New to Mac - Time Machine never seems to finish

[DC41]

I have my first MacBook Air M1 16GB/1TB and am a little confused by Time Machine. I have a Synology NAS attached to me network and wish to store my Time Machine backups there. I had no problem creating a volume dedicated to that task nor mounting the drive on my Mac. I was able to select it as a disk in Time Machine, and it starts its backup. The problem is it never seems to finish.

As you can see from the screenshot, it looks like it's finished. The progress bar is complete. There's no estimate of time or data remaining, but it's been like that for hours. The other odd thing is the Space Available shows Zero. There's a terabyte of space on the volume I created, and Time Machine report as much when it started.

Is it just writing data it had in a buffer on some kind? Is it stuck and needs to be restarted? Do I need to just be patient and let it finish? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Apple_Robert]

I think it is stuck. Remove the disk from backup and try the setup again.

 

[legendmc]

I also have this same issue with the same setup. I was able to complete the first two backups to the Synology, but over the last several days, the backup appears to be frozen at completion, with same symptom. I am trying again after deselecting, and then reselecting the backup disk. I will post again with the outcome of this backup when completed… or not.

 

[MiG007]

I have my first MacBook Air M1 16GB/1TB and am a little confused by Time Machine. I have a Synology NAS attached to me network and wish to store my Time Machine backups there. I had no problem creating a volume dedicated to that task nor mounting the drive on my Mac. I was able to select it as a disk in Time Machine, and it starts its backup. The problem is it never seems to finish.

As you can see from the screenshot, it looks like it's finished. The progress bar is complete. There's no estimate of time or data remaining, but it's been like that for hours. The other odd thing is the Space Available shows Zero. There's a terabyte of space on the volume I created, and Time Machine report as much when it started.

Is it just writing data it had in a buffer on some kind? Is it stuck and needs to be restarted? Do I need to just be patient and let it finish? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

This not an uncommon problem. I have had it get stuck at "cleanup" at "starting backup" and have searched and searched for definitive answers. Lots of suggestions, but no solid answers that work. My next option is to go with something like Carbon Copy Cloner. I use that for all my client project backups and there is never an issue.