Time machines "thins" backups: hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months.
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Time Machine auto backups fail on my new M2 Pro 16 MacBook?
- Thread starter rjjacobson
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Looking at the electric light company to see what all the errors still mean (even though hourly backups working for me at least normal snapshots/files saved hourly on my sandisk SSD.). I have been watching the logs and while within it shows backups there seem to be a lot of errors in the time between backups if I am reading things correctly. Anyway this below seems to be the electric light companies latest info on time machine and Ventura and APFS volumes. So much to learn LOL
eclecticlight.co
Disk Utility and Time Machine in Ventura
Has Ventura brought any relief from Disk Utility’s inability to run First Aid on Time Machine’s backups, and what about changes in Time Machine itself?
eclecticlight.co
Just posted another question but wondering if that includes the errors I am still seeing in the times between hourly backups as it cleans up
Wow just searched on Electric Light Co and found more recent discussions on Tme Machine that are eye opening and perhaps explain some of error codes I see there is a ton of stuff going on there it seems:
How does Time Machine make a backup?
Detailed account from the decision to start making an automatic backup to its final reporting and completion, for Ventura 13.2.1 to local storage.
eclecticlight.co
Ok that exploration into the electric light company and time machine and Ventura fount another gem of software called T2M2 that gives summary of logs (does the interpretation of all the details ) for past hour. Got the software and ran it and it said two backups completed and other things and at end no errors reported. Below is the text and below that screen of app dump as well. I guess next test would be to work with screen lock on and see what the summary tells me about issues?
Analysis from 2023-04-10 08:32:46 -0500 to 2023-04-10 10:32:46 -0500 for 2 hours:
Backing up 1 volumes to Extreme SSD (/dev/disk5s2,6): /Volumes/Extreme SSD
Current free space on backup volumes:
✅ /Volumes/Extreme SSD = 3.34 TB
Started 2 auto backup cycles, and 0 manual backups;
completed 2 volume backups successfully,
last backup completed successfully 16.7 minutes ago,
Times taken for each auto backup were 0.6, 0.3 minutes,
intervals between the start of each auto backup were 60.5 minutes.
Created 2 new backups, and deleted 4 old backups,
Created 2 new snapshots, and deleted 2 old snapshots,
Of 0 volume backups:
0 were full first backups,
0 were deep scans,
2 used FSEvents,
0 used snapshot diffs,
0 used consistency scans,
0 used cached events.
macOS 11/12 backup results:
Backup result: {
BackupStrategy = 2;
BlocksToCopy = 152200828;
BytesToCopy = 623414591488;
ClientID = "com.apple.backupd";
DestinationMountPoint = "/Volumes/Extreme SSD";
FreeBytes = 657391640576;
PaddedBytesRequired = 623414591488;
Progress = {
Percent = "0.8943216301657052";
"_raw_Percent" = "0.8943216301657052";
"_raw_totalBytes" = 623414591488;
bytes = 232333312;
files = 323;
sizingFreePreflight = 1;
totalBytes = 623414591488;
totalFiles = 1090876;
};
Running = 1;
"com.apple.backupd.SnapshotTotalBytesCopied" = 232333312;
}
Backup result: {
BackupStrategy = 2;
BlocksToCopy = 152201948;
BytesToCopy = 623419179008;
ClientID = "com.apple.backupd";
DestinationMountPoint = "/Volumes/Extreme SSD";
FreeBytes = 657434095616;
PaddedBytesRequired = 623419179008;
Progress = {
Percent = "0.9175058258766561";
"_raw_Percent" = "0.9175058258766561";
"_raw_totalBytes" = 623419179008;
bytes = 158445568;
files = 339;
sizingFreePreflight = 1;
totalBytes = 623419179008;
totalFiles = 1090896;
};
Running = 1;
"com.apple.backupd.SnapshotTotalBytesCopied" = 158445568;
}
✅ No error messages found.
Ok with the new (to me) T2M2 tool from The Electric Light Co I am doing another test. It has no errors again for a second hourly backup so I will have another auto backup in half hour approximately. I turned screen lock back on with pass word and see if I am still getting those errors where auto backup fails and if so if T2M2 app can give me info in that detailed summary of backup data. Will report as I have time might let two hourly backups go to see what transpires.
thanks for those links. Lots to read. Also, I had not heard of T2M2. That looks great.
