February 27, 2008 12:24 PM PST

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Special Report: Time Machine not working properly

by CNET staff

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Time Machine is the bane of many Mac OS X 10.5.2 upgraders, causing a variety of issues that can hamper the function's own operation or interfere with other system processes. The most common problems are:

the error message "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume."
a situation where Time Machine is persistently "preparing" the backup but never actually starts backing up
dismal backup speed

A few recent reader reports:

Time Machine fails within the first few megabytes of data -- consistently.
"Every time Time Machine runs on my system I get a Kernel panic after updating to 10.5.2." -- Stu C.
"I just upgraded to Leopard yesterday and I cannot get Time Machine to function -- I left it to run overnight. I went to bed after several hours of "preparing." I will try your fix now. Wish me luck." -- Hope Luhman
"I had the same problem with Time Machine after update 10.5.2, it would stall at "preparing". I tried your fix using Console but it stalled as well. I finally fixed it by changing target disk and throwing away 3 months of backup. Its extreme but it worked."
"I am having the same issues on my mac. After the update, Time Machine has ceased to work. It won't recognize my backup disk. As a matter of fact, Time machine just gives the error "The backup disk image could not be mounted". The problem is, that the disk is mounted. I even deleted the old backup on that drive and tried to start over, but to no avail. Hopefully a fix is imminent." -- Dan Johnson"

Fixes
Boot in safe mode and backup Try booting your Mac in safe mode (hold down the Shift key while starting up), then performing a Time Machine backup. If the backup is successful, try restarting normally and backing up again. The process may no work normally on all subsequent attempts.

Switch to a different drive It appears that Time Machine under Mac OS X 10.5.2 may exhibit issues with specific types of USB drives. Try switching to a different drive and check for alleviation of the problems. MacFixIt reader Jim Stogdill writes:

"Time machine stopped working after the update, but oddly, when I switch it to another external USB drive it works fine. If I switch back to the old drive, a drobo, (even after deleting the previous backups) it still hangs. Console doesn't seem to indicate a problem with a particular file."

Repair Permissions Launch Disk Utility, located in /Applications/Utilities and run the "Repair Disk Permissions" function on both your startup drive and the used for Time Machine then restart.

MacFixIt reader Adam Sheck writes:

"I had same problem, went away after I repaired permissions and restarted."

Remove USB hubs If you're experiencing kernel panic assocaited with Time Machine, try removing all USB hubs and connecting the Time Machine drive directly to your Mac.

Delete backups Navigate to your Time Machine volume and delete the directly subsequent (most recent) and current backup then reattempt usage. MacFixIt reader Greg Hughes writes:

"I found that if I deleted the last back-up and the next back-up (I forget what that file is named) on Time Machine, after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5.2, everything gets working again."

Check the system log As previously reported: Launch Console, located in /Applications/Utilities, then inspect the system log while Time Machine is running. You may find that it is getting stuck on a specific file or directory. Remove that offending item (by excluding it from Time Machine's designated files or moving it to a different drive) and re-attempt the backup.

MacFixit reader Joel Nelson recently found that Quicken files were to blame:

"It seems that in many cases with the Time Machine error in 10.5.2, Quicken 2007 data files may be at fault. I checked my console logs when I was getting the errors, and found that Quicken data files and backups were the problem. Interestingly enough, the files really are not "playing nice" with 10.5.2 as I also can't make a compressed archive containing those files. They aren't corrupt, as Quicken can read/write the files. But Quicken (2007; maybe earlier as well) seems to be the culprit. Excluding the Quicken data folder from Time Machine solved the problem. I'm still backing up my Quicken file to .Mac (which often works, but not always). Hoping to switch to iBank after I get 2007 taxes finished up."

Clear caches The old standby saves again. Try clearing caches with a tool like Cocktail or Leopard Cache Cleaner then re-attempt the Time Machine backup.

Change privileges Mac OS X 10.5.2 makes a number of privilege changes that can adversely affect Time Machine backups. Check to make sure that read and write privileges are accurate on the target Time Machine drive (all user accounts backing up to the device have access), or change standard accounts that are having problems to Admin.

MacFixIt reader George Wilde writes:

"I recently upgraded both the MacBook Pro to Leopard 10.5.2 and the Mac Mini to Leopard Server 10.5.2, and Time Machine ceased to run as a network backup. I traced the problem down to the account privileges of the User Account being used on the Leopard Server for backup. The account had been set up as a Standard Account which caused it to not recognize the external drive being used as backup on the Mac Mini. Changing this account to an Admin account solved the problem. I might have also been able to solve the problem by changing the staff privileges on the external drive to Read & Write. Leopard 10.5.2 altered a number of privileges and solved most of the privilege problems I was having under 10.5.1, but these changes may well have resulted in the Time Machine problems I was having."

The "Stephanie" process We couldn't think of a good way to summarize the process that Stepahnie Gans used to solve her 10.5.2/Time Machine issues, so here it is, verbatim: "In my case, when visiting the Time Machine app, I noticed that my previous backups had been deleted in the new OS's attempt to perform the Time Machine backup. So, I erased the drive - but still encountered an error stating that my destination drive didn't have enough room. I re-erased the drive, then, in the Time Machine System Preference, I turned off time machine, restarted the computer, turned Time Machine back on, and then selected an alternate drive for the backup - then reselected my original, newly erased drive. This seemed to work, and has been running for a few days now."

Yikes.