Time Machine: Backup failed with error: 11
I've been using Time Machine since installing Leopard, keeping my hourly/daily/weekly backups on the 250G Lacie drive that saved me back in October. It works well, though I've never needed to use it. Lately, it's been doing some unusually large backups which I was having trouble explaining, but otherwise things were going fine. Until this:
I repeated the backup several times with similar results. Google was minimally helpful, though I did work through some of what Sven-S. Porst describes in his article "X.5 Time Warp 2". Specifically, I tried deleting (or, actually, renaming) the Spotlight Stores folder corresponding to Backups.backupdb and running mdimport on /Volumes/Lacie Backup/Backups.backupdb. Didn't help. Interestingly, the backup was failing on a different file every time, but my patience was exhausted.
I hadn't used Time Machine to recover anything, and its incremental backups were becoming unusually large lately—so I wiped the external disk and started from scratch.
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph mds[35]: (Error) Backup: doBackupIndexFile could not stat backup location /sw/share/terminfo/w/wyse160-vb /Volumes/Lacie Backup/Backups.backupdb/ralph/2008-01-10
-203510.inProgress/73C8DD21-4BD5-4877
-8F96-8F0A0A4170E8/Macintosh HD/sw/share/
terminfo/w/wyse160-vb. Error 2 with uid 0
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: MDBackupIndexFile returned -1101 for: /sw/share/terminfo/w/wyse160-vb, /Volumes/Lacie Backup/Backups.backupdb/ralph/2008-01-10
-203510.inProgress/73C8DD21-4BD5-4877
-8F96-8F0A0A4170E8/Macintosh HD/sw/share/
terminfo/w/wyse160-vb
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: Aborting backup because MDBackupIndexFile failed
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: Canceling backup.
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: Copied 21765 files (39 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Jan 11 21:32:56 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Jan 11 21:33:00 ralph /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1703]: Backup failed with error: 11
I repeated the backup several times with similar results. Google was minimally helpful, though I did work through some of what Sven-S. Porst describes in his article "X.5 Time Warp 2". Specifically, I tried deleting (or, actually, renaming) the Spotlight Stores folder corresponding to Backups.backupdb and running mdimport on /Volumes/Lacie Backup/Backups.backupdb. Didn't help. Interestingly, the backup was failing on a different file every time, but my patience was exhausted.
I hadn't used Time Machine to recover anything, and its incremental backups were becoming unusually large lately—so I wiped the external disk and started from scratch.
Labels: Leopard
posted by Paul A. Hoadley at 21:45
29 Comments:
Um..OK. Did it work?
I find myself facing the same problem. I'd be willing to wipe my external HD and start from scratch--but only if I really think it'll fix the problem. If this worked for you, I'd take that as sufficient evidence.
Hi Tim,
It certainly worked to the extent that Time Machine is now backing up my disk again. That was entirely expected, though—you can see from the log dump that the problems were with files on the external disk. I guess it could have been a hardware problem with the external disk, in which case I might see similar errors again at some stage. But for now, formatting the external disk and starting from scratch has "worked".
I had the same problem. However, I was able to fix it without wiping my backup drive. I found that there were two problems.
1) There was an in-progress backup file in the backups folder which I deleted. (Either I did something to interrupt the backup, or it got left there when it failed.)
2) I then discovered that there were several corrupted hourly backups which I also removed from within the Time Machine interface (using the Delete Backup option via the "gear" icon).
The corrupted backups contained only partial backups of my Applications folder. So when I tried to backup after deleting the partial file it tried to copy a couple of GBs. I remedied the problem by looking in Time Machine for the latest uncorrupted backup and deleted the others (a few hours worth).
Hi Graham,
How could you distinguish the corrupted backups?
Paul,
How I located the problem backups, was partially luck with some trial and error. When I went back and looked at the most recent backup's Applications folder, I noticed that there were a large number of Application files missing. This was a good indication that something was wrong and probably the reason for the unusually large backup later on.
Anyway, once I'd realized the problem was with the Applications folder, I checked to see how far back it went. (Which was about 4 hours by the way.) I then preceded to delete all of the corrupted backups using Time Machine's delete backup option. I also went back and looked at the system log in the console and noticed a whole bunch or -43 errors occurring on the backup after the last good backup.
I hope this answers your question.
I'm having the same problem and so far, re-formatting the external disk is not working. I'm getting the same error message and the "in progress" temp file never gets larger than 6.x GB. Console reports "Copy stage failed with error:11" followed by Backup failed with error:11" as the last entry. Searching for that is how I found this blog. What are other things I can try? I've already erased the drive and zeroed out all data with Disk Utility.
The external disk had a very clear problem not wanting to display the correct amount of free space after multiple erases with Disk Utility. After a few things and formatting with Drive Genius it started showing the correct amount of free space--but I'm still getting the same error messages. I thought maybe if I change the name of the Volume--maybe the caches are bad or something. I did and I'm trying again now to see if that helps.
Also, this drive is 3 years old and it's starting to get very noisy--has been for a few months now. Time to replace it?
With regards to your external drive, are you zeroing it by using the "Zero out Data" option in Disk Utility's security options? Also, have you run a surface scan of your drive? The discrepancy in free space implies bad blocks to me. If you're still getting bad blocks after zeroing you may want to do a 7-pass erase. I've had to zero a drive 4 times before it stopped reporting bad blocks.
If your external drive seems to be working okay and you're still getting problems, the issue may be with your boot drive. In that case, I'd suggest cloning your drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper and after verifing the cloned drive is bootable and in working order, do either an Archive and Install or Erase and Install on your original boot drive. (It's up to you if you want to keep your user settings in Archive and Install, there's always the possibility that something in your Users folder is causing the problem. However, it's a pain to copy back all of your user files and settings from the created archive or backup if you don't have to.)
Actually, it occurred to me that before going to the extreme of erasing/reinstalling your boot disk, you may want to verify it with disk utility and try a permissions repair. Also, it probably wouldn't hurt to force spotlight to re-index your drive, since TimeMachine and Spotlight are highly dependent on each other.
Also, this drive is 3 years old and it's starting to get very noisy--has been for a few months now. Time to replace it?
Definitely. Even if you solve the Time Machine problem, you won't be able to trust your backup on a drive that sounds like it's trying to die.
I don't have a satisfactory answer to the Time Machine problem. Although I worked around it by reformatting and starting the backup from scratch, I find that most unsatisfactory.
I forced Spotlight to re-index the boot drive and changed the name of the machine under System Preferences >Sharing and removed an apostrophe. I read in an Apple forum that doing that fixed the problem for many users. I also re-initialized the external boot disk (again) and trashed Time Machine's preferences (other people reported that helping too).
But no go for me, after about 4 GBs I'm still getting the same error. I did think about repairing disk permissions and I keep running it again and again using Disk Utility and it keeps finding the same errors. I imagine for this to be successful I would need to boot from the Leopard install disk and run Repair permissions using Disk Utility while booted from the install disk?
Any other suggestions?
I booted from the install disk and ran repair permissions. It showed the same errors. Then I ran repair disk and it showed no errors. Then I ran repair permissions again and it showed no errors that time. I booted from the internal disk again, repartitioned the drive again as one GUID partition (Mac OS Extended Journaled) and tried to back up again and it failed again. I'm at a loss.
I know the drive is suspect because it's old and noisy (early sign of failure), but it shows up OK with Disk Utility and Drive Genius. Plus, other users report starting with brand-new drives and they're getting the same errors and I'm afraid of spending money on a drive only to get the same errors.
Any other suggestions?
There were some good posts on the Apple discussion forums that I read a little while. But now Apple has deleted all posts that talk about problems with Time Machine. This is rather strange. There is something very evil going on inside Apple. They also deleted another post of mine on their forums because I said that Apple seem to be neglecting their MAC users for the iPhone. Let's be honest guys... when after 6 months, they still have not fixed a simple bug such as Mail.app not hiding when launched on startup, there are some serious problems with Leopard & Apple...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6931702#6931702
This topic is still up. In it I detail how I was FINALLY able to get a successful backup without having to exclude anything.
Good luck all!
Deleting the in progress file from the backup drive fixed the problem for me.
I too have been searching to a fix for this problem. I have a little different error then you
5/25/08 9:17:26 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[5638] Backup failed with error: 11
5/25/08 9:19:03 AM kernel FireWire (OHCI) Apple ID 31 built-in: 87 bus resets in last 3 minute.
5/25/08 9:32:32 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[5750] Copied 7679 files (38.1 MB) from volume iMac_HD.
5/25/08 9:32:32 AM
/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[5750] Copy stage failed with error:11
So far I have opted to try and limit backups to only the users home directory and that seems to help a bit but I still get the errors...
I just encountered the same error 11, but I immediately tried running an manual backup and it backed up successfully.
I've been getting that error intermittently, but only just lately. The backup will work sometimes and not other times.
I do see one "in progress" backup file on the external drive. I'm going to try deleting that and see if it helps.
I have tried everything from formating the external disk (more then once) to limiting the backup to only the user home directory. Good news no more error 11 and the bad new now it just gives me an unknown error. I gave up and use Retrospect and Mozy. If you want more details you can click on my name and then look for the blog entry called "Backup hell and back!"
I am having the same problem - but it's an internal WD drive inside my Mac Pro. Brand new drive that was included with my Mac Pro when I bought it.
I tried formatting, starting from scratch, etc. and it worked OK for a couple days and started up again.
I get an "error: (-43)" then
"copy stage failed with error: 11"
"Backup failed with error 11"
Argh.
