8

As of 1/1/2017, my Time Machine backups are failing with the following message:

Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "WDMyCloud". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.

The drive itself is a 3TB Western Digital My Cloud NAS. I can mount it in the Finder and it seems to be okay (in that I can browse it and open files), but it doesn't appear in Disk Utility at all, which doesn't seem right...

I ran the full diagnostics test in WD's utilities (it exposes a page at wdmycloud.local when the drive is powered on) and it reported no problems.

I've tried restarting both the drive and my MacBook Pro, which didn't help.

Is this a fixable problem, or is my drive dying? I'd be surprised if it's the latter, since it's less than three years old, sits untouched next to my router in a well-ventilated area, and again the diagnostics reported no issues.

Improve this question

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
11

Looking for backup errors in the log, what I found was ; backupd[3278]: objc[3278]: __weak variable at 0x7f9227c07600 holds 0x7f9227c00003 instead of 0x7f9227c0e060. This is probably incorrect use of objc_storeWeak() and objc_loadWeak(). Break on objc_weak_error to debug

Searching for these terms, I found this solution, which solved my issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7686484?start=0&tstart=0

theperlarsen Dec 27, 2016 9:40 PM in response to theperlarsen Level 1 Level 1 (4 points) Dec 27, 2016 9:40 PM in response to theperlarsen SOLVED: Turning off iCloud Drive fixed the issue for me.

The weak variable error in the console is misleading. The logging mechanism was changed for macOS Sierra. Use the paste command into a terminal to view time machine errors:

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h | grep Error

I saw lines containing starting with:

Error: (-34) SrcErr:NO Copying Copying /Users/myusername/Library/Mobile Documents/ ...

The mobile folder is used by iCloud drive, so I turned that off. That allowed the backup to complete. Hope this helps others that are experiencing this issue. Hopefully the final version of 10.12.3 fixes this.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    In my case, the following caused the error, and I deleted the folder :: 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:TMLogError] Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/?/2018-11-11-174047/Macintosh HD/Users/*/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data/Library/Application Support/App Cleaner & Uninstal‌ler/auth.cer to /Volumes/TimeMachine 2TB/Backups.backupdb/*/2018-11-11-174048.inProgress/?/Macintosh HD/Users/*/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data/Library/Application Support
    – goodhyun
    Commented Nov 11, 2018 at 9:24
  • The ~/Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data folder was in my error logs too. I uninstalled the app, and removed Library/Containers/com.nektony.App-Cleaner/Data. Then I killed the local Time Machine snapshots, in case they contained any parts that were corrupted too with tmutil listlocalsnapshots / and sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <date part of snapshot>.
    – Courtney Faulkner
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 18:18
4

It could be a corrupt file on your Mac, rather than a problem with the external drive. If it is you can open console via launchpad, and search for error messages related to "backup". If there's a line with something about "SrcErr" and "Copying" and a filename, that will point you to the corrupt file. Either delete it, or go into Time Machine settings and exclude this file from your backups.

I just had this problem, and found the suggestion in this forum: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7734594

linking to this page which appears to be the original source of the info. http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html

Improve this answer
2

Thank you @ola for the log show command! In my case the command

$ log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h|grep -i error

showed

2020-11-11 12:09:15.203799+0000 0x696063   Error       0x0                  90170  0    backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Failed to copy '/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/ [omitted] /Library/Application Support/Spotify/PersistentCache/Storage', error: -43, srcErr: NO
2020-11-11 12:09:23.094589+0000 0x695c3e   Error       0x0                  90170  0    backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:General] Copy stage failed with error: Error Domain=com.apple.backupd.ErrorDomain Code=11 "(null)"

My solution was to exclude /Users/<myself>/Library/Application Support/Spotify/PersistentCache/Storage from Time Machine

Improve this answer
0

If the myCloud is a network-connected drive, it won't appear in Disk Utility. Only locally connected drives appear there. As per this answer on Apple's forum site, the way to check your hard drive for errors is to connect it directly to your Mac using USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt. Then you can repair or erase it with Disk Utility. If this hard-wire connection is not an option, you may want to consider erasing the old backup and creating a new backup.

Improve this answer
1
  • Yes, it's a NAS – I didn't realize it wouldn't show up in Disk Utility, thanks! Maybe then this is just a Time Machine issue and the disk itself is fine. I'll see if I can find a USB cable while the diagnostic thing is running...
    – daGUY
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 18:38
0

Time Machine may not be able to copy a file for some reason.

Jump to end of answer if you want to know the solution without reading the details.

I had my Time Machine backup to a WD MyCloud NAS fail similarly. I tried to find the cause using

log show --style syslog --last 5m  --predicate 'senderImagePath contains[cd] "TimeMachine"' --info --debug

In the log, I found this fatal error message:

2023-08-20 00:50:24.361399+0200  localhost backupd[756]: (TimeMachine) 
[com.apple.TimeMachine:CopyProgress] Fatal failure to copy '/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMach
ine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/WonderMac/2023-08-20-004329/Macintosh HD - Data/App
lications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/Resources/ar.lproj/strman_e644.strings' to 
'/Volumes/Backups von WonderMac 1/2023-08-20-004332.inprogress/Macintosh HD - Data/Appl
ications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/Resources/ar.lproj', 
error: -43, srcErr: NO

(reformatted for better legibility)

So Time Machine complained that it could not copy a file within the Microsoft PowerPoint app. I had in fact run the Microsoft Updater since the last Time Machine backup, so there might have been changes, but:

% ls -al "/Applications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/Resources/ar.lproj/strman_e644.strings"            
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  wheel  217 12 Sep  2021 /Applications/Microsoft PowerPoint.app/Contents/Resources/ar.lproj/strman_e644.strings

No idea why Time Machine complained about it. The file existed and was world readable.

Solution / work-around

Add an exclusion from Time Machine for the problem file (System Preferences > Time Machine > Options > +) as suggested here for a similar issue, and re-ran the backup. It should now be able to finish successfully.

The weird part is that, after the successful backup, you can remove the exclusion, run another backup, and that one should then also finish without issues.

Conclusion

The solution worked for me, but I'm not sure what to conclude. I have no idea why Time Machine had an issue with this specific file. And why it doesn't when afterwards the exclusion is removed again.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .