TIME MACHINE has recently failed to complete backups in macOS Monterey V 12.3.1 (21E258)

Hey lstanchappell,

Maintaining a current backup is very important! We don't recommend deleting those files as they could be needed by those apps. You'll want to reach out to those app developers to look into those files, and what's causing this to happen as shown here: If Time Machine on your Mac doesn’t back up certain files - Apple Support

We also thought you'd find this guide helpful regarding Time Machine: Time Machine troubleshooting on Mac - Apple Support

Thanks for participating in Apple Support Communities.

Take care!

Since you know the full paths, have you Entered Time Machine to see if they are there?

I don't think skipped files are anything other than that .... just skipped over. As far as I can tell, all the rest is backed up as usual. The one or two times I saw that, it made absolutely no difference when restoring the backups.

lstanchappell,

To clarify a few points, does the entire backup process stop after you see one of those alerts? Based on this text below from the article posted above, if the backup is otherwise completing, your data should be backed up other than the files referenced in the alert:

"In rare cases, Time Machine can’t back up software from companies other than Apple due to a setting made by that software. For more information, contact the manufacturer of the software."

We hope that helps. Take care.

lstanchappell wrote:

Thanks, TammyW_03, BUT I NEED TO KNOW if the Time Machine backup halts completely when it comes to a problematic file, or does it continue backing up the rest of the "normal" content, just noting the missed file? I have set Time Machine to skip the problematic file (which it is able to do if I exclude that file in "preferences/options") but on the next backup, it is disabled by yet another, similar obscure file, usually deep in my Library. If the backup is aborted completely, I need to stop using Time Machine and create a manual backup with another external drive, using a more useful app. Can you advise or comment, please?

I suggest that you test your Time Machine backups, something one should do now and then anyway.

After a Time Machine backups is done with one of messages indicating some files were not backed up, go into the Time Machine interface and restore a file from that latest backup, a file that did not return an error message. Choose a file that was added new or modified just prior to the backup and make sure that the newest version of the file is retired, which means it was indeed backed up.

It sounds like those error messages are more informative than indicative of backup failure. The backups have apparently succeeded but a small number of files (for whatever reason) did not get backed up. Those files do not look important to me.

I don't think anyone but Apple really understands the Time Machine algorithm and order that it backs up files in.

I've just had the same issue, with only the .leveldb file being the problem. Time Machine now won't complete any further backups. It starts the process then stops.

I could exclude the file from backups but I'd rather solve the problem.