Time Machine not running since El Cap install

[Mattww]

I'll try and double check the logs on the working machine tomorrow but I believe those errors did exist on that as well as I was looking in the console...

I've just swapped out my internal disk that was used for Time machine and installed a new replacement hence have also done a shutdown and then for good measure another restart.

Having selected the new disk Time Machine is currently doing the first backup but it may take a day or so as there is about 4.5TB to do....

Will update here if I find anything, I'm assuming none of the problem machines have a recent fresh install of OS X, i.e all have been upgraded from older releases?

 

[netnothing]

I'm assuming none of the problem machines have a recent fresh install of OS X, i.e all have been upgraded from older releases?

Correct. All machines here upgrade from various installs. My Mac Pro being the longest coming from Snow Leopard!

-Kevin

 

[Mattww]

Think I'm on about my 3rd boot disk (1 hard disk, an SSD and then a larger SSD) and don't recall a completely clean install so I probably cloned or migrated since 10.8.x or whatever shipped as standard in 2009...

If it is something carried across from an old OS release it may be something with an old creation date.

 

[tom vilsack]

Anyone have any luck booting from a El Capitan time machine external drive? I can pick the drive in "alt" and it boot's for a few moments but then goes straight back to my desktop. (clean install from usb stick,and clean external drive with single made manual time machine backup)

 

[Mattww]

Anyone have any luck booting from a El Capitan time machine external drive? I can pick the drive in "alt" and it boot's for a few moments but then goes straight back to my desktop. (clean install from usb stick,and clean external drive with single made manual time machine backup)

Unless something major has changed that I've missed time machine backups aren't bootable, I believe it does now backup a copy of the hidden recovery partition so you may be able to start from that to do a restore.

Normally if you want a bootable backup you need to use a cloning utility like SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner or Disk Utility (old OS X versions via the GUI, 10.11 version I think you would have to use the command line instead).

 

[tom vilsack]

Unless something major has changed that I've missed time machine backups aren't bootable, I believe it does now backup a copy of the hidden recovery partition so you may be able to start from that to do a restore.

Normally if you want a bootable backup you need to use a cloning utility like SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner or Disk Utility (old OS X versions via the GUI, 10.11 version I think you would have to use the command line instead).

I did mean recovery partition backup so could boot from stick and then pick a time machine backup....I did same as above but in Yosemite and it was bootable.

 

[AFEPPL]

I had the same, but its just started working again after a reset (didn't delete the data).
They just don't seem to test anything these days... I've had 3 total crashes since updating too.

The OS is now less stable than windows 95 was

 

[netnothing]

Someone on the Apple Discussions says it's fixed in 10.11.1.

Let's hope!

-Kevin

 

[Mattww]

Someone on the Apple Discussions says it's fixed in 10.11.1.

Let's hope!

-Kevin

I checked the working machine and the same log entries exist from com.apple.xpc.launchd

The .1 update usually arrives within a month so I guess I can wait if it will fix it.

 

[Write-more]

My TM has not been back-up since el Capitan either, and if I forced it manually or if TM-backup initiates then my mac just restarts and display a black screen saying an error has happened. It must have done this restart thing about 30 times now before I realised that it was the TM back-up that caused it. So now I have shut TM back-up off and no shutdown yet - fingers crossed. I have reported it to apple. Hope it will be fixed. I have a Time capsule by the way - so dont know why it is not working.

 

[HiVolt]

It's not working for me on a 2012 Mac Pro since upgrading to ElCap. I normally have it backed up to an internal hard drive. I erased/repartitioned the TM drive, it redid the backup, but no further incrementals are being run. The hard drive icon also does not turn to the usual green TM Icon, it remains as a standard internal drive icon.

I also tried to put TM on a networked drive (QNAP NAS with Time Machine support), again it did the initial backup, but does not do the incremental hourly updates.

 

[rcoden]

You guys are not alone. I've been seeing this for weeks now with EC. I keep poking around the forums waiting to see if it was just me... I knew it wasn't. Let's hope 11.11.1 fixes this.

 

[Mattww]

OK the new disk and fresh start had no effect for me.

I also copied the section from the console logs from the working machine:

07/10/2015 12:40:00.418 com.apple.backupd[30720]: Backup completed successfully.
07/10/2015 13:05:53.040 UserEventAgent[50]: com.apple.backupd-auto launchd job disabled
07/10/2015 17:39:32.374 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.backupd-status) The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.
07/10/2015 17:39:32.374 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.backupd.status.xpc) The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.
07/10/2015 17:39:34.822 UserEventAgent[56]: Received XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INVALID for connection com.apple.backupd.xpc
08/10/2015 09:43:19.463 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.backupd-auto) Unknown key for Boolean: ForceEnableHack
08/10/2015 09:43:19.463 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.backupd-helper.status) The HideUntilCheckIn property is an architectural performance issue. Please transition away from it.
08/10/2015 09:43:19.463 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.backupd-auto) This service is defined to be constantly running and is inherently inefficient.
08/10/2015 09:43:19.463 UserEventAgent[56]: com.apple.backupd-auto launchd job enabled
08/10/2015 09:44:11.594 com.apple.backupd[13788]: Starting automatic backup

These look to be the same as we see on none working machines so no real clues.

