Daughter's Backup Failed :-(

[rwross]

Hi Dave,

My daughter's Mac blew an error during this week's backup and I just now noticed. I tried to run it again, but the same error occurred. I copied the last few lines from the log in hopes you might have some idea what's up.


| 01:21:57 AM | Info | Re-copying: /private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3
| 01:22:12 AM | Info | Unable to read source file /private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3 due to error: 5, Input/output error
| 01:22:12 AM | Info | Error copying /private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3 to /Volumes/Tumnal Clone/private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3 of type 8 due to error 5
| 01:22:12 AM | Error | SDCopy: Error copying /private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3 to /Volumes/Tumnal Clone/private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist/00000000000004df.tracev3 of type 8 due to error 5
| 01:22:13 AM | Error | : Input/output error

[dnanian]

Yes, as the log indicates, it's a read error on the source. It looks like a failing drive.

Use Finder's Go To Folder command to open

/private/var/db/diagnostics/Persist

Once there, delete 00000000000004df.tracev3, empty your trash and try the copy again.

[rwross]

Thanks for the quick response, Dave. That's what I was afraid of. SMART status showed all was well, but SD! is usually a better, if unwanted, canary in the coal mine.

Going forward is that how I should interpret that line of the log. It seemed somewhat generic in that I assumed there might be multiple reasons for an "Input/Output" error.

I'm trying to delete the offending file now and see what happens.

[dnanian]

In the future, send the log with the "Send to shirt pocket" button and I can do some additional analysis that way...

[rwross]

Will do...

And I deleted the file as you suggested which did allow the backup to complete, so thanks for that!

I suspect her iMac is headed for a full disk failure at some point. It's pretty darn old so not sure if a repair makes sense :-(