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 since I got it at the end of last year.
This message appears and gives the choice of creating a new backup now or later:
'Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on “ReadyNAS”. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.'
Every time it has happened, I have looked on the Netgear forum (and previously the ReadyNAS forum) and then gone off at Google's mercy trying to find a cause or solution.
I can't say I have found any definite information but the finger almost always points at third party incompatibility.
To say that it is irritating to have to create a new backup every few months is a slight understatement. It either slows my Mac down to near unusable for several days if I do it wirelessly or renders it totally unusable for about 36 hours if I do it via ethernet as I have to leave my Mac next to my Netgear DGND3300 and RN102 which are, by necessity, kept in a utility room with no furniture.
Is anybody looking into this matter? Or is it just regarded as an issue which does not bother enough people and, if ignored for long enough, may or may not go away by accident.
I don't rely on the ReadyNAS Time Machine implementation; given my experience, I would be stupid to do so. I have a secondary USB Time Machine backup (yes, I know the old mantra that Time Machine isn't a backup) and I also have other strategies in place to cover the most essential data. But the convenience of wireless backup and occasional recovery of lost files is virtually negated by the regular failures. When I upgraded from my old ReadyNAS Duo to the RN102, I had hoped that the shiny new interface would not be a mere facade and that there would be an undelying robustness on which I could rely.
I know that Mac users are the poor cousins in demographic terms but could somebody please try to address this issue rather than dismiss it as an occupational hazzard; Time Machine integration is sold as a standard feature of ReadyNAS.
There were a couple of posts on this back in 2011-2012 - but just a few, and none after that. So this might not be a ReadyNAS issue per se.
One poster on the older threads said that he had isolated his problem. It apparently only occurred when time machine was running during a raid scrub. His work-around was to find a free utility on the Mac, which let him "window" time machine, so it didn't run during times the NAS was busy.
Sorry, when I said perennial, I meant 'out there'. There are threads numerous sites about this problem and they tend to point at the hardware as the cause.
I did a search before posting and didn't see a mention of a utility though I already started using a Time Machine scheduler to try to avoid overwhelming the system at busy times a few years ago in an attempt to get around this problem and since then, Time Machine only backs up once a day.
Yesterday's backup was incredibly slow, 1.4GB took about four hours, then today's seemed to stall at 279MB of 900MB before finally giving the dreaded message.
It was claimed way back when on here that it was a known bug in Lion - three (almost four) full OS X iterations ago. Since I originally encountered the problem back on Lion, on a PowerPC system, it continued through to my current Intel Mac via two entirely new system installations on clean drives and about eight completely replaced Time Machine backups. I might be forgiven for asking why it keeps happening to me (and the other poor victims) whilst others escape.
I can, however, say with absolute certainty, that it never happened before I started using a ReadyNAS for Time Machine backups.
...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).
My Mac is still busy creating a new backup so I am in the claustrophobic iPad environment. I will follow up your suggestion when I have a real keyboard in front of me.
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 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:
'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:
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.
If my theory is correct, that this occurs because the ReadyNAS won't allow Time Machine to delete old backups (as seems arithmetically likely), it would mean that this was more likely to happen after an OS update on a Mac because the first Time Machine backup will have to accommodate all the changes in the new OS. I've noticed incremental updates cause a 7+GB backup. I imagine a full OS update is going to be at least that size but often with it comes additional updates such as Safari 9.0.
So, a large backup is more likely to reach the sparsebundle limit than a small one simply due to the fact that a large backup takes a bigger step towards filling the available space. I wouldn't like to comment about the new ReadyNAS OS as I didn't know about it until I read your post.
I'll be taking mine back to the supplier this Thursday and I'm very curious about what they are going to say, especially given Netgear's head in the sand **bleep**-Kafkaesque approach to the problem. But I won't be leaving the shop without a solution.
I want to point out, especially to anybody who thinks that my last post was censored because I had used unacceptable language, that I had used a three letter word which has been in common English usage for over 400 years whose nuanced meaning approximates to 'combined with' and is present in academic notation and titles as well as UK place names. The word has been co-opted in the last thirty years or so (as a respelling of another word) to mean something entirely different - especially in, shall we say, certain circles of special interest; so one might wonder about the preoccupation behind the censorship.
I want to point out, especially to anybody who thinks that my last post was censored because I had used unacceptable language, that I had used a three letter word which has been in common English usage for over 400 years whose nuanced meaning approximates to 'combined with' and is present in academic notation and titles as well as UK place names. The word has been co-opted in the last thirty years or so (as a respelling of another word) to mean something entirely different - especially in, shall we say, certain circles of special interest; so one might wonder about the preoccupation behind the censorship.
I've only seen this version. FWIW, the editing history I see doesn't show anyone editing the post.
I had a private message saying that the post had 'been edited because it violates the Community Terms of Service, which prohibit Cussing or using of profanity', hence the ***bleep***.
More to the point, am I to assume that nobody can offer a solution to the Time Machine problem given that there has been no constructive response to this or other threads on the topic? I get the feeling that this is an issue, like septic wound, which nobody at Netgear wants to look at.
It might be useful to have an indication if this is on Netgear's radar before I take my RN102 back to the supplier with a saga of Netgear's indifference.
I tried but after over a week trying to explain and being told that I would have to pay for a technical support contract even to get the problem analysed to see if it was a software ot hardware fault, they sent me back here.
I just took my RN102 back to the local branch of the supplier I bought it from. They were quite perplexed and appalled at Netgear's attitude to their customers, especially the bizarre 3 month technical support vs 3 yesr hardware warranty policy which does not give a customer the possibility of demonstrating hardware failure.
However, they agreed with my suspiscions that this is an error in the OS which denies Time Machine to delete old incremental backups. They are replacing the RN102 and, like me, expect it to fail in about three months time as the last one did first time around. They said that as this will be new hardware, I should be entitled to three months technical support on Netgear's terms; so hopefully, if it fails again once the sparsebundle is full, it will be before the three months is up. If it does happen again and Netgear fail to respond appropriately again, another approach may be necessary.
If I had requested support when the first instance occurred, instead of simply doing as Time Machine 'helpfully' suggested, I might be on a better footing. In future, I won't hesitate in requesting customer support for every little issue because otherwise it is difficult to demonstrate when a problem started.
As for myself, I have been contacted by one Netgear staff helper and supplied him the device Logs as requested.
So far so good. You can check my progress, in case, on the other thread I started.
While I was on the logs, I had a close look at errors and warning messages and made an interesting discovery.
I found several entries like this one:
Volume: Bit rot has detected an error within /data/.timemachine/Sputnik.sparsebundle/bands/40fb and cannot correct the error.
More or less once every start of the month and I suspect that that message matches with the Time Machine failures.
This might be a lead to for the issues I am suffering however such messages appear in the log until the beginning of the month April whereas my last backup failure was around mid september.
I remember reading a discussion on here some time ago about bitrot protection - I had searched for it because I got an alert about it but I'm struggling to remember what it said. It certainly doesn't sound a healthy thing for a backup to have.
Users of Apple's own Time Capsule run into this problem which would strongly indicate the problem is at Apple's end. Their own community shows that Time Capsule users run into this problem.
