Time Machine Difficulties

[Robert4]

Hello,

Having major problems in trying to use, reliably, Time Machine.
Running Mojave on an iMac. iMac seems to be working fine. in every other respcet.

Have Time Machine hooked up to a brand new 2 TB external WD Hard Drive, which seems
to be running just fine.

Time machine did the first, very big overall, backup fine.
Then maybe one more.
Same problem if i tell it to: "Backup Now". (it's set for Automatic Backups now)

Now, every day i get a msg that Time Machine backup failed, couldn't back up, etc.

Anyone else experiencing these kind of problems with Time Machine ?
What is the "most likely" cause ?

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays,
Bob

 

[madrich]

Have you reset the Time Capsule (there are two methods) and they do not erase your backups.

 

[Honza1]

I think I saw somewhere, that TM did not like specific external drives, I think it was one line of WD drives. Something about not waking fast enough from sleep or some USB issue. Try searching the web for Time Machine problem and specific WD line. Personally, I prefer cheap generic dock stations and cheap internal hard drives against brand name USB hard drives built in boxes. Work usually very well and is cheap to swap the hard drive when it fails. And they will all fail eventually.
Else, not sure. You can try reformat the drive again, make sure you have correct partitioning scheme (GUID) and Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. May be that will help.

 

[HDFan]

Now, every day i get a msg that Time Machine backup failed, couldn't back up, etc.

In Preferences/Energy Saver is Put Hard Disks to sleep checked?

 

[madrich]

In Preferences/Energy Saver is Put Hard Disks to sleep checked?

He is running Mojave and this should not be a problem because the sleep feature provides for exception on Time Capsule backups, but I would try it anyway.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'd suggest trying either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead of tm.

Both are FREE to download and try for 30 days.

If you don't like what they produce for you, just erase the cloned backup and go back to tm...

 

[madrich]

I'd suggest trying either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead of tm.

Both are FREE to download and try for 30 days.

If you don't like what they produce for you, just erase the cloned backup and go back to tm...

Don’t you need a separate standalone storage media for CCC or SD?

 

[HDFan]

Now, every day i get a msg that Time Machine backup failed, couldn't back up, etc.

When you get this error do finder/disk utility show that the disk is still mounted?

 

[madmin]

Head over to Howard Oakley's site, he has a new 7 part series on Time Machine and iirc describes your exact issue in detail. He also develops utilities that can help you with stuff like analyzing Time Machine logs which will help you fix these type of issues quicker.

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