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Timeline for the post: Time Machine remains on Preparing backup indefinitely
Currently licensed under: CC BY-SA 4.0
| When | What | By | License | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sep 27, 2026, 2:24:55 AM 2w ago | Comment | debugdaniel | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Good point about changing one thing at a time. I had been testing several settings together. |
Sep 27, 2026, 1:54:55 AM 2w ago | Answer | daviddata | CC BY-SA 4.0 | This looks less like a hardware failure and more like a configuration issue. **Likely cause:** A stale in-progress snapshot or damaged backup state prevents a new incremental scan. **What I would try:** Remove the stale in-progress bundle, run tmutil thinlocalsnapshots and reconnect the Time Machine destination. Keep an eye on the relevant logs during the test; they should confirm whether the hypothesis is correct. |
Sep 6, 2026, 11:49:26 PM 1mo ago | Created | troublesync_editorial | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Time Machine remains on Preparing backup indefinitely |