Time Machine Backups Interfere with Internet Access

[jdag]

I am having trouble with my MacBook Pro that seems to be related to running Time Machine backups. I have a Time Capsule and am running on Catalina.

Basically, when Time Machine backups are running my Internet access slows or even halts. I can try to open a web page and just watch a blank browser for seconds or even minutes. If I open multiple tabs, they all hang, and then suddenly all of the sites will appear. There is no consistency to the lag.

I believe that this started when I upgraded to Catalina, but it may have been before then. To compensate I installed TimeMachineEditor and set the backup cadence to every 4 hours. But that's a workaround, not a fix.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

[jpn]

I am having trouble with my MacBook Pro that seems to be related to running Time Machine backups. I have a Time Capsule and am running on Catalina.

Basically, when Time Machine backups are running my Internet access slows or even halts. I can try to open a web page and just watch a blank browser for seconds or even minutes. If I open multiple tabs, they all hang, and then suddenly all of the sites will appear. There is no consistency to the lag.

I believe that this started when I upgraded to Catalina, but it may have been before then. To compensate I installed TimeMachineEditor and set the backup cadence to every 4 hours. But that's a workaround, not a fix.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

doesn't sound like a time machine caused error per se, even though it possible that it began with Catalina.
sounds like its a problem with the way yr time machine device is configured to connect.

 

[jdag]

doesn't sound like a time machine caused error per se, even though it possible that it began with Catalina.
sounds like its a problem with the way yr time machine device is configured to connect.

I appreciate that thought. But I will say that nothing has changed in my router/network setup or configuration in years.

 

[HDFan]

So what does activity monitor say when this happens, compared with when not?

How much memory is in use?
How much cpu is in use?
What is the disk activity?
What is the network activity?

 

[jdag]

It is tough to get "a number" because those stats are ever-changing. But I watched Activity Monitor when Time Machine was not running, then force started TM and watched Activity Monitor again. Here are some sample stats:

TM not running:
How much memory is in use? 6.5gb
How much cpu is in use? 87.04% idle
What is the disk activity? 7 in/sec, 12 out/sec
What is the network activity? 5 in/sec, 10 out/sec

TM backup actively running:
How much memory is in use? 6.5gb
How much cpu is in use? 85.17% idle
What is the disk activity? 182 in/sec, 757 out/sec
What is the network activity? 499 in/sec, 678 out/sec

Note that disk and network activity were highly variable, I grabbed some of the higher points.

I have no idea what is typical, so really those numbers don't mean a thing to me other than to show that there is more disk and network use when TM is running, which is of course logical.

 

[HDFan]

What is the disk activity? 182 in/sec, 757 out/sec
What is the network activity? 499 in/sec, 678 out/sec

Are those numbers in KB or MB?

 

[jdag]

Are those numbers in KB or MB?

They are from the bottom left of Activity Monitor. There are no units specified there. Sorry, but honestly none of this makes sense to me as I am not sure what they are supposed to be, so I don't have the context of whether they are low, high, or normal.

 

[HDFan]

In this case the Activity Monitor numbers received/sent/read/written are in MB.