Time Machine stuck on Preparing

[pjavidan]

Very useful forum. I unchecked the "put the disk(s) to sleep when possible" button and now it works like a charm. Mine was stuck on 26kb of 341MB for 10 mins. After I unchecked, i restarted the backup, and worked right away.

 

[Mmaton]

Backup is stuck on preparing!

this is what i get in log

08/11/2008 22:13:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[291] Backup requested by user
08/11/2008 22:13:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[291] Starting standard backup
08/11/2008 22:13:51 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[291] Backing up to: /Volumes/Max's Drive/Backups.backupdb
08/11/2008 22:13:52 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[291] Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
08/11/2008 22:13:57 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[291] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|

 

[rollei]

Brilliant!

I've had the same problem for days, finally narrowed it down to time machine. I was trying to stop the back up and everything was freezing. Then on restarting all my passwords were missing.
Unchecked put hard disk to sleep and everything is back to normal! Time machine has just completed a back up. Brilliant! Thanks for a VERY useful thread.

 

[FLAVAH]

i know its an older thread, but the same thing happened to me today, and i tried the hard disks to sleep tip and it worked!! thanks!

 

[Michael1228279]

Continuous Preparing Backup

Hey all,

I am having a similar backup problem with TM where the preparing process has been continuous for 12+hrs. In my log, I get these messages multiple times.

mds[21]: (/Volumes/Backup of ***-backup ’s MacBook/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/01D83654-FE83-4EF5-AA1A-A58FBD6223B9)(Error) IndexCI in CIMetaInfoSync:write err: 28

***-macbook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4209]: Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)


Any suggestions?

 

[Bozinsky]

Same problem after update to 10.5.7

I get a similar problem after update to 10.5.7. I had it never before.

13.06.09 14:25:11 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[323] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|

Several apps get unresponsive, esp. Preferences not starting anymore, while "Sleep HD when possible" is active in Energy Saver.

I try now with HD sleep off, seems to be working for now, though deep traversal will take long, as this appr. a 1 TB of backup it has to go through. Hope it'll fix it in some hours.

 

[Bozinsky]

Update: Disabling HD sleep in Energy saver in this situation of "Node requires deep traversal:" in the logs solves this issue. Can be enable afterwards.

I get a similar problem after update to 10.5.7. I had it never before.

13.06.09 14:25:11 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[323] Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|

Several apps get unresponsive, esp. Preferences not starting anymore, while "Sleep HD when possible" is active in Energy Saver.

I try now with HD sleep off, seems to be working for now, though deep traversal will take long, as this appr. a 1 TB of backup it has to go through. Hope it'll fix it in some hours.

 

[jgcalifornia]

Open up Console.app and under "LOG FILES" to the left, click on "system.log" When you start a backup, some output should appear. If it mentions a "deep traversal" that means that it needs to re-index everything (or something like that) so that your next backup will take a while: it will stick for a time on "Preparing..." (could be an hour or more), but after that subsequent backups will be quick.

This happens after your computer freezes, and apparently after installing 10.5.2.

~Michael

hi. could this happen if your not around your backup disk for awhile? hence, not backing up with TM? Traveling with laptop, come home to Time Capsule, and stuck on preparing, hasnt backed up since...

thanks!!

 

[dschaffner]

Same issue (stuck preparing)
Same evidence (log indicates deep traversal)
Same solution (stop hard disks from sleeping)
Same followup (Hard disks sleep again, and problem has not returned)

The problem was fixed last night, while I was sleeping and my hard disks weren't

Thanks to all for this excellent thread.

- Don

 

[Pervin]

Hey, I have Mac OSX 10.5.7, and I am experiencing this:
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|

I have unchecked "Put Hard Disk(s) to sleep when possible" as you have said, but the problem persists. Any thoughts?

 

[phatman007]

Hi all

I have just spent approx 24 hours doing my 1st back up to my 2TB Time Capsule. It is now stuck on 'preparing disc' for its scheduled back up... Having flicked through this thread, I am going to stick it out for a while to see if anything happens... To be honest I am not having an enjoyable experience with Time Capsule so far!!!

 

[tvfilm]

stuck on preparing

 

[Seifred]

mine keeps getting stuck on preparing i left it all afternoon and night and it kept going, it failed once when i tried again today
this is what i keep getting

can anyone help me, i have turned off that hard drive thing, its a 2009 macbook and a western digtal hard drive

