Automated time machine’s backups should be a “set it and forget about it” strategy. Once macOS is activated, you only warn you when something goes wrong. No warnings and – almost always – the backups are still right. (MacOS is automatically running verification tests on the time machine’s maker, or you can perform a manual.)
A Macworld reader began receiving this message on their laptop Mac and needed help to diagnose it:
No backups for x days
The latest backup did not end because your computer was running on battery.
This warning appears unlikely when their laptop is connected to power. They tried to perform a manual backup and were also told that their machine was on battery power and the backup could not be completed.
This message may be exactly for some users, but it often appears in the wrong circumstances. To add confusion, the alarm sometimes occurs after a successful Time Machine Backup, confusing users for why it appeared at all.
Here are a few things to try to stop the alarm from appearing, even if you may not find any work.
Driving problem
If you connect a drive directly to your laptop or use a network time machine backup, some users have found that the battery alarm appears when time machine volume has an error. Run the disk tool and repair of time machine volume.
Because the time machine maintains an active state of quantities it uses, you may need to disable the time machine (in System Settings > General > Time machine) to repair a backup volume.
Optimized charging or low power mode active
Optimized charging on Apple -Bearing Computers is trying to expand the life of the battery by monitoring your behavior over time. If patterns develop Mac off charging for commuting or daily work.
Keeping a battery of 80 percent of the potential charge reduces unnecessary heating, but it can also interfere with the backups of the time machine. A laptop can “think”, it uses a battery charge even when connected. Deactivation of optimized power in System Settings > Battery By clicking on the Info (I) icon to the right of battery health. Disable Optimized battery charging. The alternation potentially affects the long -term capacity and life of your battery.
Low power state can also be a guilty. Make sure you have set to low effect Never or Only on battery In the Battery Settings panel.
Battery power on network volume
If you back up your Mac to a drive attached to another Mac on the network, that Mac may not be on battery power, nor can Mako’s think it is. If the network destination is a laptop, be sure to test the change settings above on it as well.
Enable the time machine’s backups on battery power
The above -mentioned alarm appears to be in accordance with the Time Machine setting in System Settings > General > Time machine When you click Settings: “Backups on battery power.” Once this setting is off, you would expect backups of time machines not to occur when the laptop is not connected to power.
Conversely, if the setting is turned on, Time Machine must perform backups even when using battery power. This can eliminate the error and warn this column is about – but not all users have found that the change of the setting does.
None of the above can solve the problem
Unfortunately, even after you have made all the changes above, you cannot be sure that the alarm will disappear or that backups will end. That is the case for the correspondent who wrote with this question. Reports about this problem at least dates MacOS 13 Ventura (autumn 2022), so it can be a persistent, erratic bug that Apple still needs to lead or provide more guidance to users when it looks.
What you can do when you see this alarm after undergoing troubleshooting in this column is to use Time Machine Menulijonen to notice when the last backup took place. If you don’t see this icon, go to System Settings > Control center and under Only menu bar Settings, Select Show in the menu bar for time machine. