Apple Time Machine Couldn't Complete Backup Message

[timkins]

I have a Mac desk top from late 2015 with a 3.1 GHZ Quad Core Intel core i5 with 8 GB memory running Catalina 10.15.6 and lately have been getting an error message that says Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Tim's Time Capsule.local" . If I check the details it says Time Machine could not delete the backup disk image "/volumes/.timemachine/Tim'sTimecapsule._tcp.local./0003998F-9c08-4A780B3F4-18A23FFC3065t/data/imac.backupbundle I have no idea where to turn or where to go to fix this problem. The computer and Time Machine have been running flawlessly since I purchased them 5 years ago and the problems started after I downloaded the latest OS update. Any help or suggestions with the simplest instructions would be appreciated.

 

[badshoehabit]

First off - reboot Mac and try again.

 

[Slydude]

I seem to remember reading about this problem some time ago. I’ll do some digging and see if Iw can find something relevant. In the meantime I have noticed that many of the errors that occurred when’s Time Machine backs up to Time Capsules can often be fixed by doing the following:

1. Go to the Time Capsule and locate the sparsebundle file that contains the backup.
2. Double click on the sparsebundle file. It should appear on the desktop as a hard drive.
3. Launch Disk Utility and select the “drive” that just appeared on the desktop not the sparsebundle file.
4. Run Disk First Aid and repair any errors that are identified.

 

[lorabooh]

I seem to remember reading about this problem some time ago. I’ll do some digging and see if Iw can find something relevant. In the meantime I have noticed that many of the errors that occurred when’s Time Machine backs up to Time Capsules can often be fixed by doing the following:

1. Go to the Time Capsule and locate the sparsebundle file that contains the backup.
2. Double click on the sparsebundle file. It should appear on the desktop as a hard drive.
3. Launch Disk Utility and select the “drive” that just appeared on the desktop not the sparsebundle file.
4. Run Disk First Aid and repair any errors that are identified.

Hi - I would like to follow your suggestion but am not as tech savvy and am not sure what the sparsebundle is. I don't want to screw anything up. I have the same problem as the original post/question. I have a macbook air 2012 running catalina 10.15.6 and use an older Time machie/capsule. Has worked pretty flawlessly forever until the last OS update. last backup was on aug 26. if you could give me a more specific fix (like fix for dummies) I would be forever grateful! Thanks!

 

[MacInWin]

Here is a step by step direction to do what Sly suggested:

Open Finder
In the left sidebar, find the Time Capsule and click once
In the resulting window there should be a folder named TimeMachineBackup, or maybe just the name of your Mac
Click that twice
Now you should see in finder a file with the name of your Mac, and under "Kind" it should show SparseBundle.
Double click that and in a few seconds it should appear on your desktop as a drive with a blue icon.
Now you can launch Disk Utility and that newly mounted drive should show in the left sidebar where you can click once to select, then click on First Aid and let it run. When it is done, you can quit Disk Utility (assuming no errors) and then eject the drive or just reboot the Mac to get back to normal.

 

[Slydude]

Thanks Jake. Beat me to the punch as usual. This time I'm blaming it on hurricane recovery.

 

[MacInWin]

Thought about you and that, Sly. Glad to see you are still online. Everything go ok through the storm?

 

[Slydude]

We were without power from about 5 a.m. Thursday till about two hours ago. There are some more rural areas still without power and estimat4es are it may not be back on till mid-week. Lots of downed limbs and trees in our area but none hit out home. Have not checked injury reports yet but I think there was at least one fatality in our area.

Some of the meat in our freezer started to thaw so it will have to be cooked today rather than trying to refreeze it. We were blessed to come through as well as we did.

 

[MacInWin]

Glad you have power back and are doing ok. The storm fell apart before it got here in Virginia. We just got a lot of rain, little wind. We needed the rain, so that's ok. A few years ago I put in a whole-house generator, so I'm not so worried about being out of power now. Something to consider if you are in an area that may be subject to power losses.

 

[Slydude]

We're renting where we are but my brother owns the place so it's something I've been thinking about. I think this is the longest we have been without power in quite a while. I don't mind being without power in winter because we can always add extra clothes but August without AC gets a little brutal.

Being without the stove (electric) was inconvenient but we had lots of stuff canned in the pantry that could be easily heated on a cookstove or eaten cold so we weren't going to starve.

