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Another TM problem - what now?

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  Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-05 20:31 +0100
    Re: Another TM problem - what now? Andy Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> - 2020-08-05 19:54 +0000
      Re: Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-05 21:09 +0100
    Re: Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-05 23:40 +0100
      Re: Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-06 02:07 +0100
        Re: Another TM problem - what now? David_B <DavidB@nomail.afraid.org> - 2020-08-06 07:33 +0100
        Re: Another TM problem - what now? Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> - 2020-08-06 10:03 +0000
          Re: Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-06 11:44 +0100
            Re: Another TM problem - what now? Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> - 2020-08-06 11:54 +0000
              Re: Another TM problem - what now? jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> - 2020-08-06 13:28 +0100
    Re: Another TM problem - what now? Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> - 2020-08-06 10:02 +0000

#146091 — Another TM problem - what now?

Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I have 
used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  About 2/3 
through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear shaped. The main 
issue was an error message about not being able to "load System 
Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs wouldn't force quit 
and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out and restart.

When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that 
and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting 
for >1 hour.

Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight :-)

Cheers  JohnB

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#146092

jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I have 
> used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  About 2/3 
> through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear shaped. The main 
> issue was an error message about not being able to "load System 
> Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs wouldn't force quit 
> and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out and restart.
> 
> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that 
> and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting 
> for >1 hour.
> 
> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight :-)
> 
> Cheers  JohnB

<bemused> So you’ve started a backup to a suspected iffy drive, wondered
why stuff is crashing, deleted the ‘in progress’ backup process, and wonder
why that’s taking so long? Seriously?

My tips
 • Start with a known good drive to backup to. Make sure it’s formatted
HFS+ (Journaled).
 • Make sure the cables enclosures, and any hubs are known to be good (any
of those could cause random read/write errors).
 • Is the source data good - if your source is corrupt, then you’ll backup
corrupt data.
 • If you suspect the source drive is iffy, get your data off that as
quickly as possible (Disk Utility ‘Restore’ is a reliable and free way to
do that, or SuperDuper, or Carbon Copy Cloner if you prefer), and onto a
known good drive. You may copy some corrupt data, but you can deal with
that better if it’s on a good drive, and not continuing to add to the
problem.
• If you get past that point, then start your Time Machine backup, on the
first run it can take a long time to complete, many hours (it used to run
into days on older machines). So be patient. If it shows ‘In Progress’,
then it probably is, when you tried to delete it, it might have been many
GB of data still being updated, so would have been cleaning up before
deletion, and could have taken hours again. By trying to delete it, you
were probably just screwing it up completely - if you want to clear a drive
completely (and you should for Time Machine) it’s quicker and less wear and
tear to reformat.
 
You maybe also should consider additional backups too, cloud storage, other
drives using different software (aforementioned SD or CCC). IME TM is quite
hard on drives, so be prepared to replace it at intervals (I dunno, about
every three years for me here).

Just my thoughts anyway.

-- 
Andy H

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#146093

On 05/08/2020 20:54, Andy Hewitt wrote:
> jbrennand <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I have
>> used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  About 2/3
>> through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear shaped. The main
>> issue was an error message about not being able to "load System
>> Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs wouldn't force quit
>> and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out and restart.
>>
>> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was
>> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that
>> and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting
>> for >1 hour.
>>
>> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight :-)
>>
>> Cheers  JohnB
> 
> <bemused> So you’ve started a backup to a suspected iffy drive, wondered
> why stuff is crashing, deleted the ‘in progress’ backup process, and wonder
> why that’s taking so long? Seriously?
> 
> My tips
>   • Start with a known good drive to backup to. Make sure it’s formatted
> HFS+ (Journaled).
>   • Make sure the cables enclosures, and any hubs are known to be good (any
> of those could cause random read/write errors).
>   • Is the source data good - if your source is corrupt, then you’ll backup
> corrupt data.
>   • If you suspect the source drive is iffy, get your data off that as
> quickly as possible (Disk Utility ‘Restore’ is a reliable and free way to
> do that, or SuperDuper, or Carbon Copy Cloner if you prefer), and onto a
> known good drive. You may copy some corrupt data, but you can deal with
> that better if it’s on a good drive, and not continuing to add to the
> problem.
> • If you get past that point, then start your Time Machine backup, on the
> first run it can take a long time to complete, many hours (it used to run
> into days on older machines). So be patient. If it shows ‘In Progress’,
> then it probably is, when you tried to delete it, it might have been many
> GB of data still being updated, so would have been cleaning up before
> deletion, and could have taken hours again. By trying to delete it, you
> were probably just screwing it up completely - if you want to clear a drive
> completely (and you should for Time Machine) it’s quicker and less wear and
> tear to reformat.
>   
> You maybe also should consider additional backups too, cloud storage, other
> drives using different software (aforementioned SD or CCC). IME TM is quite
> hard on drives, so be prepared to replace it at intervals (I dunno, about
> every three years for me here).
> 
> Just my thoughts anyway.
> 
Cheers Andy,

Maybe the wording was poor.  I have used this external drive a few times 
over the last year (its a WD and ~2 yr old - and rarely switched on) and 
its worked perfectly - its "not" suspected as being iffy at all.

