Time Machine 'preparing backup' for a week!

[Skink]

On 21 January my time machine was sending messages that the Time Capsule was full. Being busy at the time I told it to stop backing up.

On 30 January my Mac reminded me that it wasn't backing up so I turned it back on and ever since it has been trying to 'Preparing backup'.

I've deleted a few gig to free up some space in the interim, so thought that may have caused some delay, but not a week of it.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Can I speed the process? Is it an error?

Daniel

 

[techguy20]

Something glitched somewhere. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at most.

How many gigs of files are on your computer's HD?

I'd recommend restarting BOTH the computer and the Time Capsule [unplug and reboot]. I've solved a bunch of Time Capsule issues that way.

Then try backing up again.

 

[Skink]

Thanks for the response.

I was hopeful, but still no luck with the rebooting of both the TC and Macbook.

As to how many Gig....
Three partitions:
1. 194GB (5GB free)
2. 116 GB (33 GB free)
3. 129 GB (19 GB free).


I wonder if I can force it to save, or do I need to delete the backups and start again? Or just wait.....

 

[Mal]

Just delete the .inprogress file it creates for that most recent backup attempt and let it try again. Should work unless there's a deeper problem.

jW

 

[Skink]

Where would I find the .inprogress file to delete?

Just delete the .inprogress file it creates for that most recent backup attempt and let it try again. Should work unless there's a deeper problem.

jW

 

[Mal]

Where would I find the .inprogress file to delete?

In the Backups.backupsdb folder, within the folder listed for your machine. If there's not one there, it didn't get that far and my advice doesn't apply.

jW

 

[Skink]

Ah, yes... found it... well that's a start. Thanks.

----------

I'm not sure if the reason for the fault is that I didn't have an external drive connected which was showing in the last backup, so I've reconnected that and we'll see how it goes.

 

[Skink]

Couldn't seem to delete the file. It stopped at about 800GB file.

And so I'm trying something different. Got an external 1TB drive connected and have selected that to be the backup disk. It is now preparing that as the backup disk. If it works, I'll back it up then revert to the Time Capsule to see if it clears the fault.... /fingers crossed!/