 

[MacInWin]

Our reason for the generator is that we were doing planning for our old(er) age. My wife has had one hip replaced, may need the other. Our bedroom is on the second floor, so getting up and down is going to be a challenge sooner or later. There is a great place to put in an elevator, which is what we will do when/if the time comes, but right after discussing that we read about a couple in FL who died when the power went out and they were trapped in the elevator they had, so we sent with the generator. It turns out to be handy, even if seldom used, because now I don't need big battery backup units because nothing has to work longer than 10-15 seconds before the generator is online.

Our generator is natural gas powered, which means I don't need propane. I am depending on the gas company to get the gas to me, but I think that's a lower risk than losing electricity.

 

[lorabooh]

Here is a step by step direction to do what Sly suggested:

Open Finder
In the left sidebar, find the Time Capsule and click once
In the resulting window there should be a folder named TimeMachineBackup, or maybe just the name of your Mac
Click that twice
Now you should see in finder a file with the name of your Mac, and under "Kind" it should show SparseBundle.
Double click that and in a few seconds it should appear on your desktop as a drive with a blue icon.
Now you can launch Disk Utility and that newly mounted drive should show in the left sidebar where you can click once to select, then click on First Aid and let it run. When it is done, you can quit Disk Utility (assuming no errors) and then eject the drive or just reboot the Mac to get back to normal.

FIRST THINGS FIRST... when I followed your instructions, things didnt go exactly as you said they should..I found my time capsule airport (or was it my mac?) in Finder, clicked it once and there were three items labeled sparsebundle as "kind" one said laptop backup bundle, one said my desktop and the other said macbook air. so i double clicked macbook air. no blue icon ever showed up on my desktop but a white drive called Time Machine Backups appeared on my desktop. I also noticed two new icons in my finder, called my time machine backups and also my airport time capsule. im not sure how to "launch" disk utility but I searched for it and when my laptop found it I double clicked it. I do see on the left hand side there are two drives titled "time machine backups" and one is ejectable. It appears I can run first aid on both of them. What to do? I am not running first aid until I hear from you. - update, on closer inspection of the two drives, I noticed one said "enabled" and one said "disabled" so I am running first aid on the "enabled" one. fingers crossed. I have no idea why there are two.


THANK YOU!!! additionally....this message keeps popping up now, slightly differnet...

"The backup disk did not have enough space to complete the backup." it says I have 391 GB of 2 TB available. I thought it was supposed to delete old old backups to make room for the new ones? it also says size of full backup is 90.19GB. ?? ill try the first fix now and see what happens. but would you be so kind as to make a suggestion for the new size failure message?

 

[MacInWin]

@lorabooh, you sort of jumped into this thread without giving us much information, so you have a MBA from 2012 with Catalina, right? And a desktop? What Mac is that and what version of the OS is on it? And why do you think you need to run First Aid? You said you had the same issue as the original post, which was about not being able to finish a backup and getting a message about not being able to delete a working file in the process. Did you get that message, or was your message just about not having sufficient space? Those are two different problems and may well have different solutions.

The reason you may be getting the space message is tied up in the internal mechanism of how TM works. It first calculates how much space it may need, then looks the destination to see if there is room. It also is designed NOT to delete too much at once, as a safety margin. So if you upgrade your version of the OS, like from Mojave to Catalina, the first backup of Catalina is huge, which triggers the safety protocols. It may have calculated that you had to delete multiple old backups to get the space you now need. Catalina made it somewhat worse by being a HUGE change, with the drive being completely restructured, so the entire drive looks new, everything is changed. Finally, TM knows that the Time Capsule is being used for more than one machine, so it's being very cautious about making space for the MBA backup so that the desktop won't be stressed when it does a backup again. In many ways, it may work better to start TM all over again, unless you really think you may need those older files. How big is the drive in the MBA and how much is used?

 

[lorabooh]

@lorabooh, you sort of jumped into this thread without giving us much information, so you have a MBA from 2012 with Catalina, right? And a desktop? What Mac is that and what version of the OS is on it? And why do you think you need to run First Aid? You said you had the same issue as the original post, which was about not being able to finish a backup and getting a message about not being able to delete a working file in the process. Did you get that message, or was your message just about not having sufficient space? Those are two different problems and may well have different solutions.

