Time machine can not backup with no visible reason

By Ramy, 6 August, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello all:
Need to make a regular time machine backup, but it is not working, and i clicked on error inside the time machine preferences, i got can not backup? and the ok button, no actual errors, so, what can cause this? and how can i avoid this error? and start my backup?

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Comments

By Ramy on Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:49

Ihave previous backups and everything was working ok, so, why i should format and lose previous bckups?

By Tyler on Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:49

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

I'd suggest before reformatting the disk, which will erase all data on it, that you attempt to repair it in Disk Utility first. To do this, open Disk Utility and for best results, choose View > Show all devices, (or press Command-2) and run first aid on the top level external disk and all volumes below it. Note that this process can take some time depending on the size and composition of the disk and its volumes.

HTH

By Ekaj on Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:49

Thanks for this. I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to me. I got a Western Digital hard drive in 2016, and at the time it worked perfectly on my mid-2013 MacBook Air. At some point in the not-so-distant past however, the drive went into "read-only" mode somehow and I couldn't do much of anything with it. A sighted tutor and I attempted to troubleshoot this recently. My theory is that he inadvertently made the problem worse. He doesn't think too highly of Apple, but is very good-intentioned. He and I always listen to music on my Mac, and whenever he's on here we shut off VoiceOver completely.

By Cobbler on Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:49

On occasions I have found that removing the drive as a Time Machine destination and then adding it back again can resolve issues such as this.

By Ramy on Saturday, August 27, 2022 - 16:49

Hello all:
I was really in a miss, until i found the solution,
i was having only 1 GB free space, and i increase it to 4 GB, and it works.
THANKS SO MUCH for your suggestions and ideas.