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Time Machine won't backup since El Capitan was installed

K

Kenwood

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 30, 2011
14
1
Time machine used to backup just fine to my Time Capsule (Ver 7.6.7) until I upgraded to El Capitan. Thinking there was a problem with my Time Capsule I just bought a WD My Passport for Mac. Same problem - the backup fails.

An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.

Ideas/Thoughts?

MacBook Air - Mid 2011
OS X El Capitan ver 10.11.5
 
There is a known problem with El Capitan and Spotlight. Time Machine depends on the Spotlight index to work, so if the Mac cannot complete the Spotlight indexing, Time Machine will not work.

This seems to happen only on computers with more than one user account. If you have more than one user account, do the following:

In the Spotlight prefs, under the Privacy Tab, add your whole hard drive as a private item, then close the prefs. This will erase your existing Spotlight index. Then re-open the tab and delete your whole hard drive from the privacy tab, but add back in the user home folders for any users other than the one you are logged in as.

Then wait for Spotlight to finish its indexing and try Time Machine again.
 
BTW, did you format the WD as Apple Extended Format (Journalled)? Unless you bought a WD that specifically says it come formatted for Mac, it will be formatted in PC format and Time Machine cannot back up to PC formatted disks.

Check with Disk Utility, and if the WD is not formatted as Apple Extended Format (Journalled), then erase and reformat it.
 
Ran Disk Utility's "First Aid". These are the bad things that I can see:

Incorrect number of file hard links
Volume bitmap needs minor repair for orphaned blocks

The volume Mac HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired

Invaild volume free block count (it should be 2535870 instead of 2114984)

File system check exit code is 8
 
Boot into the recovery mode, by booting while holding down command-r, then run Repair Disk from Disk Utility.
 
John DS
Okay - Went into Recovery Mode and started Disk Utility....but it still says "First Aid". I clicked that and it was different the stuff that it showed it was going. It fixed everything that I listed and said its Mac HD was okay.

Going to try to backup to Time Machine on The Passport
 
Nope....same thing as before fails to backup. It fails about 5+ mins into it too. I even tried that Spotlight suggestion of yours even though Im the only user on this Mac. Nada.
 
It's possible you have a corrupt file on your computer that can't be copied. See: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html
[doublepost=1464349371][/doublepost]Also, if you have antivirus software, try temporarily turning it off, or exclude the Time Machine disk.
 
1. Do a repair on the external dis
2. Fire up Terminal and type in the command:
Code: 
diskutil list
This will list in Terminal the codes to all the disks connect to your Mac! Then use the external disks IDENTIFIER and remover that code for the external!
3. Then do the enableOwnership
Code: 
$ sudo diskutil enableOwnership /dev/disk1s2                                                      Password: File system user/group ownership enabled
4. Then go back and turn on time machine back on!
 
Try the following:

  1. In Finder, press shift-command-C.
  2. Open your Time Machine backup volume.
  3. Navigate to Backups.backupdb/Computer name.

Does an item with a name that ends with ".inProgress" exist in the folder?
 
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