Feb 2 16:27:09 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Starting standard backup
Feb 2 16:27:10 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Feb 2 16:27:12 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Feb 2 16:27:12 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Feb 2 16:27:42: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Feb 2 16:27:42 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Feb 2 16:28:12: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:28:27 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Feb 2 16:32:16 Natashas-MacBook [0x0-0x1e01e0].com.apple.systempreferences[4604]: Couldn't find any matches.
Feb 2 16:32:28 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Feb 2 16:32:29 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124426. 7 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:32:58 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Feb 2 16:33:09 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124466. 8 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:33:29 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Backup canceled.
Feb 2 16:33:41 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Backup requested by user
Feb 2 16:33:41 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Starting standard backup
Feb 2 16:33:55 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124512. 10 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:34:06 Natashas-MacBook Microsoft Word[606]: CGBitmapContextGetData: invalid context
Feb 2 16:34:35: --- last message repeated 89 times ---
Feb 2 16:34:35 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124552. 11 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:34:52 Natashas-MacBook /usr/sbin/ocspd[4615]: starting
Feb 2 16:35:15 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124592. 12 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:35:55 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124632. 14 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:36:35 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124672. 16 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:36:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:36:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:36:44: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:36:44 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:36:44 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:36:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:36:54 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:36:54 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:36:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:36:54 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Cookie file is not readable or does not exist at path: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.00254ba90724
Feb 2 16:37:20 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:37:20 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:37:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:37:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:37:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:37:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:37:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: jnl: disk2s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x5
Feb 2 16:37:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: jnl: disk2s2: write_journal_header: error writing the journal header!
Feb 2 16:37:24 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:37:24 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:37:54: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:40:35 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124912. 21 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:40:42: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: jnl: disk2s2: do_jnl_io: strategy err 0x5
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: jnl: disk2s2: end_transaction: only wrote 0 of 29184 bytes to the journal!
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/7BFC3831-7205-4C49-8EAF-9E5909A919C1)(Error) IndexCI in store_stream_flush:store_stream_flush write err:22
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/7BFC3831-7205-4C49-8EAF-9E5909A919C1)(Error) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:Sync error 0.
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/7BFC3831-7205-4C49-8EAF-9E5909A919C1)(Error) IndexGeneral in notify_lowspace:low space for device 234881029 (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/7BFC3831-7205-4C49-8EAF-9E5909A919C1)
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (Error) Volume: LOW DISK SPACE device:234881029
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/C82807E9-3FFA-42C5-A5FA-74568ACD06F0)(Error) IndexCI in store_stream_flush:store_stream_flush write err:22
Feb 2 16:40:42 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/C82807E9-3FFA-42C5-A5FA-74568ACD06F0)(Error) IndexCI in _ContentIndexSyncIndexBulk:Sync error 0.
Feb 2 16:40:44 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:40:44 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:40:44: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:40:44 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Volume at path /Volumes/Time Machine Backups does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Feb 2 16:40:49 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Backup failed with error: 18
Feb 2 16:41:02 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:41:02 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:41:04: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:41:04 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:41:04 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:41:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:41:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:41:22 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:41:22: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:41:22 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/C82807E9-3FFA-42C5-A5FA-74568ACD06F0)(Error) IndexGeneral in notify_lowspace:low space for device 234881029 (/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/C82807E9-3FFA-42C5-A5FA-74568ACD06F0)
Feb 2 16:41:22 Natashas-MacBook mds[33]: (Error) Volume: LOW DISK SPACE device:234881029
Feb 2 16:41:24 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: disk2s2: I/O error.
Feb 2 16:41:24 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]:
Feb 2 16:41:46: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Feb 2 16:41:46 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Backup requested by user
Feb 2 16:41:46 Natashas-MacBook /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[4585]: Starting standard backup
Feb 2 16:41:55 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 124992. 26 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)
Feb 2 16:41:41 Natashas-MacBook [0x0-0x1e21e2].com.apple.systempreferences[4616]: Couldn't find any matches.
Feb 2 16:42:33 Natashas-MacBook kernel[0]: USBF: 125030. 27 AppleUSBEHCI[0x4418000]::Found a transaction past the completion deadline on bus 0x26, timing out! (Addr: 2, EP: 2)

 

[robertmacrumors]

How to force back up when taking too long

Back ups do take a while, especially when on wireless network.

I just got back from the Apple Store. My mac book froze up trying to create a Time Machine backup.

Turns out the back up (which happened to be on a time capsule) had gotten corrupted - probably from having to force shut down.

The Genius Bar guy renamed the latest back up (inserted a .2) after which Time Machine began a totally new back up and is running as it should. An ethernet wire is best for a total back up and in NetWork preferences, click on the gear and move ethernet to top priority so that the back up takes advantage of hard wire speeds.

Hope this helps.

Robert

 

[CubusX]

Issue

I had the same issue after I backedup form the time capsule. I changed to a SSD drive.

I unplugged the power cord on the time capsule, gave it a minute or two and plugged it back in.

Worked fine afterward.

Also, it took awhile to prepare after the new update.

 

[xoxogossipgirl]

THANK YOU - Worked for me

TM had been "preparing" for around 10 minutes (after being restarted) & almost instantly started backing up when I unchecked the box. Thanks again!

Just an update on my time machine's incessant "preparing" problem. I unchecked "put the hard discs to sleep when possible" in the system preferences "Energy Saver." It seems like that may have been the fix since my time machine hasn't hung up since the change (about 24 hours). I hope it was that simple (and obvious I suppose to many of you savvy Mac people ).

 

[amim]

Me 2 , left it over the night, still preparing. After 2 days, still preparing, I'm so sick of it now! HELP!

 

[bigmakkyd]

.