Resolved Time machine experiencing multiple issues on Monterey (my personal issue resolved)

[DaveFlash]

The Apple senior tech called me back yesterday and says there is no fix and they are working on one for the next Monterey update, but they are well aware of the issue at this point.

2 things come to mind.

1) I had wondered if this was a kernal issue because I had to lower my security in Recovery in order to run pro Audio recording equipment Universal Audio. I had thoughts that might have something to do with it, but I don't have the time or energy to set the security to full security and then hope Time Machine runs properly. That being said, before today, nobody had mentioned lowering the security protocols and so I don't think that's the only/root cause of the issue.

2) I'm well aware that beta testers knew there was an issue with TM and monterey in June (based on reddit/forum posts) and somehow believed they had solved it, but clearly not. Kind of frustrating that they pushed this release out with - what I believe - to be a pretty bad bug. Apple relies constantly on customers backing up via time machine to properly provide technical service. They can no longer do that until this is fixed, which should cause them a backlog of computer technical problems they would be hesitant to fix for customers.

So, this issue was indeed prevalent for the beta testers and yet I can't seem to pin point when they think it got resolved except for the fact that some of them posted in forums back in June saying "not an issue with new beta release", but provided no additional details. So, Apple got the message they had fixed this when they were never even close to having fixed it. No clue how that happened.

Most importantly, when does apple start paying their fan boys, who are the ones left to spend all their time on investigating their mistakes?

yeah see, during the beta phase, i never made the connection to the kernel thing and security policy thing as i've explained in my rather lengthy post, as I never had put 1-1 together in relation to the frequent unavailability of apple pay. then yes, indeed, turning full security back on fixed both, as i've explained above.

and yes, there is lots of software or hardware out there that needs the lower security for their kernel stuff to work, i wasn't even aware of the pro universal audio stuff u use as i do very little with audio tbh.

but gee!
we are finally getting somewhere!

in regards to payments, i hope soon, these issues already cost me thousands of euros :_)

 

[LeonardoB]

I fixed the issue by excluding Dropbox and OneDrive from the backups.
I hope that this helps others here, too.

 

[jg66ue]

I fixed the issue by excluding Dropbox and OneDrive from the backups.
I hope that this helps others here, too.

tried it, but it didn't work.

 

[Macintosh101]

I fixed the issue by excluding Dropbox and OneDrive from the backups.
I hope that this helps others here, too.

That's interesting. I use OneDrive for work so I might try this later. Do you have an M1 Silicon Mac?

 

[RamGuy]

I might end up purchasing Carbon Copy Cloner. After playing around with it, and I received my MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 Pro from work yesterday so I could test Migration Assistant using my encrypted sparsebundle from CCC on my Mac mini and it all works great.

Time Machine is great and all. But it's extremely limited when it comes to giving users control and I have to have a SMB share from Ubuntu Server for it to be compatible with Time Machine as I can't use SMB shares made directly from Windows Server. Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't have any of these silly limitations and the backup seem to be just as good as Time Machine.

I suppose one thing I loose is the capability of entering Time Machine and moving back and forth between snapshots.

 

[MacinMan]

wow

I might end up purchasing Carbon Copy Cloner. After playing around with it, and I received my MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 Pro from work yesterday so I could test Migration Assistant using my encrypted sparsebundle from CCC on my Mac mini and it all works great.

Time Machine is great and all. But it's extremely limited when it comes to giving users control and I have to have a SMB share from Ubuntu Server for it to be compatible with Time Machine as I can't use SMB shares made directly from Windows Server. Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't have any of these silly limitations and the backup seem to be just as good as Time Machine.

I suppose one thing I loose is the capability of entering Time Machine and moving back and forth between snapshots.

That's the one thing that has kept me using Time Machine. Being able to move back and forth to quickly restore files. However, I like CCC because it's table, and the important thing is having stable, and reliable backups regardless of the solution chosen.

 

[MacinMan]

Hey all, with the exception of threads I create, is there a setting I can change so every time I post to a discussion I'm not automatically watching it? I want to change it because I often get flooded on active threads with notifications. So, in those cases I want to only be notified in response to my posts.

 

[randomgeeza]

I might end up purchasing Carbon Copy Cloner. After playing around with it, and I received my MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 Pro from work yesterday so I could test Migration Assistant using my encrypted sparsebundle from CCC on my Mac mini and it all works great.

Time Machine is great and all. But it's extremely limited when it comes to giving users control and I have to have a SMB share from Ubuntu Server for it to be compatible with Time Machine as I can't use SMB shares made directly from Windows Server. Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't have any of these silly limitations and the backup seem to be just as good as Time Machine.

I suppose one thing I loose is the capability of entering Time Machine and moving back and forth between snapshots.

It is a worthy purchase and has saved my bacon a number of times. TM or no TM...

 

[wilberforce]

Hey all, with the exception of threads I create, is there a setting I can change so every time I post to a discussion I'm not automatically watching it? I want to change it because I often get flooded on active threads with notifications. So, in those cases I want to only be notified in response to my posts.

