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Time Machine Backup - Thousands of changes per hour with M1Max?

M

mjodotcom

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 26, 2019
36
3
I just started getting TM backups going on my new M1Max MBP and noticed some odd behavior. First off, when setting up the first backup overnight something seems to hang up where when I check it the next day it says oldest backup and latest backup none but then it does a quick little iteration in the morning and calls that the oldest one? I tried making the computer stay awake, etc but the behavior seems to be consistent after trying a fresh one a few times.

Furthermore, after "completing" every hour it claims to be catching changes in the tens of thousands even with minimal/no use which seems much higher than it ever did on my older Mac. Is the M1+12.X SW just more prone to many little changes all the time that are going on in the background?

Are some of these quirks just the nature of how these backups go with Apple silicon, or do I potentially have something weird going on with the back up drive, etc? Curious if others have had similar observations and if there is anyway to check the integrity of the backups to make sure they would still work if needed to be utilized.
 
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TM seems extremely buggy on M1 based machines and has been buggy on all my Macs since at least Catalina. I've had to nuke my TM backup on my M1 Air at least twice and start again as it would never complete fully. Same for TM backups on my Intel based iMac and MBP over the last 2-3 years...
 
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Some say the 12.2 fixed the TM errors where it wouldn't backup . Mine isn't fixed. Why? Because i do my backup with screen off and locked. And that has some glitch with some findmy files. The workaround is to just exclude them . After this it should work fine..

Run this command in terminal :
sudo tmutil addexclusion -p /Users/*/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy*


After that you should be able to see some folders in the TM exclusion tab. Which shows when you're on Time Machine Preference Pane and you click the Options button.
 
white7561 said:
Some say the 12.2 fixed the TM errors where it wouldn't backup . Mine isn't fixed. Why? Because i do my backup with screen off and locked. And that has some glitch with some findmy files. The workaround is to just exclude them . After this it should work fine..

Run this command in terminal :
sudo tmutil addexclusion -p /Users/*/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy*


After that you should be able to see some folders in the TM exclusion tab. Which shows when you're on Time Machine Preference Pane and you click the Options button.
Click to expand...

Is it the findme files that are creating thousands of changes with each hourly check? If my original backup hung up but did eventually clear and subsequent ones are clearing as well, do I consider it "working" or should I aim for a starter backup that goes to completion without an odd hangup?
 
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mjodotcom said:
Is it the findme files that are creating thousands of changes with each hourly check? If my original backup hung up but did eventually clear and subsequent ones are clearing as well, do I consider it "working" or should I aim for a starter backup that goes to completion without an odd hangup?
Click to expand...
Findme files are not the thing that's causing the changes.

Here's the thing if your problem is the same as mine. So findmy folders etc. If you do a macOS update. Or onyx maintenance. It'll trigger again. You'll need to backup with screen on again until it's finished then for the rest you can screen off and lock the screen while backing up
 
When Time Machine first run in makes a FULL copy Your Hard Drive! Then after that it backs up only CHANGED files, that includes you huge Internet cache (I bet you Never cleared it before)!
 
satcomer said:
When Time Machine first run in makes a FULL copy Your Hard Drive! Then after that it backs up only CHANGED files, that includes you huge Internet cache (I bet you Never cleared it before)!
Click to expand...
Ah - so the thousands of changed files every hour could be internet cache items?
 
mjodotcom said:
Interesting - my old intel based Mac didn't seem to do that, I wonder if its some macOS12 related thing?
Click to expand...

If you look at a single web page such as from medium.com, then go to developer tools and inspect the network... you will see up to hundreds of files loaded. This includes the HTML as well as CSS style sheets, Javascript, images, JSON, etc.

For example:

Apple.com home page: 50 files
MacRumors home page: 56 files
CNN home page: 72 files
Medium.com home page: 127 files
Microsoft.com home page: 87 files
Zillow.com home page: 47 files
 
satcomer said:
Then go to System Preferences-Time Machine pane, click Options in bottom right, and exclude the Internet cache!
Click to expand...

I did one better, I disabled Time Machine. But someone explain to me why the internet cache needs to be backed up at all? It shouldn't be there by default.
 
On you home folder for the browser, unless you use Crome and they put in Main Library! You have to look for or use a search for Internet cache. Even some cleaning routines like free Onyx and clean cache about once a week to keep it small!
 
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jasoncarle said:
I did one better, I disabled Time Machine. But someone explain to me why the internet cache needs to be backed up at all? It shouldn't be there by default.
Click to expand...

It is not backed up by default. I am pretty sure none of the temporary files are backed up... Here is Safari for example

Code: 
tmutil isexcluded  ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.safari/Data/Library/Caches
[Excluded]    ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.safari/Data/Library/Caches

There must be some other problem that you folks are seeing.
 
My advice (there he goes like a broken record again!):

STOP using time machine.
Instead, use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
 
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