Macos – Time Machine does not back up, “failed with error: 11”

macmacostime-machine

For some reason, Time Machine is refusing to backup my files. When dragging and dropping manually all my files onto the backup volume, it says that there was a file that could not be read or modified – but doesn't give a name.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of an application that can find corrupted files like this so I can backup my hard drive again. I have tried Disk Utility as well as TechTool Pro, but neither fix the problem.

Any ideas?

The errors I get in the Console are:

  • Starting standard backup
  • Backing up to: /Volumes/Back-Up 1TB/Backups.backupdb
  • Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD

  • Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|

  • No pre-backup thinning needed: 46.12 GB requested (including padding), 115.78 GB available

  • Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack Pro/Detroit Chop
    Shop/Sci-Fi/Drone Low Pulse.caf to (null)
  • Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack Pro/Detroit Chop
    Shop/Sci-Fi/Drone Low Pulse.caf to /Volumes/Back-Up
    1TB/Backups.backupdb/PF's MacBook
    Pro/2009-08-05-101710.inProgress/C5EE8C8D-10FF-4259-A9A5-7846A0372EDE/Macintosh
    HD/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack
    Pro/Detroit Chop Shop/Sci-Fi
  • Stopping backup.
  • Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack Pro/Detroit Chop
    Shop/Sci-Fi/Drone Low Pulse.caf to /Volumes/Back-Up
    1TB/Backups.backupdb/PF’s MacBook
    Pro/2009-08-05-101710.inProgress/C5EE8C8D-10FF-4259-A9A5-7846A0372EDE/Macintosh
    HD/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack
    Pro/Detroit Chop Shop/Sci-Fi
  • Copied 33658 files (135.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
  • Copy stage failed with error:11
  • Copy stage failed with error:11
  • Copy stage failed with error:11
  • Backup failed with error: 11

Best Answer

First run Console (in /Applications/Utilities) to check the logs. They might contain the file name or other details.

If that doesn't help you can try fs_usage from the Terminal. This will show every file that is being accessed on your system, and whether an error was returned. Open a very wide Terminal window and type: sudo fs_usage. Then perform the copy that fails. When it fails, go back to the Terminal window and type Ctrl-C to stop fs_usage. You can then search back for the last file that was accessed as part of the copy. You can also look for numbers in square brackets which are Unix error codes.

Update: It looks like there may be a disk error with the file that is listed in the log. You may want to exclude it from the Time Machine backup (in Preferences) in order to try getting a successful backup of the other files. Then run Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities), select the disk with the suspected problem, and on the First Aid tab press the Repair Disk button in the lower right corner. If it's your startup disk then you cannot repair it so press Verify Disk instead; but if an error is detected you will need to boot from another disk or your install disk in order to repair it.

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