Time Machine backups work for a while then fail verification

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:57 pm

Hi all, my Time Machine backups will work for a period of time and then they will fail verification.

I can mount AFP shares just fine and the backups work without issue to an external HDD. This is the most useful error message that I get:

QNAP details:
TVS-671
4.4.1.1146

All connected over wired network. I have tried to restart the Mac and the QNAP but no success.

Can someone point me towards some logs to check? I looked in the Mac console for TimeMachine events but there wasn't anything that stuck out for me.

torch1 · Post by **torch1** » Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:33 pm

Have you tried doing TM backups using SMB instead of AFP? Works great.
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial ... as-via-smb

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Mon Feb 03, 2020 8:37 pm

torch1 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:33 pm Have you tried doing TM backups using SMB instead of AFP? Works great.
https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial ... as-via-smb

I have just switched over to SMB so I will see how it goes, thanks.

colindean · Post by **colindean** » Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:33 pm

I've got a 2012 MBA that's periodically thrown this error. It seems OK for a while and then prompts. The user will dismiss it and it'll sometimes be OK or it will sometimes randomly not backup anymore. The user realized last night that the backup hadn't functioned for two weeks! Fortunately, they checked before doing an OS upgrade…

I'll try SMB, too. Silence from me probably means that it worked.

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Sat Feb 08, 2020 6:29 pm

It's failed again doing it to SMB. I'm starting to give up!

torch1 · Post by **torch1** » Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:42 am

How are you mounting your SMB share?
smb://QNAP_IP/TM_share or smb://QNAP.local/TM_share? I recommend you do not use the ".local" format - the mDNSResponder (which is what responds to a ".local") is not reliable. Better to use either the IP address of the QNAP or its client name - the name your router knows without the "domain" part...the part after the ".".

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Tue Feb 11, 2020 10:27 pm

torch1 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:42 am How are you mounting your SMB share?
smb://QNAP_IP/TM_share or smb://QNAP.local/TM_share? I recommend you do not use the ".local" format - the mDNSResponder (which is what responds to a ".local") is not reliable. Better to use either the IP address of the QNAP or its client name - the name your router knows without the "domain" part...the part after the ".".

I don't seem to have an option to set up the backups to anything other but the name of the NAS. I'm not so sure name resolution is the issue, I can't see any errors in the console log relating to name resolution, it finds the backup and then just fails.

torch1 · Post by **torch1** » Wed Feb 12, 2020 12:13 am

Maybe your setup is different. Following the QNAP tutorial (linked above), you have to create a TM backup share on your NAS first, then in Finder you mount that TM_share using smb. Once it is mounted, you go to TM preferences, "Select disk", then select the QNAP TM backup share.
My question was how you mount the TM share in Finder...I suggest you use either smb://IP_of_NAS/TM_share or smb://name_of_NAS/TM_share....do not use ".local" at all.

anotherusername · Post by **anotherusername** » Mon Mar 30, 2020 1:05 am

I only bought a QNAP NAS because it claimed to support Apple Time Machine. Long story short - it never ran for more than about a month before getting either a "verification required" or, less frequently "it's corrupt and we need to create a new backup" error. I tried AFP and SMB and a few other recommendations I found by Googling but the only thing that fixed it was to buy a different backup disc.

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:26 pm

Mine was backing up using SMB to the IP of the QNAP for a few days, but I've now got the same verification error.

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:38 pm

anotherusername wrote:I only bought a QNAP NAS because it claimed to support Apple Time Machine. Long story short - it never ran for more than about a month before getting either a "verification required" or, less frequently "it's corrupt and we need to create a new backup" error. I tried AFP and SMB and a few other recommendations I found by Googling but the only thing that fixed it was to buy a different backup disc.

As in you changed the drives in the QNAP or you’re using another backup target altogether?

anotherusername · Post by **anotherusername** » Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:37 am

@noodles - as in I bought an Apple Time Capsule. It works perfectly with access times and read/write speeds which are orders of magnitude greater than the QNAP and it acts as a wireless extender too.

noodles_gb · Post by **noodles_gb** » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:29 pm

I think I have managed to work it out. I initially tried the SMB guide with limited success. I'm confident that method would work well however I can't find the quota option per user that used to be there. Also, Time Machine seemingly refused to connect to this share with anything other than the admin user. Anyway, I enabled the Time Machine service again, ignored it setting the lowest SMB setting to 2.1 and set it manually to 3 after it was enabled. I then disabled AFP under Bonjour and so far things are working much better. I wrote a blog about it here.

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