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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 ...
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:
Looks like there is quite a few of us in the same boat, you can add me to it.
Your case however, seems particularly nasty as I can carry on at least a couple of months before the infamous “verification failure“ message prompts and I have to start it all over again.
Of course, the usual Murphy's law applies here.
Guess when I had last verification failure? just a couple of days after I updated from Yosemite to El Capitan public beta and the whole system failed with a Kernel Panic due to a system extension. Really unfortunate.
Luckily I had other cards I could play but I had in fact lost the possibility to rollback easily just one week or so with my restore which in fact defeats the whole purpose of having a Time Machine setup.
I had opened another thread here as I had not found this one yet.
Got a few questions asked by one of the Mods but no further feed-back. I wonder why.
It's a real pity so little follow-up shows on this problem as it appears to be a very real issue affecting more or less everybody I know using ReadyNAS and TimeMachine backups.
The device itself is very nice, software is good and I am happy with it, if only I could get a reliable TM backup for my Mac...
Well, I despair at the support I have received from Netgear Online Support. I might as well be talking to a lump of concrete. I didn't want to say too much about it but as communications between Netgear and I have terminated and I am seeking legal clarification on their obligations in my country, the UK, I am prepared to divulge that I have been told that my online support warranty has expired and that they are not willing to offer me any support unless I purchased a technical support contract. I asked about the hardware warranty and was told that in order for the hardware warranty to apply, I would have to have the hardware diagnosed as being faulty and to do that I would have to have a technical support contract. I don't know how software faults apply but if it is part of the operating framework, in my humble opinion, it is integral to the hardware. Anyway, I don't think I need explain my exasperation.
As my RN102 is completely useless, insofar as its intended purchase function, I have spoken to the supplier who were quite taken aback at Netgear's attitude. They asked me to take it to my local branch for testing but as I explained to them that a full backup via Ethernet takes about 48 hours before it fails, what are they expecting to see unless I were to hand over my Mac for a soak test. I am hoping that they conclude that there is nothing they can do and end up offering a refund because to be honest, I would gladly kiss goodbye to using Netgear's products from here on. This is beyond the limits of reasonable tolerance.
In some ways, I am glad I am not alone but I also sympathise with others who are having to deal with this.
I know this is a really old thread now, but I do share your pain, time machine seems to fail verification on ReadyNAS devices like it's just rolling a dice to get a 6 if your backup works or not. For ages mine was really stable and i had no issues, then this weekend it's failed 3 times.
If it's any consolation, this isn't an issue speciffic to ReadyNAS, it's related to netatalk, the open surce AFPD implimentation that it uses, i've had the same issues when creating a time machine backup on a simple debian box in the past.
For now i've had to resort to a USB HDD as my time machine backup disk, it seems the only reliable way of doing it with these issues, there is a program/app for the readynas called VirtualHere, which lets you attach USB2 Devices over the network to your mac/pc, i use that on my Nas at the moment so i don't have to have a potentially fragile HDD hanging off my macbook all the time.
I do not think this is a Netatalk issue. Folks who use an Apple Time Capsule have reported the same issue. I think the evidence points to the inadequacies in Time Machine itself.
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