Issues with Time Machine - new backup must be created

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
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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?

42

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

2 Likes
43

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. 

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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

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

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

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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?

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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.

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

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

1 Like
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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

51

Hi 

I have the same problem, every week the same message and my backup history is gone. I have a macbook air on lion 10.7.2 and a WD Livebook Duo with the latest firmware. In this post i read only problems with the regular livebook but also the duo has this problem.

I contact apple, and i said the problem only exists by my macbook on lion. I also have a iMac with snow leopord and that combination works fine and i have a long history on timemachine. Apple support can’t help us out, only when the problem appear on a apple product such as a time capsule.

Please WD; help us to find a way to kill this problem

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Hi folks,

I think there is a solution here :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3059234?start=0&tstart=0

I had this issue this morning, and I made the modifications described in the second post.

After that, the backup was corectly done.

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@Thierry

i have read the modification in your link, but i don’t quite understand which steps i should take and which files i should update. Can you describe the solutions so it also easy to understand for people abroad.

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Here is the procedure to recover your backup after the message " Issues with Time Machine - new backup must be created " :

  1. Don’t panic ! :wink:

  2. Go to the Time Machine Folder on the MBL

→ In the Finder, Go To : AFP://ip_adress_of_the_MBL

→ Then, select “Time Machine”

→ At this state, you will have a drive on your desktop, called Time Machine

  1. The Icon of your Time machine backup may have a locker

→ Select it, then “cmd + i” and uncheck the locked check box

→ The locker has disapeared

  1. Select again your Time Machine backup icon, right clic and then select “Show Package Contents”.

(Hope it’s the right translation because I have a french version od OS X)

  1. You will find a file called ‘Token’. This file will have a locker too.

→ Open the terminal

→ Type “chflags nouchg /Volumes/pathToSparseboundleimagefile/token” to remove the locker

→ You can drag your Time Machine backeup image in the Terminal for the path

(Maybe it’s also working with the 'cmd + i" command ? Never tried it).

  1. Edit the file “com.apple.TimeMachine.MachineID.plist”

→ I use TextWrangler, but you can use another text editor

→ In this file, remove the 2 lines 

RecoveryBackupDeclinedDate

the date

→ Change the value of the key Verification State from 2 to 1

→ Save the file

  1. After that, close everything, eject the Time Machine Image disk and start a new backeup.

→ It will work again

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I’m not an expert but I guess that won’t solve the problem.

That happened because time machine verifyied the backup and found that it was corrupt.

You are removing that info, so basically it only tells time machine a lie…

You should force a verification.

Click on Time machine icon in the menu bar, press alt and choose “Verify Backups”.

Some days ago I’ve posted some info i’ve discovered.

So far so good.

For me, it seems that time machine (maybe netatalk?) has a bug when backing up large files (>2gb) and that same file is modified in the middle of the backup.

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Hi,

I think only Apple can fix the problem, as it appears either with a Time Capsule or all third party solutions (ask Google and you will find a lot of same issues).

And the problem appears frequently with Lion, not with Snow Leopard.

By the way, 2 days after ‘repairing’ the sparebundle image disk, Time Machine is still making the backups correctly with the MBL (until the next failure…).

If the image disk was really corrupted, I don’t think that it would  be possible to continue the backups with this file just with this ‘lieing’ procedure. And it works, everything works fine again after making the modification to the plist file.

So, after that, you will be in the same position as if you decided to make a full new backup, no less, no more.

I have check the list of saved files, and I didn’t find any large file before the corrupted backup.  I have read that it may happend when the wifi signal is not strenght enough. Other ideas ?

57

So, I’m starting to give up that this issue will ever be resolved. In the mean time, I have a 3TB brick on my hands. I guess I could use it to serve media files…but that’s not why I bought it. 

Is there another way to backup macs on the dirve WITHOUT using time machine? If there is, please someone let me know as I really want to back up my systems and this Lion incompatiblity is killing me now

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i don’t want to state the obvious, here, but unless tm backs up everything including the system so you can do a full system restore, then there is good old copy and paste. that’s all I ever do. that’s all I’ve ever done. otherwise, if you are looking for full system backup, then you will need to look into purchasing software that does that for your mac, that is lion compatible of course.

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Here is another package for backup:

Carbon Copy

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Failed again last night, solution above did’nt work as i could’nt save the file and time machine would not backup once i tried to edit the file. Had to start again for the nth time. WD please release a fix to this.