Something is locked and blocking my time machine backup

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Level 1

20 points

Something is locked and blocking my time machine backup

Hello,

I found an answer to this question from 2023 but it is now closed. And, I have a follow-up question regarding the resolution the problem. First, here is what's happening:

Only in the last couple of days has this error been showing up and I have had my computer set to require a password to wake it up, well for forever, really. And, I recently updated every Apple device I have to its new OS.

I, too, am having issues with Time Machine unable to finishing backups overnight while computer is locked from not being in use after one hour. I only see the error in morning when I first wake it up. note that the backups do complete while I am actively using the computer and it's awake.

The solution given in the previous post from 2023 titled 'Locked files block my time machine backup' was as follows:

"It says some files were unavailable. That could happen for many different reasons, but that message did not specify why.

It says the backup will resume when your Mac is unlocked.

To me, this implies your Mac automatically Locked itself, and refused to transfer any more files.

That could happen if your Mac went to sleep or you have screen locking and password required in:

system preferences > Security & Privacy > General ...

[√] require password after sleep or nnn minutes after screensaver begins.

There may be other more obscure reasons as well."

I have followed the directions to remove a required password to wake the computer, but I really would prefer not to do that. I have also looked what has Full Disk Access and Files and Folders access in Privacy & Security, but I am not sure what I need to grant the access to, as you can't specify Time Machine.

What are the other possibilities for this happening and how can I resolve them?

I greatly appreciate your help and have a great day!

Lisa Atlanta

Mac mini

Posted on Sep 30, 2024 6:48 AM

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Answer 1

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Focker

Level 1

40 points

Oct 27, 2024 7:20 AM in response to lisaroser

Paste the following command into Terminal.app and hit Enter:

log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h|grep "Operation not permitted"

Add the path to the TM exclusion list and the problem should be solved.

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 2

Dec 17, 2024 3:20 PM in response to lisaroser

Had the exact same issue. No need to go in Terminal to resolve this issue. In System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and next in Full Disk Access. Add Time Machine and give it full access. Just did my first backup with no issue and no error message. Spent 1 hour on the phone with Apple and they didn't know this... Hope this helps!

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Answer 3

Focker

Level 1

40 points

Oct 27, 2024 7:38 AM in response to lisaroser

While removing the widget will get rid of the TM error, it is suboptimal. The better solution is to add the offending directory to TM's exclusion list like so:

tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/timelines/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems

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Answer 4

Focker

Level 1

40 points

Nov 14, 2024 11:50 PM in response to Zorkzeres

At the end of the article about Biome, Howard Oakley writes

deleting the contents of the Biome folder shouldn’t result in any data loss.

Try deleting the Biome folder like so:

rm -rf ~/Library/Biome/

and then manually start a TM backup and report the result.

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Answer 5

Nov 14, 2024 10:14 PM in response to Focker

Please clarify the steps to take, if you can.

I open terminal and pasted the string, and this is what I cam up with:

Last login: Wed Nov 13 19:00:29 on console

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/timelines/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems

/Users/peter/Library/Containers/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems/Data/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/timelines/com.apple.findmy.FindMyWidgetItems: Error (100002) while attempting to change exclusion setting.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

Thanks in advance.

Peter

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Answer 6

lisaroser Author

Level 1

20 points

Oct 27, 2024 7:02 AM in response to Focker

@Focker That did it! I did have the Find My widget running so before I ran the code, I removed that, restarted and voila! Thank you so very much!!

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Answer 7

lisaroser Author

Level 1

20 points

Oct 22, 2024 4:33 PM in response to lisaroser

Hello,

Thank you for that but note that this is my normal setting and the update to Sequoia did not change that.

Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off option is ON

Put hard disks to sleep when possible option is OFF

Wake of network access option is ON (I keep this on always because I do remotely access my computer)

The error is still happening.

Thank you!

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Answer 8

Focker

Level 1

40 points

Nov 14, 2024 10:25 PM in response to Zorkzeres

The error code (100002) indicates that the file cannot be found. This could be due to an error when copying and pasting the string, or it may be because the directory containing the file does not exist on your Mac, probably because you have never used the FindMyWidget application.

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Answer 9

Nov 14, 2024 10:31 PM in response to Focker

That is very possible - I don't even know what FindMyWidget does.

So this did not solve my

"Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Data-2-8TB”

Time Machine did not finish backing up because some files were unavailable. Backups will resume when your Mac is unlocked." problem ...

Sigh!

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Answer 10

Nov 14, 2024 11:06 PM in response to Focker

Hello again and thank you for you very quick answers. I tried the other string, and this is what it says:

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.TimeMachine"' --info --last 4h|grep "Operation not permitted"

2024-11-15 06:25:27.416560+0100 0x39fc91 Error 0x0 289 0 backupd: (TimeMachine) [com.apple.TimeMachine:FileProtection] Failed to acquire device lock assertion for '/Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/Peters MBP-M2-Max/2024-11-15-055749/Macintosh HD - Data/Users/peter/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167' (assertion state: <dropped>), error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted"

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

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Answer 11

Focker

Level 1

40 points

Nov 14, 2024 11:18 PM in response to Zorkzeres

so there you have it, you found the offending directory. Now all you need to do is to add it to the TM exclusion list like so:

tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

See this article for an explanation about Biome.

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Answer 12

Nov 14, 2024 11:16 PM in response to Focker

Thank you, but I have no idea how to do that. In Time Machine I can only exclude attacted external disks.

If i try with terminal it says:

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ tmutil addexclusion ~/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

/Users/peter/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167: Error (100001) while attempting to change exclusion setting.

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

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Answer 13

Nov 14, 2024 11:28 PM in response to Focker

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$ ls -l ~/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

-rw------- 1 peter staff 16777216 Nov 15 06:17 /Users/peter/Library/Biome/streams/restricted/ProactiveHarvesting.Mail/local/752462791393167

Peters-MBP-M2-Max:~ peter$

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Answer 14

Nov 15, 2024 12:05 AM in response to Focker

OK, I have now deleted the contents of the folder ... should I also delete the folder itself? It says operation not permitted ... so i could only delete the contents manually from finder

And it seems the system instantly creates that folder agaín

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Answer 15

Nov 15, 2024 10:15 PM in response to Focker

You're a star Focker. Apparently deleting that Biome folder did the trick. No errors to be seen this morning.

When I woke up this morning I found TM had made backup to backup-disk-1 at 1.54 a.am. It's now 7.15 a.am and it's in the process of of "preparing to backup" to backup-disk-2 so it's not like it's hourly backups. Weird.

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