The reason you may be getting the space message is tied up in the internal mechanism of how TM works. It first calculates how much space it may need, then looks the destination to see if there is room. It also is designed NOT to delete too much at once, as a safety margin. So if you upgrade your version of the OS, like from Mojave to Catalina, the first backup of Catalina is huge, which triggers the safety protocols. It may have calculated that you had to delete multiple old backups to get the space you now need. Catalina made it somewhat worse by being a HUGE change, with the drive being completely restructured, so the entire drive looks new, everything is changed. Finally, TM knows that the Time Capsule is being used for more than one machine, so it's being very cautious about making space for the MBA backup so that the desktop won't be stressed when it does a backup again. In many ways, it may work better to start TM all over again, unless you really think you may need those older files. How big is the drive in the MBA and how much is used?

I do not have a desktop. only an MBA 2012 running catalina 10.15.6 I USED to have a desktop (about 8 years ago). perhaps my airport time machine thinks I still have it? I thought I needed to run first aid because in your message to me at 11:03 am today, you gave me step by step instructions to do so. Your message to me was in response to my first post, stating that I had the same problem as Timkins (posted monday at 5:01am). Between the time that you gave me step by step instructions, and the time that I started to follow those instructions, I had received a second backup failure notice with a different reason (the not enough space reason). So I decided to go ahead and try the original fix and thats when I encountered all of the things I mentioned in my last message around 8:15pm. I just now checked the status of the first aid and it said "First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue." so.. that's where I am at with this problem. :-(

when I go into my Time Machine Preferences, this is what I see:

 

[Slydude]

Since you are seeing three different sparsebundle files, at least one of which seems to belong to a laptop you had in the past, it's a good bet that these files are from previous Macs. Other members may have a better idea but given that Disk First Aid isn't fixing the errors that were found I think it's time to format the drive in the Time Capsule and start over with a new backup of your current setup.

See the Erase an Airport Time Capsule section of this document for directions.

 

[MacInWin]

Time references for posts are different because we all live in different time zones. To refer to a previous post, you can reference the post # in the red line above to post, far right end. For example, your first post was #4, then I responded in Post #5, you came back in post #12, etc.

I noted while I was typing in this response that Sly has suggested reformatting the Time Capsule. That is also what I recommend, but here is more information on why that may be your only option at this point.

The error message you posted says the hard drive in the Time Capsule has hardware defects. It's a hardware issue that has no good fix. You can reformat the Time Capsule (losing all of the backups on it in the process) and that may rescue it for a while, but drives that develop hardware issues generally cannot be repaired and they don't heal. Reformatting the drive will mark the failing sectors as not usable, but if others start to go bad as well, the problem will return. Just be aware of that reality

Apple has also, with Catalina, renamed the backups from sparsebundles to backupbundle, so the file with that name is probably the most recent Catalina backup. You might see if you can get First Aid to run on that backupbundle by again double clicking to mount it and see if it can be read properly. The two sparsebundles are from your old desktop and from your laptop from before you installed Catalina. I don't know if you have anything in the before-Catalina backup that you might want to recover at some time, but wanted you to know what they are.

If the backupbundle mounts to your machine and if First Aid reports no errors on the backupbundle image, you can try to copy the file from the Time Capsule to a different external drive. Here is Apple direction on how to do that: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202380

Just so you know, because these bundle files are compressed to reduce network traffic, usually any failure of integrity of a backupbundle makes the entire bundle basically unusable, so there may not any way to recover the backup to a different drive and try to recover those old files if First Aid reports errors. You can always try, of course, but don't be surprised if the hardware error gets involved. You can get lucky and the hardware issues be uninvolved with that particular backup, of course.

Do you use the Time Capsule as your WiFi router as well? Apple no longer makes Time Capsules, so finding a replacement may be an adventure. But good Wifi Routers work well and drives are getting fairly cheap, so the option of retiring the TC and replacing it with a WiFi router and an external drive is the way to go, if the drive in the TC fails.

 

[lorabooh]

Since you are seeing three different sparsebundle files, at least one of which seems to belong to a laptop you had in the past, it's a good bet that these files are from previous Macs. Other members may have a better idea but given that Disk First Aid isn't fixing the errors that were found I think it's time to format the drive in the Time Capsule and start over with a new backup of your current setup.

See the Erase an Airport Time Capsule section of this document for directions.

yikes, yeah I have no idea.... I did have a desktop mac about 8 years ago and was using the same airport time capsule then. all of this is a little over my head. after trying to do the fix yesterday, I was left with a white (icon) drive named Time Machine Backups. because I was not able to accomplish anything yesterday, I dragged it to the trash. When I open Time Machine Preferences and select "select disk", I see a "back up disk" AND an "available disk" with the same name, "Lora's Airport Time capsule.local" - I have no idea how to format the drive in Time Capsule and also bcoz it seems I have two. I am LOST!

