Time Machine stuck on "preparing backup"

I recently submit a case to WD support explaining my issue, but I thought I’d state my case here since this may be a Time Machine related issue and Apple is always a little hard to deal with…

Anyways, here’s the information I sent WD Support:

“I am having some issues with this registered product (Passport/Portable Hard Drive). I use a Macintosh computer, and I am trying to use the Time Machine Utility to perform another backup, but the backup status is stuck on “Preparing Backup”. I say “potential” in the subject though because I ran a Disk Verify using Disk Utility, and the disk appears to be in working order. The problem started this morning when the laptop it was connected to overnight lost power (the charging cable was not properly plugged in) and upon powering up the laptop, I got a notification saying the disk (my external) was not removed properly, despite it still being plugged in and accessible on the laptop.”

Now, here’s a new detail I can add (and I’ll tell support too when I get the chance…can’t seem to update the case description though…)

I tried plugging in my Passport to a different laptop that already had backups on the drive, and at first, it would say “Looking for Backup disk” when I tried to backup, and then it would stop, not giving me any message. So, I went into System Prefrences and reselected the backup disk, and things seemed to work fine, and yet, when I tried the same method on the laptop the Passport is primarily used for, it still gets stuck on “Preparing Backup.”

Any ideas?

1 Like

Hello,

Please check your private messages.

I’m not sure if you got notified, but the disk began working fine…until now, but I’ve pinpointed the problem. I was having issues with my laptop lagging. I was getting the pinwheel for  everything. This happened twice in the past few days, but it was only after I opened my laptop up. I usually leave it open due to certain things running on it. So, I had no choice but to hardboot the system. I couldn’t even force quit things…in hindsight though…probably had something to do with two web browsers being open, five Word Documents being open, amoung some other things that were constantly running…

So, after nearly freaking out about the long bootup time (when the reality was that the laptop was merely taking a while to reopen everything I had open at the time of hardbooting) I immediately quit everything but a couple of applications that I actually needed at the time, and opened up Disk Utility.

Here’s the connection to the issue. I ran Repair Disk Permissions, and the history on **bleep** Utility lit up all lines and lines of activity. There must’ve been well over a hundred lines of activity…anyways, I tried running a backup right after doing so, and once again, Time Machine was stuck on “Preparing Backup.” That’s when it clicked. I ran Repair Disk Permissions right before doing the backup last time.

Now, if things go the same way they did last time (I left the backup alone long enough, and it eventually got to backing things up) I’ll check the disk permissions and see if they changed.

Have the same issue of my passport getting stuck on “preparing backup”.
Can you share how you resolve the issue?
Thanks.