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Forum Discussion
Time Machine verification failure (again)
I know this has been discussed before but it seems like a perennial question. The problem occurred with my ReadyNAS Duo every few months and this is the second time it has happened with my RN102 ...
okulo wrote:
...I can, however, say with absolute certainty, that it never happened before I started using a ReadyNAS for Time Machine backups.
I wasn't doubting you. Just saying its been a few years since anyone has posted this issue here, and I don't think any of the other posts were for OS6 systems.
It might be on Netgear's list anyway if there are support requests. You probably should report a bug at support.netgear.com (w/o opening a case if you want to avoid a charge).
After leaving my Mac unattended for almost two days whilst it created a new backup, I checked it today and it said it was complete. When the time came for the first scheduled backup, I got the verification failure message again.
This is where I start to feel exasperated. What am I supposed to do? If I post the problem on Apple's discussion site (which I have done in the past), one of two or three people who seem to have answers for everything will tell me it's a problem with your NAS. Here I am told that it is not a ReadyNAS problem per se.
I am over a barrel and I doubt I will get any practical support from anywhere because everybody wants to slope shoulder the issue onto somebody else.
I will just have to erase my RN102 and start again - the third time I have had to do so in nine months.
I do understand the frustration.
I don't work for Netgear so I can't commit them to anything. You could try a support case, Or perhaps PM some netgear folks here, and ask what else you could do.
I appreciate that you aren't responsible and I have submitted a support request.
I was searching again for answers and found a response from a Level 10 (175k+ points) support person on the Apple discussion site which typifies what I said earlier:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3795735
'Using a third-party NAS as a Time Machine backup destination is unsupported by Apple and should be considered risky. Your only recourse if you have problems is the NAS vendor, who will blame the problem on Apple.'
I have found Terminal commands which supposedly fix the problem but to be honest, I feel out of my depth at that point.
By the way, I clicked 'later' the last time I was asked when Time Machine should delete my backup and create a new one; the normal thing to happen is to be reminded in 24 hours but on this occasion, after 'Preparing backup' for three hours, it has begun backing up as if it is just doing a sceduled backup - all except that it is still backing up the full 552.16GB of data.
I was prompted by an e-mail I received this morning that there was a recent response to my post and which asked if my problem was resolved.
The short answer is no.
Here is the long answer. I have had a lengthy exchange with Netgear which has been extremely unhelpful - the least said about it, the better. During this time, I have deleted the Time Machine sparsebundle and reconfigured my Time Machine backup from a Private Time Machine to a Shared Time Machine for no other reason than to eliminate the Private Time Machine option as the cause. Since then, Time Machine began yet another new backup which took about a week (I could not tether my Mac to the RN102 via ethernet again as it is completely impractical to me and has proven not to make any difference). Progress was steady but slow and last night, it looked as if it would be complete by this morning; however, this morning, I got a notification that the backup had failed again. When I tried to initiate a Time Machine backup, I got the 'Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on “ReadyNAS”. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.' error.
According to the scant information I got fromNetgear customer support, RAID scrubbing has nothing to do with this; they said that unless I have instigated a RAID scrub manually or by schedule, it isn't happening so therefore cannot be a factor.
Their last response referred me back here.
Without anything to go on but a little mental arithmetic and a bit of lay intuition, I get the impression that the RN102 is not permitting Time Machine to delete data thus causing the regular verification error when, it might be guessed, that Time Machine wants to delete old backups to make way for new. My Mac HD has 522GB of data and I have alloted 750GB of space on the RN102. As Time Machine says that there is 506GB data of 750GB free, this might suggest that the RN102 would not free up the additional 16GB required from whatever the 244GB is being used for.
I am now dependent on my USB drive for Time Machine backups and my RN102 is effectively useless. When I bought my original ReadyNAS Duo, I did so for the sole purpose of using it for a remote Time Machine backup. Having been given some advice on this forum, almost a year ago, that ReadyNAS Duo was bricked and the person who gave me that advice simply ignored me after that. My only option was to buy a replacement including two new approved 2TB drives. As previously, my sole purpose was to use the RN102 as a remote Time Machine backup; though I did use it for other trivial purposes more out of curiosity than necessity. Now, it no longer fulfills the function for which it was purchased less than a year since I bought it and supposedly ten months into a three year warranty and all it does is make the wheel spin around in my electricity meter a little faster.
If anybody can make any suggestions, I would be grateful. Here are screenshots of my FrontView Time Machine window and Time Machine preferences:
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