 

[Slydude]

Click right where it says "this document" in my post above and that will take you to an Apple page with the directions that you need. Scroll down to the section Erase an Airport Time Capsule. It's Ok that you have two drives there with the same name.

 

[lorabooh]

Time references for posts are different because we all live in different time zones. To refer to a previous post, you can reference the post # in the red line above to post, far right end. For example, your first post was #4, then I responded in Post #5, you came back in post #12, etc.

I noted while I was typing in this response that Sly has suggested reformatting the Time Capsule. That is also what I recommend, but here is more information on why that may be your only option at this point.

The error message you posted says the hard drive in the Time Capsule has hardware defects. It's a hardware issue that has no good fix. You can reformat the Time Capsule (losing all of the backups on it in the process) and that may rescue it for a while, but drives that develop hardware issues generally cannot be repaired and they don't heal. Reformatting the drive will mark the failing sectors as not usable, but if others start to go bad as well, the problem will return. Just be aware of that reality

Apple has also, with Catalina, renamed the backups from sparsebundles to backupbundle, so the file with that name is probably the most recent Catalina backup. You might see if you can get First Aid to run on that backupbundle by again double clicking to mount it and see if it can be read properly. The two sparsebundles are from your old desktop and from your laptop from before you installed Catalina. I don't know if you have anything in the before-Catalina backup that you might want to recover at some time, but wanted you to know what they are.

If the backupbundle mounts to your machine and if First Aid reports no errors on the backupbundle image, you can try to copy the file from the Time Capsule to a different external drive. Here is Apple direction on how to do that: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202380

Just so you know, because these bundle files are compressed to reduce network traffic, usually any failure of integrity of a backupbundle makes the entire bundle basically unusable, so there may not any way to recover the backup to a different drive and try to recover those old files if First Aid reports errors. You can always try, of course, but don't be surprised if the hardware error gets involved. You can get lucky and the hardware issues be uninvolved with that particular backup, of course.

Do you use the Time Capsule as your WiFi router as well? Apple no longer makes Time Capsules, so finding a replacement may be an adventure. But good Wifi Routers work well and drives are getting fairly cheap, so the option of retiring the TC and replacing it with a WiFi router and an external drive is the way to go, if the drive in the TC fails.

1. sorry about confusing the references to the posts, yesterday was my first day on this forum. noted.

2. I am more than happy to reformat the Time Capsule, but I don't know how and it appears I have 2 of them. - this was my response to SLY just now: "yikes, yeah I have no idea.... I did have a desktop mac about 8 years ago and was using the same airport time capsule then. all of this is a little over my head. after trying to do the fix yesterday, I was left with a white (icon) drive named Time Machine Backups. because I was not able to accomplish anything yesterday, I dragged it to the trash. When I open Time Machine Preferences and select "select disk", I see a "back up disk" AND an "available disk" with the same name, "Lora's Airport Time capsule.local" - I have no idea how to format the drive in Time Capsule and also bcoz it seems I have two. I am LOST!"

3. I did not see anything that said hardware defects, but that's probably what the first aid code means? you can read through the lines so to speak, I cant!

4. Catalina - thanks Catalina! haha. I can try to run First Aid on the backupbundle. If the sparsebundles are from my old mac and my laptop previous to catalina, I suppose I could dump them. I have never once had to go back to a backup for any reason so I guess I don't need them. But I don't know how to delete them. ? And per your note if the first aid runs on the backupbundle drive and returns no errors, I will go to the site you provided and attempt to move to an external hard drive. I believe I have one somewhere at the house.

5. may not work if first aid reports any errors on the backupbundle drive - understood.

6. I have a Netgear AC1750 WiFi cable Modem Router 802.11 ac Dual Band Gigabit, about two years old. Is that sufficient in the event I need to use it to connect an external hard drive?

I SOOOOOOO appreciate all of yall's help! Thank you!

 

[lorabooh]

Click right where it says "this document" in my post above and that will take you to an Apple page with the directions that you need. Scroll down to the section Erase an Airport Time Capsule. It's Ok that you have two drives there with the same name.

ok thank you! I also responded to MacInWin bcoz he/she supplied me with a LOT of info so I will wait to hear back from him/her too before I do anything.