In your account preferences, there are all kinds of options for notifications.
I have every one turned off, and no automatic watching of threads. Got tired of it all.

 

[Quackers]

I apologise for not reading all pages of this thread but it occurred to me that during the first connection of a TM backup drive to a new computer isn't it the case that spotlight would want to index that drive, therefore causing a significant delay with the first backup?
Or has that already been mentioned here?
It might have been mentioned as there are much more clever people on here than me

 

[MacinMan]

In your account preferences, there are all kinds of options for notifications.
I have every one turned off, and no automatic watching of threads. Got tired of it all.

Thanks, I found the setting I was looking for. I turned off automatically watch content you interact with so even if I want to respond to a topic, I'm not automatically watching it and being flooded with notifications that don't apply.

 

[arfung]

I have a 2021 14" MBP. I back up to Time Machine on a Synology NAS. I was having a problem where the first backup would complete, and then after reboot I'd get a message that TM was unable to access XXX.sparsebundle. I looked on the TM folder on my Synology, and there was another TM image of the old computer from which I had migrated to the MBP. I deleted this sparseimage, created a new TM backup, and it's successfully backed up fully, and then updated after reboot. So, I think TM was getting confused because of what it saw as duplicate images.

 

[jjtitan]

Bonjour
I have the same problem on my iMac M1 Big Sur 11.6.1
For me TM worked perfectly before the last upgrade

 

[MCap]

I am having the exact same problem too. MacBook Pro 13" M1 - 2020.
The problem started once I formatted the disk I usually used for Time Machine (after a restore, because I wanted to start clean after Monterey 12.0.1 installation).

Time Machine have space used but no backup is recognised by the system.

 

[lysingur]

I was having problems with TM since upgrading from Big Sur. You guys might find it useful to know that:

• Apple has made significant changes to Time Machine since Sierra (10.13) with each new version of macOS moving progressively towards APFS and at the same time away from HFS+.
• macOS Monterey brought about new changes:
  • Few system files are backed up (I can't find the source of this).
  • HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) Encrypted is no longer an option in Disk Utility.
  • TM forces conversion to APFS if you choose to encrypt your TM disk before your first backup.
• My own experience:
  • Disk Utility gives consistent errors when verifying local snapshots since I upgraded to macOS Monterey:
    • Checking snapshot x of y yields Cross Check and fsroot tree errors.
    • Deleting all local snapshots doesn't help as the same error soon appear in newly created local snapshots.
  • Disk Utility gives consistent errors when verifying TM backups since I upgraded to macOS Monterey:
    • TM was formatted in HFS+ Encrypted and wasn't reformatted or changed in any way before or after upgrading until now.
    • Repair attempts using DiskWarrior 5.2 were unsuccessful.
• My attempts:
  • Reformatting the partition for TM to APFS Encrypted in macOS Monterey.
    • The first backup was successful and finished within two hours (for approx. 350 GB).
    • Drive write noise was significantly lower for some unknown reason during the first backup.
    • Cross Check errors persist for local snapshots but so far no fsroot errors.
    • Errors seem to have been resolved for TM backups (can only be checked using Terminal in Recovery Mode; Disk Utility still fails in normal mode).
• Possible causes:
  • M1 chips → a common denominator for those who can't even go through the first backup successfully
  • Underlying changes to TM backup mechanism, as evidenced by the deprecation of HFS+ Encrypted as an option → this might have caused the separate issue of slowdown that OP was experiencing and the consistent errors that I've been getting.
• Thoughts on deprecation of HFS+ Encrypted:
  • Apple seems to be nudging us towards an APFS only world, at least as far as TM is concerned. This would make sense for those familiar with the copy-on-write feature of APFS because it is this feature that makes it very difficult to reconcile the coexistence of APFS and HFS+. Copy on write causes high level of fragmentation, which isn't a problem on SSD but a death sentence to those using spinning disks.
  • TM still works for HFS+, but Apple seems to have implemented a separate backup mechanism for HFS+ formatted disks (this is my conjecture). Engineers at Apple seem to want to give local snapshots (by extension APFS formatted SSDs) more prominence in macOS's backup solution as evidenced by the added manager for local snapshots in Disk Utility in macOS Monterey. This is bad news for those who want to stay with HFS+ because the ability for snapshots is another key feature of APFS, like copy on write.
  • Apple seems to have concluded that it's not worth the trouble optimizing TM for HFS+ formatted disks anymore but nor are they quite there yet with APFS. This is one major reason DiskWarrior still isn't able to repair APFS-formatted disks.
  • While macOS has gotten a lot more reliable and secure with APFS, the catch is when problems do occur, you have to repair it in Recovery using either Disk Utility or Terminal.
  • This speaks to a larger problem of Apple wanting a common foundation for all of their devices, i.e. APFS, Apple Silicon, Metal, 64-bit, etc. or at least doing so too quickly. Besides investing in very expensive large-capacity SSDs as TM backups to future-proof yourself, I don't see any good option out there when the entire Mac product line will be Apple Silicon.

