Time Machine stalls, never completes the backup

[mangomac]

Long time listener, first time caller.

I haven't seen a post like this so I thought I'd add a new thread. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue:

• I had not been using Time Machine on this specific laptop prior to this issue, but I have used Time Machine on other Macs before and am familiar with it
• Time machine successfully erases, formats, and begins its first backup - understood that the first one takes longer than usual
• It seems to work through to about 50-60% of the data, then just stalls
  • The application appears to be "in progress" but it never gets past this point
• Same behavior on both a 4 TB HDD (plenty of space), and currently a 1 TB SSD (should be plenty of space)
  • My internal drive is 746.53 GB full - I also don't need a lot of historical snapshots
• Context:
  • I used to have Acronis Cyber Protect installed - that's completely removed, no other anti-virus installed right now
  • I have music production software and licensing software such as Waves, Antares, Ominsphere, Ableton, iLok - curious if the licensing checks are blocking something
    • There hasn't been any issue with this same software on other Macs, though
  • "Auto update" is turned off; I trigger it manually but it does the same thing either way
  • I've excluded large folders and cloud folders (Google Drive etc.) from the backup

01 - Example of stalled progress

02 - ETA is inaccurate; it says X minutes remaining all night (8+ hours); Amount copied is inaccurate (66.3% should be ~494 GB)

03 - Storage report shows a good chunk of the data copied over; this could be from several attempts that all stalled

04 - Laptop Specs
MacOS Venture 13.6.1
2021 14" Apple M1 Macbook Pro
16GB RAM / 1TB SSD
Backup drive: Samsung T5 SSD, formatted APFS GUID Partition Map - plugged directly into laptop (USB-C to USB-C)

Any help or links appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[MBAir2010]

I would contact apple support.
both of my macs (Monterey to Sonoma) have no problem time machining on a western digital MNVe blade.

 

[TriciaMacMillan]

Shortly after the backup fails, enter this in terminal and post any errors from the output:

 log show --style syslog --last 30m --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info --debug

 

[kitKAC]

https://eclecticlight.co/mac-troubleshooting-summary/

Scroll down until you get to the section on Time Machine Problems, there are many articles you can read through. Howard also has an app called The Time Machine Mechanic (T2M2) that you can use to view the TM log files.

https://eclecticlight.co/consolation-t2m2-and-log-utilities/

 

[mangomac]

Shortly after the backup fails, enter this in terminal and post any errors from the output:

 log show --style syslog --last 30m --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info --debug

Thank you, here's what I got. Will do some independent research on these codes as well.

Ex. 01

2023-12-11 14:30:39.627283-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] com.apple.backupd.sandbox.xpc: connection invalid

^This code comes back about every minute or so.

Ex. 02

2023-12-11 14:36:45.832093-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:36:45.834413-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Skipping scheduled Time Machine backup: Automatic backups disabled

2023-12-11 14:36:45.861788-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:LocalThinning] Starting age based thinning of Time Machine local snapshots on disk '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1'

2023-12-11 14:36:45.863028-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:LocalThinning] Starting age based thinning of Time Machine local snapshots on disk '/System/Volumes/Data'

2023-12-11 14:36:45.864717-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Failed to wait for snapshot deletion to complete on disk '/System/Volumes/Update/mnt1', error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

2023-12-11 14:36:45.875397-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] com.apple.backupd.xpc: connection invalid

These appeared all together at 14:36, then more of the first code.


Ex. 03

2023-12-11 14:54:37.698649-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:54:37.723578-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:54:37.723587-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

2023-12-11 14:54:39.862638-0800  localhost backupd[285]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] com.apple.backupd.sandbox.xpc: connection invalid

2023-12-11 14:54:47.702518-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:54:47.704757-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:54:47.704764-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

2023-12-11 14:54:47.705564-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:54:47.706203-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:54:47.706208-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

2023-12-11 14:54:47.706794-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:54:47.709592-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:54:47.709598-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

These appeared as a block, then more of the first code.

Ex. 04

2023-12-11 14:57:18.284274-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:57:18.285446-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:57:18.285459-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

2023-12-11 14:57:18.297169-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:57:18.297248-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:57:18.297254-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

2023-12-11 14:57:18.420677-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Running for notifyd event com.apple.mobile.keybagd.lock_status

2023-12-11 14:57:18.420852-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:PowerManagement] TMPowerState: 2

2023-12-11 14:57:18.420864-0800  localhost backupd-helper[191]: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:BackupScheduling] Triggered for screen unlock!

Same here, then more of the first code.

 

[mangomac]

https://eclecticlight.co/mac-troubleshooting-summary/

Scroll down until you get to the section on Time Machine Problems, there are many articles you can read through. Howard also has an app called The Time Machine Mechanic (T2M2) that you can use to view the TM log files.

https://eclecticlight.co/consolation-t2m2-and-log-utilities/

Excellent resources on this site. I'll need to do a deep dive tonight/tomorrow and report back. Thank you.

 

[jagooch]

Excellent resources on this site. I'll need to do a deep dive tonight/tomorrow and report back. Thank you.

Did you ever figure out what was wrong?

 

[mangomac]

Did you ever figure out what was wrong?

I didn't have time to diagnose it further but yes, as of today, I am successfully backing up without issue.

I installed a few macOS updates and I'm currently running Ventura 13.6.6. My SSD is formatted as APFS GUID Partition Map.

I am not sure what ended up fixing it.