Time Machine causing kernel panics

[Monday, May 12th]

Several users are experiencing an issue in which kernel panics occur when Time Machine backups are being pushed to Time Capsule units or, in fewer cases, locally attached drives. Initial analysis reveals that the sparsebundle, used to by Time Machine to store backed up data, is somehow becoming corrupt.

In some cases, deleting the sparsebundle on the Time Capsule seems to help (temporarily), but the problem leading to the sparsebundle getting corrupted in the first place still remains. Unfortunately a true fix will probably require a software/firmware update from Apple.

One user claims that mounting the sparsebundle in the finder causes  the system to kernel panic:

"I also tried mounting the sparsebundle by finder, and the computer  did in fact crash."

However, another user, posting to this Apple Discussions thread, claims his machine is able to mount the sparsebundle via Time Machine during the backups and he is able to browser them  in the Finder, but the machine still crashes.

"Jazzhead" writes: "...when a backup starts, and the drive appears mounted on the  desktop, I can open it, navigate into my backup series, and see a list  of items that have dates and times as identifiers..."

Some users are able to remove "inprogress" file and get the backups working again. This indicates  there may be two errors at play: one being the mounting of the drive for and the other being with the access of  corrupt backups on the drive.

If you are experiencing this issue, try removing the most  recent individual backups, or ditching the whole sparsebundle and starting the backups over again.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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