Issues with Time Machine - new backup must be created

[KC5MZR]

Wow, I almost made two weeks without having to re-create.   WD are you listening?    I bought the My Book Live for Time Machine backups.   I now wish I had bought the Apple Time Capsule.   This My Book Live may be going up on ebay soon.

Is anyone having issues with Mac OS versions prior to Lion?

[Bill_S]

We are looking into this.  I do not have a time frame though. 

[Phloti]

Bought a 3 TB mybook live to backup three different computers. One is still working after 2 weeks but another just gave me the dreaded message. Hoping a solution is in store as that system is over 500 GB and took a hella long time to backup over wireless the first time. 

[sbeattie2]

To KC5MZR - I don't have this specific issue - meaning that I don't get the new backup must be created message - I am on Lion 10.7.2.  However I had been backing up the neighbors MacBook Pro (on Snow Leopard 10.6.8) on my Time Capsule.  I switched the backup over to the MBL - by copying the existing sparse bundle from the Time Capsule to the share on the MBL.  I only did weekly backups and they were quick.  However when the size of the backup exceeded several gig - the MBL started struggling and appeared to just stall.  I had to start the backup over.  There was a week or more delay before a subsequent backup was done - and the Time Machine decided to perform a validation of the existing backup.  After 10 minutes into the validation process - the validation slowed to a crawl - then basically stalled - and finally failed in the validation step with some type of cryptical numeric error.  At this point I assumed the backup was corrupt and returned to backing up where I left off on the Time Capsule and all was fine.  So - some type of incompatibility exists with the MBL and Time Machine at least in OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and later.  Hope this answers your question.

~Scott

[KC5MZR]

Bill_S, Do you know if the error has been duplicated by WD?

[Bill_S]

I'm referring to the netatalk issue, but I don't have any further information on this.

[KC5MZR]

Bill_S,  It would be nice to know if WD has duplicated the error of having to restart/recreate TimeMachine backups from scratch due to corrupted backups.   I don't know if this is a NetaTalk issue or a WD Issue or a Mac OS Issue.   It's not hard to duplicate, Just use a My Book Live drive and turn on TimeMachine.  It will require someone to use the Mac since TM only backs up changes.  Are there any debug settings or Beta software that Users can use to help WD diagnose the issue?

[ThierryB]

Last year, I had the same issue with a Time Capsule and OS X Lion, it was just after the update from Snow Leopard.

So, this issue is not specific to MBL, but it appears to be a Time Capsule issue.

A couple of months later, the hard drive of the Time Capsule died, don't know if it's a coincidence or not.

That's why I bought a MBL, which is conected to the Time Capsule (I had 2 died hard drive in the Capsule in 4 years, so I didn't want to put a third one inside the capsule).

I never had this issue with the older versions of OS X.

I use OS X from the first beta version, so from a long time, and I'm not very confident about the reliability of Lion. 

This OS is very nice to use, but for my 2 MacBookthere are more problems than with Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.

For example, sometimes the Time Machine backup blocked (still saving but quantity of saved Mo don't increase).

I just relauch the finder and the backup continues.

Hope it can help.

[ThierryB]

You can also find usefull informations about this issue, here :

http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html

[MiguelDomingues]

I've had the same issues... Every two or three days I had to start over with backups.

Maybe I've found the problem (not sure!)

I've noticed that each hourly time machine backup was over 2gb, way too much!

I started wondering what files were in each backup and found the following app: TimeTracker (http://www.charlessoft.com/ around the middle of the page, a bit hidden).

With this program you can view exactly which files Time Machine is backing up (see how to use at the bottom).

I've noticed that the sparrow mail app which I use for Gmail has a huge 2gb database file, and since time machine is a bit stupid and backups the entire file every time a modification is done, then each hourly backup was over 2gb.

I've added that folder (and some others) to the exclude list, now each hourly backup is 30mb or so.

Folders that are used as cache for applications are good candidates for the exclude list, I've added some. That sparrow db, is the same as every info that I have in Gmail. If I have to reinstall all over again, I won't mind to wait 1 or 2 hours for it to sinchronize again.

Since that, I've been running Time Machine for over a week without a problem!!!

I've also forced some backup verifications, and everything is ok, at least until now...

TimeTracker app:

1 - Connect manually to TimeMachine backups. In finder press Cmd+K and enter "afp://NAS//" where NAS is the ip or name of my book live. I recomend you to use a wired connection.

2 - From the popup window select TimeMachine

3 - Open TimeTracker

4 - Wait some minutes so it loads the information, then you can navigate within your backups

Hope it helps someone and I'll see in the following days if it keeps working like a charm

Miguel