I had a similar problem. I kept getting a generic failed to mount disk. I tried freeing up hard disk space. I tried everything I could think of until I checked the log files. I saw Time Machine trying to access a file in the Sparse bundle with an extension of in progress. It was a backup that didn't complete because the computer was put to sleep or rebooted.
I deleted the last backup with the in progress extension and ran the backup again. Now it is working like a charm.
In order to get to this file I actually opened time machine and closed it as soon as it loaded to get the Backup Drive mounted on my desktop.
Navigated to Backup of {Computer Name}/Backups.backupdb/{Computer Name}/
Found a file called 2008-09-27-010528.inProgress This file will be whatever date your last backup started. I deleted that file and then started the backup over again.
It works like a charm.
Paul "The Mac Guy" Scott
I recently had the logic board replaced on my MBP (by Apple under warranty) and while my external Maxtor is recognized by the finder, TM will not back up to the drive. All of my incremental backups are visible in the finder, but I get the "Failed" message and in TM preferences the external drive is listed and greyed out under exclusions. The TM backup was most useful during my period of repair (I was able to access all of my necessary files), and I don't want to trash the data if possible. Next stop 1-800-SOS-APPL...
For the original post - I got the sam e error but it came from the fact that had more data to back up than what was available on the drive. So, I unchecked 'porn' and 'music' and everything was fine.
I, too had the same error and was able to solve it without doing anything drastic. Firstly, the trick was to understand what file / files was causing TimeMachine to choke. Here's what I did:
Open Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
Change directory to /var/log by typing:
cd /var/log
We want the system.log. No need to start searching from the beginning, look at the end of the log. To do this enter: tail system.log
If you see a TimeMachine error, great! if not, run TimeMachine now. Wait until it errors.
Enter !! in Terminal to view the end of the log. (!! repeats the last command)
For me. TimeMachine aborted with " Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying ... Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/0heukrnj.default/urlclassifier2.sqlite to (null)" The problem was with this file used by FireFox.
I decided to delete my install of FireFox
Ran a backup of Time Machine.
Waited until backup finished.
!! in the Terminal window again. Saw "Backup completed successfully."
I'm a happy camper! (Although if TM had choked on another file, I'd just repeat the process.
With regards to the last post, it isn't necessary to use the terminal. You can look up the system.log in the Console utility. (Which is what I usually do.) And then look up Time Machine related messages by filtering with "backupd" which is the backup process.
I have found a way to limit Time Machine errors is to just have it back up the Users and the Library folder on the root of your main hard disk.
I did what Paul recommended but it wasn't clear from his posting how to do it. My time machine was on a windows home server box (SMB share) and the "sparsebundle" got corrupted. I tried several different methods of using hdiutil to open it as a /dev/disk1s1 and then fsck_hfs repaired it to no avail (go to http://blog.jthon.com/?p=31 if you're trying to fix a corrupted backup file)
I went back to the last copy of it that I had (yes I'm using windows to backup my time machine file) and restored it.
From there I got the error 11. As Paul stated, here are the steps (Be sure to turn TM off in System Prefs before you start).
1. Go to the finder > applications > Time Machine
2. Time Machine will open. Hit escape to exit
3. Go to your finder again. You will now see the Time Machine disk (in my case named "MacTimeMachine" under the Devices
4. Click on your backup disk. The 2nd pane will now have a directory called Backups.backupdb
5. Click on that folder. You should see your machine name next (in my case "jgMBpro")
6. click on that folder with your machine name on it. You will now see dated folders in the format YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS (e.g., 2009-01-13-234153). There should be folder titled "In Progress Backup" (or something like that).
7. Delete the "In Progress" backup folder.
8. Leave the "Latest" folder.
9. click on the "eject" button next to the "MacTimeMachine" (your backup name) in the Devices tab.
10. Turn TM back on.
After that I was able to start backing up again (although it took an hour because there were mismatches in what my Mac had logged as backed up and what the backup sparsebundle had in it. TM fixed all the errors and although I lost snapshots for about 14 days, I still have 13 valid ones plus I am all backed up. Hope that helps.
This error occurred for me, and I was able to fix it by excluding a file that was showing as having an EXTREMELY long destination path. Something like:
Skipping (destination path too long) /Users/website/temp/css/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/css/website/images/form_02.gif
I was able to find this by looking console. TM is fickle. There's all kind of stuff on my hdd that's causing it to throw off non-fatal errors.
In my case the bug was a rights management issue in the /System/Library/ folder.
http://trikks.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/backup-failed-with-error-11/
to resolve this issue, i opened console, pressed 'open log list' expanded files and selected system.log. I then manually started a time machine backup. the error 11 showed and it also showed there was a problem backing up my thunderbird profile. opened time machine preferences, excluded my thunderbird account 'documents>Thunderbird'. restarted the manual backup and no errors.
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