I am covered re. backups. All my files are copied to a pendrive every 
week or so (I dont need hourly/daily backups) I also have an old Macbook 
Pro that I use as a "clone" with everything copied to it and for other 
stuff (e.g. burning CD's).

So I am not really bothered by this but I have grown to really dislike 
TM over the last few years (slower than a slow thing) and think I am 
going to move to CCC - its just the £30 that puts me off :-)

Meanwhile it still deletes...  May bomb out and reformat the disk and do 
a TM or CCC from scratch tomorrow.

JohnB

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#146095

On 05/08/2020 20:31, jbrennand wrote:
> Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I have 
> used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  About 2/3 
> through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear shaped. The main 
> issue was an error message about not being able to "load System 
> Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs wouldn't force quit 
> and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out and restart.
> 
> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that 
> and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting 
> for >1 hour.
> 
> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight :-)
> 
> Cheers  JohnB
Update.

Erased the partition and tried again, at 17 mins left it crashed out 
with the same "System prefs error".  MBAir was dead in the water.

Had to restart on the power button.

Will try a different external HD tomorrow and also get CCC ready to go.

JohnB

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#146097

On 05/08/2020 23:40, jbrennand wrote:
> On 05/08/2020 20:31, jbrennand wrote:
>> Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I have 
>> used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  About 
>> 2/3 through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear shaped. The 
>> main issue was an error message about not being able to "load System 
>> Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs wouldn't force quit 
>> and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out and restart.
>>
>> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
>> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that 
>> and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting 
>> for >1 hour.
>>
>> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight 
>> :-)
>>
>> Cheers  JohnB
> Update.
> 
> Erased the partition and tried again, at 17 mins left it crashed out 
> with the same "System prefs error".  MBAir was dead in the water.
> 
> Had to restart on the power button.
> 
> Will try a different external HD tomorrow and also get CCC ready to go.
> 
> JohnB

Update 2

Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So 
looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !

JohnB

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#146099

On 06/08/2020 02:07, jbrennand wrote:
> On 05/08/2020 23:40, jbrennand wrote:
>> On 05/08/2020 20:31, jbrennand wrote:
>>> Doing a TM backup tonight (MBAir/10.15.6) to a external HD that I 
>>> have used several times this year and got some strange behaviour.  
>>> About 2/3 through it - for no apparent reason it all went pear 
>>> shaped. The main issue was an error message about not being able to 
>>> "load System Preferences".  I couldn't do anything.  Sys Prefs 
>>> wouldn't force quit and "shut down" did nothing".  I had to bomb out 
>>> and restart.
>>>
>>> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
>>> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete 
>>> that and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been 
>>> deleting for >1 hour.
>>>
>>> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed 
>>> tonight :-)
>>>
>>> Cheers  JohnB
>> Update.
>>
>> Erased the partition and tried again, at 17 mins left it crashed out 
>> with the same "System prefs error".  MBAir was dead in the water.
>>
>> Had to restart on the power button.
>>
>> Will try a different external HD tomorrow and also get CCC ready to go.
>>
>> JohnB
> 
> Update 2
> 
> Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So 
> looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !

Good news, JohnB! :-)

You may not be aware of this, but I was pleasantly surprised some years 
ago to learn that WD provide a *FIVE year* limited warranty on some 
products.

When my external Home Book failed after well over four years I took 
advantage of the service. My 1TB  device was replaced by a 2TB one and 
the only cost was the postage!

Your warranty status may be checked here: 
https://support-en.wd.com/app/warrantystatus

Good luck in finding out if YOU qualify too!

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#146106

On 6 Aug 2020 at 02:07:18 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Update 2
> 
> Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So 
> looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !

Hard drives are awful.