 

[LeonardoB]

That's interesting. I use OneDrive for work so I might try this later. Do you have an M1 Silicon Mac?

No, I have the Intel iMac.

 

[400]

Mine has just lost a weeks worth from a reset and now only shows yesterday when I enter time machine and no data on the HD, disk util says it is OK and now stuck in the middle of another massive backup. Thankfully CCC is something else I use.

Edit. 3tb used on a 6tb disk after a week for 800gb total. Cannot see any files apart from using Omni disk. Skipped the backup as it was doing nothing and it has just kicked off again doing a mahooooosive backup. It was doing a 4 or 500 GB one this am. Looks like a wipe disk a restart in order.

 

[jon9091]

M1 Pro here, with MacMini server and additional storage attached acting as my Time Machine target. Backing up failed repeatedly, running for as long as 8 or 9 hours and then barfing at the end. Oddly enough, I could still enter Time Machine and see that files had been backed up from two different occasions, although I didn’t try to retrieve anything. I restarted in safe mode, manually started a backup (back up now), and my first complete back finished in about 2 minutes. We’ll see how incremental backups go…but this will hopefully be officially addressed with the next update.

Thanks to all here for the helpful hints.

Also….I had originally been backing up to a 1TB Samsung SSD, and had absolutely no problems with it. It was only after I switched over to a 4TB drive which is partitioned (2 x 2TB) that I ran into issues. This is a standard HD, but I’m wondering if it’s the drive size that’s messing everything up?

 

[MacinMan]

M1 Pro here, with MacMini server and additional storage attached acting as my Time Machine target. Backing up failed repeatedly, running for as long as 8 or 9 hours and then barfing at the end. Oddly enough, I could still enter Time Machine and see that files had been backed up from two different occasions, although I didn’t try to retrieve anything. I restarted in safe mode, manually started a backup (back up now), and my first complete back finished in about 2 minutes. We’ll see how incremental backups go…but this will hopefully be officially addressed with the next update.

Thanks to all here for the helpful hints.

Also….I had originally been backing up to a 1TB Samsung SSD, and had absolutely no problems with it. It was only after I switched over to a 4TB drive which is partitioned (2 x 2TB) that I ran into issues. This is a standard HD, but I’m wondering if it’s the drive size that’s messing everything up?

My TM backup is on a 4TB standard mechanical drive. It's formatted, and partitioned with a single partition and is set to APFS (Case sensitive) and the only initial issues I had, which was the purpose of this thread was to find out why it was so slow. Since creating this thread, and through trial and error, things have returned to normal for my personal setup, as far as I can tell, anyway. The ones still having and reporting the common issues are Apple Silicon mac owners.

 

[skahn]

On a new machine (M1 MAX) with fresh update of Monterey 12.0.1, set up new (not migrated from a previous machine) It has been impossible to finish a first time machine. I have tried two freshly formatted drives (APFS encrypted) one mechanical and one SSD. The backup finishes takes a couple of hours, and the status is "waiting to complete first backup". My case is now with a senior Apple engineer. Trying new backup with drive directly connected to MBP and no encryption. Something is broken with Time Machine

I'm having the exact same problem with an identical setup (M1 Max, Monterey 12.0.1, TM on external Thunderbolt 3 hard drive). TM has not completed its first backup and many days...reports "Waiting to Complete First Backup". I've reformatted and restarted twice with the same result--TM does not report any completed backups.

 

[jon9091]

I'm having the exact same problem with an identical setup (M1 Max, Monterey 12.0.1, TM on external Thunderbolt 3 hard drive). TM has not completed its first backup and many days...reports "Waiting to Complete First Backup". I've reformatted and restarted twice with the same result--TM does not report any completed backups.

Did you try starting up in safe mode and doing a “back up now”?

BTW…I didn’t even know there was a new procedure for starting up in safe mode on these silicon Macs, I just kept holding the shift key down wondering why it wasn’t working.

 

[Astrohunter]

How have they not this fixed yet?
I don't like living without a backup

 

[400]

How have they not this fixed yet?
I don't like living without a backup

I have never relied on Time Machine alone, I have many backups and most are managed by carbon copy cloner. time machine failed for me is an irritant, but planned for.

 

[Astrohunter]

I have never relied on Time Machine alone, I have many backups and most are managed by carbon copy cloner. time machine failed for me is an irritant, but planned for.

Well I also have my files in iCloud (worst cloud out there tbh).
I might look into Carbon.
I remember using it years ago on a hackintosh.

 

[400]

Well I also have my files in iCloud (worst cloud out there tbh).
I might look into Carbon.
I remember using it years ago on a hackintosh.

I see iCloud as a useful tool for many idevices but not as on line backup. That is if it keeps a copy when all else fails then useful but the way it works, versioning and trash etc. is a problem with it as I understand it. I also use another online service provider that is zero knowledge and full versioning and trash not emptied unless I t=say so, no 20 day limit etc. I just try to stay away from a single point of failure as far as possible within my means and that also means an off side hard drive backup up quarterly.