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Time Machine Freeze

R

RoboCop001

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 4, 2005
1,576
454
Toronto, Canada
I've noticed that whenever I go far back in time with Time Machine, it totally stops working.

The animation keeps going and the mouse still moves. There's no spinning colour ball or anything of the sort. There's no HD activity on the backup drive. I know the drive isn't being accessed at all because after a short time it spins down. I can't click anything, and the time dock on the right doesn't magnify anymore.

I wait for a few minutes, nothing. The only thing I can do is force quit Time Machine. After that happens, the desktop does not reappear, and neither does Finder. Only the desktop image is visible. However, every other open application appears, but I can't actually go and use them. Spaces still works, but Expose does not.

After that, the only thing I can do is force restart by holding down Command + Control + Power Key.

It's happened every time I go far back in time (the furthest point being November the 6th 2007). It happens when I do a huge jump from present to past, or even small jumps that eventually lead me to far back.

I can't find a crash log for Time Machine, but maybe I overlooked it. Where would the logs for Time Machine be kept? Maybe it's under a different name besides Time Machine. I also can't find a reference to an error regarding Time Machine by searching under All Logs in Console.

I'm on a MacBook Pro 2.33GHz using all the latest updates. The computer is just over one year old, and the external drive is about 2 years old. The drive itself seems totally fine.

Any ideas?
 
I have the exact same problem. Completely freezes, but when I force quit time machine i get my desktop, but no menu, no dock, just wallpaper. And after a second my mouse cursor stops moving. my only option has been to hold down the power button. i have since stopped using time machine (I'm still backing up with it; I just don't access it) and am waiting to see if 10.5.2 fixes it... Unless someone else has a better idea. Just for the sake of full discretion: I'm using a six month old MBP SR and a Smartdisk Firelite external that I bought from Apple a month ago.
 
cms2 said:
I have the exact same problem. Completely freezes, but when I force quit time machine i get my desktop, but no menu, no dock, just wallpaper. And after a second my mouse cursor stops moving. my only option has been to hold down the power button. i have since stopped using time machine (I'm still backing up with it; I just don't access it) and am waiting to see if 10.5.2 fixes it... Unless someone else has a better idea. Just for the sake of full discretion: I'm using a six month old MBP SR and a Smartdisk Firelite external that I bought from Apple a month ago.
Click to expand...

So I'm not the only one :) Cool.

Did you ever try to force quit anything after Time Machine?

When I bring up the force quit window, nothing actually appears. That is, until I hit the return key. Then the sheet thing slides out of nowhere asking me if I'm sure about force quitting.

I keep trying to relaunch Finder, but it doesn't do anything.

Hopefully they fix this. I wonder if they know about it? I guess they probably do.

I just submitted a bug report anyway, though. Maybe you should to? :)
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
 
RoboCop001 said:
So I'm not the only one :) Cool.

Did you ever try to force quit anything after Time Machine?

When I bring up the force quit window, nothing actually appears. That is, until I hit the return key. Then the sheet thing slides out of nowhere asking me if I'm sure about force quitting.
Click to expand...

Actually once the desktop returns my mouse is stuck, and pressing any key results in the little "chirp" noise that usually indicates there is nothing to select (the same noise as when you try to use expose and there are no open windows, or when you type the first letter of a file in finder when there are no files starting with that letter).

As I said, I'm still using Time Machine to back up, but I cannot access any of my back ups I hope that these back ups will be usable when Apple fixes the problem.
 
I figured it out people!! relax breath

Turn off your Intego background scanner and stop having the program do scheduled scans. There is no need to really have a virus scanner on a mac.

Anyway this was the issue and problem I was having with time machine on my Macintosh. If you don't have Intego software then it's some third party software most likely another virus scanner with a background scanner.

Dump it!!! and let me know if this helps you guys, it solved my problems. I was tearing out my hair for hours the other night because I knew it had to be third party software and it was.

e-mail me if this works for you.

Jareds.mac.pro1@mac.com
 
third party software

cms2 said:
Actually once the desktop returns my mouse is stuck, and pressing any key results in the little "chirp" noise that usually indicates there is nothing to select (the same noise as when you try to use expose and there are no open windows, or when you type the first letter of a file in finder when there are no files starting with that letter).

As I said, I'm still using Time Machine to back up, but I cannot access any of my back ups I hope that these back ups will be usable when Apple fixes the problem.
Click to expand...


Turn off your Intego background scanner and stop having the program do scheduled scans. There is no need to really have a virus scanner on a mac.

Anyway this was the issue and problem I was having with time machine on my Macintosh. If you don't have Intego software then it's some third party software most likely another virus scanner with a background scanner.