	Cheers - Jaimie (posted too early!)
-- 
"The dumbest people I know are those who know it all." -- Malcolm Forbes

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#146107

On 06/08/2020 11:03, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 6 Aug 2020 at 02:07:18 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> 
>> Update 2
>>
>> Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So
>> looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !
> 
> Hard drives are awful.
> 
> 	Cheers - Jaimie (posted too early!)
> 
thanks Jamie - I am not sure it is borked.  Working fine for everything 
else.  Looking at it now.

Another issue you might be able to help with.

I am trying a trial of CCC to do another backup, however when I select 
the HD to clone to - it doesn't select - it shows a big blue box with 
the only option being the "recovery HD" button.  Click that and it says 
"the chosen volume is a core storage volume, space cannot be borrowed 
from this volume for the purpose of creating a recovery HD volume".

What's that all about ?  I have tried 2 HD's and its the same.  I have 
used CCC a few years ago and never had this issue.  What's changed ?

JohnB

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#146109

On 6 Aug 2020 at 11:44:20 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> On 06/08/2020 11:03, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>> On 6 Aug 2020 at 02:07:18 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Update 2
>>> 
>>> Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So
>>> looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !
>> 
>> Hard drives are awful.
>> 
>> 	Cheers - Jaimie (posted too early!)
>> 
> thanks Jamie - I am not sure it is borked.  Working fine for everything 
> else.  Looking at it now.

Run a surface test over it. I'd use 'smartctl -t long /dev/whatever' but I
don't do surface tests on Macs or USB devices so would welcome better advice!

> Another issue you might be able to help with.
> 
> I am trying a trial of CCC to do another backup, 

I don't use it often enough to know off the top of my head, and being on Big
Sur it's not working for me right now, sorry.

> however when I select 
> the HD to clone to - it doesn't select - it shows a big blue box with 
> the only option being the "recovery HD" button.  Click that and it says 
> "the chosen volume is a core storage volume, space cannot be borrowed 
> from this volume for the purpose of creating a recovery HD volume".

That's definitely not where you want to be, it's found the only volume it can
twiddle is the internal Recovery volume for emergency booting to. Don't
twiddle that! No idea why it's not recognising the external unless that's a
limit of being on trial?

	Cheers - Jaimie
-- 
If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product
being sold.
-- blue_beetle

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#146110

On 06/08/2020 12:54, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 6 Aug 2020 at 11:44:20 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 06/08/2020 11:03, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>>> On 6 Aug 2020 at 02:07:18 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Update 2
>>>>
>>>> Tried another HD last thing last night and TM completed fine in ~2h.  So
>>>> looks as if it was a dodgy HD after all !
>>>
>>> Hard drives are awful.
>>>
>>> 	Cheers - Jaimie (posted too early!)
>>>
>> thanks Jamie - I am not sure it is borked.  Working fine for everything
>> else.  Looking at it now.
> 
> Run a surface test over it. I'd use 'smartctl -t long /dev/whatever' but I
> don't do surface tests on Macs or USB devices so would welcome better advice!
> 
>> Another issue you might be able to help with.
>>
>> I am trying a trial of CCC to do another backup,
> 
> I don't use it often enough to know off the top of my head, and being on Big
> Sur it's not working for me right now, sorry.
> 
>> however when I select
>> the HD to clone to - it doesn't select - it shows a big blue box with
>> the only option being the "recovery HD" button.  Click that and it says
>> "the chosen volume is a core storage volume, space cannot be borrowed
>> from this volume for the purpose of creating a recovery HD volume".
> 
> That's definitely not where you want to be, it's found the only volume it can
> twiddle is the internal Recovery volume for emergency booting to. Don't
> twiddle that! No idea why it's not recognising the external unless that's a
> limit of being on trial?
> 
> 	Cheers - Jaimie
> 
Thanks Jamie - I will start another tread on CCC

Cheers  JohnB

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#146105

On 5 Aug 2020 at 20:31:13 BST, "jbrennand" <brennand@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> When all was back up, I looked in the TM disk and saw the backup was 
> there as "in  progress".  I thought the best option was to delete that 
> and start again.  So tried that but the waste basket has been deleting 
> for >1 hour.

Don't do that, TM will do the necessary itself - and in fact would have
carried on the .inprogress.

> Is this normal ?  Any suggestions?  I would like to get to bed tonight :-)

Sitting watching your backups is also a bad plan. Make sure they are
restorable, but otherwise let them be. They're like watching paint dry.

No idea as to the original issue - from the crashy System Prefs it sounds more
like something outside Time Machine though. Anything with an appropriate
timestamp in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports ?

	Cheers - Jaimie
-- 
I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to
understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language
devised for telling  one another when the best fruit is.
 -- Terry Pratchett

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