You are welcome. It was interesting all the “errors” in midst of good data over hour or two with the Mint program Time Machine log info. Not sure even now what they are given this app. A great discovery I need to watch all the stuff on The Electric Light company closely there is much to learn there all the time. Now to see what happens with screen lock on I will be curious if T2M2 will report the error with some data or not or just say it failed or such?
Ok interesting update after screen lock on an auto hourly backup completed with no problems, T2M2 also reported no errors. So what the heck was/is going on? Will let it go for awhile and see if this now is settled and I guess will also need to update apple on the feedback if it is fixed. Some initial unprovable conclusions:
1) this is first test after installing the 13.3.1 Ventura update that amongst things fixed was the working of the Apple Watch unlocking my mac. Which of course works flawlessly now it did not with 13.3 and I had to use my finger print (Not a big deal LOL). Was there something in this fix with unlocking the Apple Watch unlock of screen lock that fixed other bugs with this and what it was doing when Time Machine tried to backup. I see no logical connection more a question.
2) was it just a working in of my new sandisk SSD that needed to happen sorta settling in on a new machine with silicon chips, and a new SSD to boot? even harder to prove.
3) or some other mystery LOL
Ok two more backups and no errors with screen lock on, maybe it was not this particularly but some issue with 13.3 vs the update to 13.3.1?
UPDATE: two more backups with screen lock on no failures. Send updates to the feedback app for this report that 13.3.1 seems to have fixed issue
Last edited:
Well over 24 hours of normal hourly backups with my screen lock back on. Can only attribute as mentioned earlier it to the 13.3.1 update. Maybe the fixing of Apple Watch unlocking with this update affected more of the screen lock than was obvious about my only conclusion. So for me this fixed, I told them with feedback the same. I hope your issue with your new sandisk SSD replacement work out with further testing. Still loving the summary I get from T2M2 that and Mint are going to be my main system monitoring software I think
Just thought I'd provide an update since this is such an enjoyable thread. 
I've not had a repeat of the original "files unavailable" error that lead me to this thread. I'm pretty sure all my real issues are USB related. My suspicion is that my old CalDigit TS3 dock is at fault.
I moved my three disks around so that the dock only had a single one of them connected to its 5gbs USB-C port; the other two were connected directly to the Mac. For days and days I had no issues. Every day I'd check the last 24 hours of backups using TheTimeMachineMechanic and found no errors.
Just yesterday I moved the disk that's on the dock to one of its 10gbs port. Sure enough, today that disk was ejected when TimeMachine started an automatic backup to it. I moved the disk back to the 5gbs port and remounted it. Then, a few minutes later, one of the other disks connected directly to the Mac was ejected. I just now rebooted. Now that my disks are back to the way that gave me no trouble for well over a week, I expect no further problems.
It's hard to stomach replacing this dock since the TS4 is around $400. I guess I could look for something cheaper, but my requirements are a bit different than the norm; I need display port for an older monitor, ethernet, plus the typical USB-A and USB-C devices. I can just imagine spending that amount of money and still having problems; I would truly kick myself.
I've not had a repeat of the original "files unavailable" error that lead me to this thread. I'm pretty sure all my real issues are USB related. My suspicion is that my old CalDigit TS3 dock is at fault.
I moved my three disks around so that the dock only had a single one of them connected to its 5gbs USB-C port; the other two were connected directly to the Mac. For days and days I had no issues. Every day I'd check the last 24 hours of backups using TheTimeMachineMechanic and found no errors.
Just yesterday I moved the disk that's on the dock to one of its 10gbs port. Sure enough, today that disk was ejected when TimeMachine started an automatic backup to it. I moved the disk back to the 5gbs port and remounted it. Then, a few minutes later, one of the other disks connected directly to the Mac was ejected. I just now rebooted. Now that my disks are back to the way that gave me no trouble for well over a week, I expect no further problems.
It's hard to stomach replacing this dock since the TS4 is around $400. I guess I could look for something cheaper, but my requirements are a bit different than the norm; I need display port for an older monitor, ethernet, plus the typical USB-A and USB-C devices. I can just imagine spending that amount of money and still having problems; I would truly kick myself.
Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I'm having this problem on my brand-new MBP M3 Pro (2023) on Sonoma. I have "hard disks to sleep when possible" turned off and put screen lock on while backing up to TM, and it fails with the same error (“Time Machine did not finish backing up because some files were unavailable. Backups will resume when your Mac is unlocked.”).
Annoying.
Annoying.