixed it for me

Only completed 1 time machine backup since installing 12.2 - but it worked normally. Running a second one now (I use 2 Backup Drives), Both were newly formatted with encryption. This MBP M1 MAX came with Monterey from factory and has NEVER before today completed a Time Machine backup (and I tried most of the work arounds). So far promising, let's wait a few days....