Time Machine Not Backing Up After Updating to OS X Yosemite ** <Updated> **

Time Capsule Error
** This post has been updated – See below **
I recently updated to OS X Yosemite and noticed my Time Machine wasn’t backing up anymore – the odd thing was that it would occasionally backup after being woke up, or after being restarted. It wouldn’t however continue to back up every hour while plugged in. I was also able to choose ‘Back Up Now’ manually from the menu options, however that too would only work intermittently (most of the time I would get an error stating that the backup disk could not be found).

The Fix
1) Navigate to the following: Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
2) Delete this file (keep in mind that this will be regenerated the next time your computer is restarted, however you will have to re-enter the password to your Time Capsule base station and you will also have to reset any previous settings you had set, such as your file/folder exclusion list
3) After deleting the file above restart your Mac

** I also read in another forum that if you have your computer’s firewall turned on that you should add both the Time Machine.app and AirPort Utility.app to your ‘allow incoming connections list **

That’s it! Try a manual backup, cancel it, restart the back up. Your Time Machine should now be working fine again.

** <UPDATE 01> **
Today I randomly decided to check and see when my last backup occurred and realized that a backup hadn’t happened in 4 hours. During those 4 hours my laptop was open and on the entire time so obviously something is still not working properly. I then tried backing up manually by choosing ‘Back up now’ however I received the error message noted above (Backup Disk Not Available). If you are also running into this and have come up with a solution please let me know. Thanks!
** </UPDATE 01> **

** <UPDATE 02> **
I called Apple for the second time yesterday and after another long hold and phone conversation, it has been determined that my Mac’s inability to reliably connect to the Time Capsule and backup to Time Machine may be due to the fact that I am running antivirus software (Intego). Intego says their 10.8 software is compatible with Yosemite (I’m obviously not sure if they’ve tested their software on a machine connected to a Time Capsule device that runs backups via Time Machine), however I’m now troubleshooting whether or not Intego is the culprit. I’ll report back after a couple days of investigating…
** </UPDATE 02> **

6 comments

  1. Spot on! Removing the plist-file worked for me! Thanks!

  2. It’s obvious now that installing Yosemite is changing Time Machine disk permissions to READ ONLY. Apple has a fouled up 10.10
    Apple, fix the bug and supply a fix in the meantime for all the users no longer able to back up.

  3. Hi adam,

    Did you find a solution to this one?

    Nadia.

  4. Hi Adam!
    I have exactly the same issue. Did you find a solution in the meantime?
    I tried lots of things but I get still this error. Additionally: Sometimes it seems that TimeCapsule cannot be seen in AirPort-Utility immediately. It takes a couple of seconds until the app can read the settings of the TimeCapsule. It happens the same time when I try to manually backup – so I think thats related somehow.
    Maybe there’s a problem with Bonjour?
    Reinhard

  5. Exactly the same issue here, across both of my MBP’s? Did you ever find a permanent fix for the this. Apple support have been a little flakey thus far?

  6. Hey all, sorry for the delay in many of your questions/responses. Honestly I don’t know if this is truly fixed. Since my posts above, I have re-insatlled Yosemite with a fresh install (not the upgrade). I’ve also swapped out Time Capsule devices and seem to be having better luck now. So my improvements could be from any of those, or possibly even a Mac OS X update since I am now running 10.10.2. I can verify that the missed backups or inability to connect to the Time Capsule device had NOTHING to do with Intego which is running great on Yosemite.

    Please feel free to share your experience good/bad here to help out others.

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