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New MBP 2016 Crashing During Time Machine Backup

osowankenobi said:
I have the predictable crash when TM backup to USB drive, but successfully backed up to a NAS as you did. So 'no', you're not the only a$$hole. There's me too.
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Same here. I back up to both a NAS (at home) and a USB drive (in the office). The remote office took me a couple weeks to get done as I'd have to leave it alone for hours on end and I don't have that luxury running from meeting to meeting. Eventually it succeeded the initial backup and subsequent backups are relatively small and completed ok.

As for the NAS backup, it completed immediately, without issue day one.
 
FWIW MacBook Pro 2015 Retina freezes at completion of backup using latest Sierra 10.12.1. Not sure when this started, but I think the backup finishes because after rebooting the time shown for the previous backup seems reasonable. It's my wife's laptop so TimeMachine may have been off for a while. Went on for several weeks before I finally figured it out. Backing up over WiFi to a hard drive attached an iMac on the home network. Network is two AirPorts. I deleted preferences to no avail. A Sierra reinstall didn't help. Posted this yesterday with more details on Apple forums with no responses. Search there shows a hangs during preparing backup with Sierra.

My 2013 MacBook Pro (10.12.2 beta) backs up just fine using the same set-up to the same hard drive.

As I wrote this I realized I should try connecting the backup drive directly to the MacBook and see what happens. Or wait for release of 10.12.2.
 
I'm using a LaCie Rugged 2TB Thunderbolt/USB3.0 drive and did the initial backup using a USB-C to USB adapter because my Thunderbolt adapter had not been delivered yet. The initial backup and every backup since has gone smooth with zero issues. I'm now using the Thunderbolt adapter and it is working fine too.

Backup size is 295GB

I have one of the LaCie 1TB USB-C drives too but have not tried to use it as a Time Machine drive.
 
I have the same time machine backup issue (CATERR) with my LaCie 4TB drive. Reported it a couple of days a, but no response from Apple yet. I tried the TM backup today with the USB-C power cable from apple instead of the LaCie cable, as one of the earlier posters suggested and it worked like a charm!
It took a bit longer (app. 25mb/s) than with the original cable (app. 90mb/s) but it got the job done..
 
Last edited:
After installing latest beta 5 indeed it could finally make a time machine backup with 110GB. Did not work before, always crashed. Will now backup another set of data and test if I can work with my second external drive with Final Cut Pro.
 
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Marcus1011 said:
After installing latest beta 5 indeed it could finally make a time machine backup with 110GB. Did not work before, always crashed. Will now backup another set of data and test if I can work with my second external drive with Final Cut Pro.
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Keep us posted. I'm currently downloading the latest beta on a 13in and 15in touchbar models that have been crashing like everyone else's.

Will report back findings.
 
gone brave, running 3 usb drives in parallel (Time Machine, Final Cut Pro, iTunes Lib) and several other apps and the machine is rock solid. So I would strongly recommend for some other people to jump to beta 5 and test - first day without a crash since buying this machine...
 
Marcus1011 said:
gone brave, running 3 usb drives in parallel (Time Machine, Final Cut Pro, iTunes Lib) and several other apps and the machine is rock solid. So I would strongly recommend for some other people to jump to beta 5 and test - first day without a crash since buying this machine...
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And the occasional graphic glitches? Sometimes I have red phantom windows or red input fields after switching between screens in mission control. Nothing terrible, but annoying nevertheless.

By the way, I just checked and my bugreport case has been closed by Apple and associated with another one. So I guess they knew and solved it. Will wait for the official update and not install the beta.
 
SEJU said:
And the occasional graphic glitches? Sometimes I have red phantom windows or red input fields after switching between screens in mission control. Nothing terrible, but annoying nevertheless.

By the way, I just checked and my bugreport case has been closed by Apple and associate with another one. So I guess they knew and solved it. Will wait for the official update and not install the beta.
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I have not seen any graphics glitches so far (fingers crossed). Really stable for about 4 hours now!
 
I mean I don't have the heavy graphic errors which were reported here, just red phantom windows or input fields. Probably just software. Will wait for OSX ... ups MacOS update...

But thanks for letting me know.
 
Sierra 10.12.2 Beta 5 looks promising, was able to complete my 300+ GB backup with no crashes. Previously it would crash after 20GB had been backed up.

Will keep testing
 
that is positive news. Any idea when 12.2 will be released ? I've never installed a beta OS and wouldn't want to take the risk..
 
I don't know how this beta stuff works. Do we have any idea on when it will be released into the main OS? I hope they rush things along.
 
I don't think this has to do with transferring a large amount of data.

By using rsync in verbose mode and watching exactly where my Mac crashes, I managed to isolate this to a 40+MB .MOV file. Copying this file to any of my 4 external hard drives crashes my Mac. I've tried every kind of copy I know of. (Surprising I have a small thumb drive and copying to that works.)

The file itself seems fine (it is a .MOV file taken on my old iPhone and it plays fine and my late 2013 MacBookPro has been backing it up for over a year with no problem). And anyway copying even a corrupted file shouldn't cause a computer to crash.

Someone I know with the new MacBook Pro tried the file on his and it crashes too.

I've sent the file on to Apple. It took a while for me to get the front-line agent to escalate it to the senior support team.

I am curious if anyone else with the same problem can isolate this down to a single offending file like I did?
 
I was able to earlier. In my case to a CR2 file that opens up just fine on the 2016 MBP as well as a 2009 & various windows units. It's only a problem when I try copying to an external drive on the 16 MBP.
 
Did you manage to report it to Apple? It took me a while. When I brought it to the Genius Bar they told me to just delete the file!
 
c1mth0g said:
Did you manage to report it to Apple? It took me a while. When I brought it to the Genius Bar they told me to just delete the file!
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Genius Bar rep was perplexed and since I had the hard drives in question with the files asked me to replicate it on a similar 15" 2016 demo machine in store which we were able to do. Once done she went to the reps in the back of the store and asked them about it & no one in the store had any idea of the cause & whatnot. Uploaded files to Apples Engineering department & that was that.
 
All of you having the issue, can you try installing the beta? It's fixing it for all those who tried so far.

dlynch158 said:
I don't know how this beta stuff works. Do we have any idea on when it will be released into the main OS? I hope they rush things along.
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You can enrol to the beta for free here, and it is all explained: https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/

Nobody knows when it will be released into the main OS, but most of the time it's about 2 weeks after the last beta drops. And you never know if there will be a beta after the current one... only Apple knows.
 
So, overnight the machine still running without a crash, I can confirm this beta 5 fixes whatever the reason was. I can finally sell my old MB then.
 
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dlynch158 said:
I don't know how this beta stuff works. Do we have any idea on when it will be released into the main OS? I hope they rush things along.
Click to expand...
I kind of hope they don't rush it! Rushing software out the door can cause its own problems. This fix will unfortunately be bundled with a load of other fixes and improvements, so it can only ship when they are all ready.

For anyone who is committed to using their new MBP as their primary or only computer, please remember to balance the risk which this issue causes against any potential problems that could be in a beta release. Don't just install a beta on a critical machine with critical data and hope for the best ;)
 
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