Hopefully the reports of a fix in 10.11.1 are true...

 

[Mattww]

Well something bizarre happened today - an automatic backup took place and not only after waking my computer from sleep!

It took me a while to figure out the cause of this but it seems mounting a disk image (.dmg) at the time likely caused the backup to succeed.

I tested this further by unmounting the dmg - and found once again that no backup happened at the next scheduled time. Then I mounted another dmg (not the same one as before) just before the next scheduled one and had a successful backup again.

In both cases the console reported the normal :

com.apple.backupd[11675]: Starting automatic backup

This makes some sense as on a Time capsule the backups are stored in individual sparse images so Time Machine (backupd) must check that these are mounted before backing up.

It seems it is confused between the standard volume and a disk image perhaps?

Note that the backups are still to the normal (internal hard disk) location.

 

[maxsix]

I think as it was noted earlier, the most likely solution will be the next rev Apple releases. Speaking with Tech Support over the phone yesterday after everything else failed, I could only read between the lines. It's an issue that they are aware of and that's that for now. I have nothing but a case number

 

[netnothing]

Well something bizarre happened today - an automatic backup took place and not only after waking my computer from sleep!

It took me a while to figure out the cause of this but it seems mounting a disk image (.dmg) at the time likely caused the backup to succeed.

I tested this further by unmounting the dmg - and found once again that no backup happened at the next scheduled time. Then I mounted another dmg (not the same one as before) just before the next scheduled one and had a successful backup again.

In both cases the console reported the normal :

com.apple.backupd[11675]: Starting automatic backup

This makes some sense as on a Time capsule the backups are stored in individual sparse images so Time Machine (backupd) must check that these are mounted before backing up.

It seems it is confused between the standard volume and a disk image perhaps?

Note that the backups are still to the normal (internal hard disk) location.

So funny you say this. I'm at my moms house today. She said hers will randomly do an auto backup.

She was having the issue where backups hang sometimes. To fix this I usually just wipe the drive and start clean. So I did this today around 2pm. First backup finished. It skipped all the next backups until for some reason around 6:40p it ran an auto backup. We weren't using the computer at the time.

No idea why.

-Kevin

 

[Mattww]

The automatic backups stopped again soon after (except on wake from sleep as has been usual).

Then once again today I downloaded a .dmg to update some software and as soon as this was mounted Time Machine kicked in and did a backup...

 

[ProMod]

I'm not having the problem of skipped automatic backups, but my problem is that Time Machine wants to make a full backup all of a sudden. It didn't do this right after I upgraded to El Capitan; I'm now a few days into using the new OS and all of a sudden Time Machine wants to do a 400 GB backup. Anyone else seeing this issue?

 

[ProMod]

I'm not having the problem of skipped automatic backups, but my problem is that Time Machine wants to make a full backup all of a sudden. It didn't do this right after I upgraded to El Capitan; I'm now a few days into using the new OS and all of a sudden Time Machine wants to do a 400 GB backup. Anyone else seeing this issue?

Now I'm having the issue of skipped automatic backups and I can't even enter Time Machine. It just shows the finder window, starts the animation, then jumps right back out of TM.

 

[netnothing]

10.11.1 is out. Trying it now. I'll report back if it fixes the issue for me.

-Kevin

 

[netnothing]

10.11.1 is out. Trying it now. I'll report back if it fixes the issue for me.

-Kevin

So I updated to 10.11.1 and it just skipped the 3:16 backup. Looks like it's not fixed for me.

-Kevin

 

[ProMod]

Mine is backing up regularly, but the bug that prevents the entering of Time Machine still exists after the update. It turns out the bug is actually related to having multiple monitors. If I unplug all my external monitors, I am able to enter TM.

 

[Mattww]

No change here either...

 

[Mattww]

Just found out tonight that there is a built-in terminal command "tmdiagnose" you can run.

This generates loads of data so will take sometime to go through and see if I can spot anything....

Anyone who has active support with Apple (still in warranty or AppleCare) might want to try and send them their data to see if the reason can be seen.

 

[jasnw]

I'm rebuilding the TM (external USB drive) on my MBA running 10.11.1 now and report on whether it picks up the routine backups once the initial save is completed.

Later - Odd behavior. After the full backup stopped TM reported that the next backup would be at 4:27 PM. I checked back at 4:30 PM to find that a backup was run at 4:02 PM and that the next is scheduled for 5:02 PM. There is a 4:02 PM TM entry, and we'll see what happens at 5:02 PM.

Later still - nope, no backup at 5:02 PM and the next scheduled backup is now 6:02 PM. I added a file to the desktop to make sure there was a reason to back something up, but that didn't make any difference. I don't know why there was a backup at 4:02 PM, but there was not one at 5:02. Looks like this isn't fixed yet.