Dump it!!! and let me know if this helps you guys, it solved my problems. I was tearing out my hair for hours the other night because I knew it had to be third party software and it was.

e-mail me if this works for you.
 
third party software

RoboCop001 said:
So I'm not the only one :) Cool.

Did you ever try to force quit anything after Time Machine?

When I bring up the force quit window, nothing actually appears. That is, until I hit the return key. Then the sheet thing slides out of nowhere asking me if I'm sure about force quitting.

I keep trying to relaunch Finder, but it doesn't do anything.

Hopefully they fix this. I wonder if they know about it? I guess they probably do.

I just submitted a bug report anyway, though. Maybe you should to? :)
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/
Click to expand...
Turn off your Intego background scanner and stop having the program do scheduled scans. There is no need to really have a virus scanner on a mac.

Anyway this was the issue and problem I was having with time machine on my Macintosh. If you don't have Intego software then it's some third party software most likely another virus scanner with a background scanner.

Dump it!!! and let me know if this helps you guys, it solved my problems. I was tearing out my hair for hours the other night because I knew it had to be third party software and it was.

e-mail me if this works for you.
 
third party software

cms2 said:
I have the exact same problem. Completely freezes, but when I force quit time machine i get my desktop, but no menu, no dock, just wallpaper. And after a second my mouse cursor stops moving. my only option has been to hold down the power button. i have since stopped using time machine (I'm still backing up with it; I just don't access it) and am waiting to see if 10.5.2 fixes it... Unless someone else has a better idea. Just for the sake of full discretion: I'm using a six month old MBP SR and a Smartdisk Firelite external that I bought from Apple a month ago.
Click to expand...


Turn off your Intego background scanner and stop having the program do scheduled scans. There is no need to really have a virus scanner on a mac.

Anyway this was the issue and problem I was having with time machine on my Macintosh. If you don't have Intego software then it's some third party software most likely another virus scanner with a background scanner.

Dump it!!! and let me know if this helps you guys, it solved my problems. I was tearing out my hair for hours the other night because I knew it had to be third party software and it was.

e-mail me if this works for you.
 
third party software

RoboCop001 said:
I've noticed that whenever I go far back in time with Time Machine, it totally stops working.

The animation keeps going and the mouse still moves. There's no spinning colour ball or anything of the sort. There's no HD activity on the backup drive. I know the drive isn't being accessed at all because after a short time it spins down. I can't click anything, and the time dock on the right doesn't magnify anymore.

I wait for a few minutes, nothing. The only thing I can do is force quit Time Machine. After that happens, the desktop does not reappear, and neither does Finder. Only the desktop image is visible. However, every other open application appears, but I can't actually go and use them. Spaces still works, but Expose does not.

After that, the only thing I can do is force restart by holding down Command + Control + Power Key.

It's happened every time I go far back in time (the furthest point being November the 6th 2007). It happens when I do a huge jump from present to past, or even small jumps that eventually lead me to far back.

I can't find a crash log for Time Machine, but maybe I overlooked it. Where would the logs for Time Machine be kept? Maybe it's under a different name besides Time Machine. I also can't find a reference to an error regarding Time Machine by searching under All Logs in Console.

I'm on a MacBook Pro 2.33GHz using all the latest updates. The computer is just over one year old, and the external drive is about 2 years old. The drive itself seems totally fine.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Turn off your Intego background scanner and stop having the program do scheduled scans. There is no need to really have a virus scanner on a mac.

Anyway this was the issue and problem I was having with time machine on my Macintosh. If you don't have Intego software then it's some third party software most likely another virus scanner with a background scanner.

Dump it!!! and let me know if this helps you guys, it solved my problems. I was tearing out my hair for hours the other night because I knew it had to be third party software and it was.

e-mail me if this works for you.
 
Dump Intego - YES!

Finally upgraded to Leopard on my 17" MBP. All went well except for Time Machine freezing when I tried to access it. Initial backup went fine...and so have a few hourly incremental backups.

But when I tried to acces to see what it had performed - freeze-up. Had to force quit it.

Disabled Intego's scanning, and all is well.

Clint Bradford
 
AAARGH it's INTEGO that's the prob!

AHA- mac with leopard kept freezing up when I opened Time machine; had to force-quit every time.
Read this last post (many thanks for the advice!), turned off Intego- and PRESTO!! All restored to normal. Will be emailing Intego about this :)
 
It's not just Intego

My Mac kept freezing when time machine made a backup. When I disabled Sophos Anti-Virus everything went just fine. Antivirus software on the mac sucks!
 
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