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Forum Discussion
After several backups "I get Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on <host name>"
I am on the latest version of 6.4.1 on my ReadyNas 102 and El Capitan, and after a few months of backups. I get the dreaded
"Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on <backup host name>. To improve reliability, Time Machine must start a new backup for you"
I created a bug with Apple and their response was as follows
This appears to be an issue with unreliable AFP implementations on some 3rd party NAS boxes. Increasing the band size doesn’t help (and may in fact make it worse) The problem is that after a network disconnect/reconnect the server fails to synchronize state with the client correctly. If updating to the latest version of the server firmware has not resolved the issue then there is not much else we can do.
I tried increasing the bandsize and this did not have do anything to the reliability, even though logically I would have thought it would be a better idea to have larger blocks.
The reason I purchased the readynas was to do Timemachine backups of all my macs and now I'm having to use a USB drive. I tried creating a support ticket with Netgear but they want me to purchase a support warrenty which is ridiculous since this is a software issue and not hardware related.
Has anyone else been able to reliably get Timemachine to work for a period of time.
Thanks
Michael
14 Replies
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My understanding from looking into this in the past is that this affects not only NAS units but also backing up to the Time Capsule. On Apple's own discussion website I see reports of users running into this issue backing up to the Time Capsule. So as far as I can tell the problem is clearly somewhere at Apple's end, and they should know this. It doesn't appear to be an easy issue to reproduce and takes a long time, so it's probably not an easy one for them to try and resolve.
6.4.1 includes the latest AFP/Time Machine support for Linux available at the time we released 6.4.1 and the Release Notes for the version released at the end of last month do not mention Time Machine. If Apple is sure the problem is not at their end it would be nice if Apple submitted fixes for the Netatalk package (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net) or any other relevant packages to address it, to benefit the many Apple users who backup to using Time Machine to NAS units using Linux but I would be surprised if they did this.
The Time Capsule has a single non-user replaceable hard drive which is a major reason why at this point in time I have never bought one myself. In my view if it had two user replaceable hard drives in RAID-1 it would be a much more useful product.
NAS units such as the ReadyNAS address a need that none of Apple's products fill for a Time Machine backup destination.
Regarding your NETGEAR Support case, if it was suspected it could have been a hardware issue then the agent would have done a preliminary hardware check to see if this was likely once he had PoP. As this is not a hardware issue and the software support warranty had expired the support contract was offered for purchase.
Thankyou for responding, but it seems that this is a problem that many users are facing and there doesn't seem to be any resolution or work getting done to identify what is the root cause. Apple says it's the thirdparty provider, Netgear doesn't allow anyone to create a support case and redirects to the Community, and the end user is faced with reading pages of community posts where everyone is facing the same issue. I too purchased the readynas to do Timemachine backups, and now I'm backing up to a USB drive because I have little faith in the integrity of the backups.
How do we go about creating a support case with Netgear to diagnose the error. I'm more than happy to send logs to Netgear to help them diagnose the issues.
Thanks
Michael
I'm still seeing posts from last year of users of Apple's own Time Capsule running into this problem which would strongly indicate the problem is at their end. It can take quite some time to run into, so it's probably not an easy one for them to deal with (assuming they have been looking into it).
If you are within 90 days from the date of purchase you can simply open a case, outside that for a home model you would need a support contract for a software issue.
Did you ever resolve this? I don't think it is the third party NAS (Netgear).
I recently had a similar problem with my Synology NAS.
While it might have something to do with unreliable afp connections - the final result of wanting to get rid of your timemachine history is definitely an Apple issue.
After much research, I was able to recover my backups. I'm now running to 2 separate backups so if something ever does happen to one, then I have another. In general, I've been running a NAS TM backup for over a year with no issues previously.
Much more info here: http://thefunkstop.com/fix-corrupted-time-machine-backups/
good luck!
Hi,
I've sort of given up and went to a USB drive for backups. Not ideal but at least it's reliable. I read your blog and I tried the same thing on my NAS drive, but couldn't get the Mac to accept the verification. Personally, I think it's got to do with the size of the backups. I'm backing up nearly 1tb and I think at that size something just can't take it. Things were going fine when the backup sizes were a lot smaller, but now after a couple of days the backups fail.
I'll be trying another backup soon, I just upgraded the readynas to the latest version and the mac is on a new version as well, so maybe something got fixed :-)
Cheers
Michael
Hmmmm... That's interesting in regards to size. My backups are also large -- in theory after the first TM backup, it shouldn't make much of a difference since it is only backing up the delta. However I have seen others also mention that when their machine went into sleep or what closed for some reason, that they started receiving the error. Thus a larger backup might have a higher chance of that scenario happening.
Good luck!
I don't think it has to do with 3rd party components. I'm having the same problem backing up against two different Time Capsules
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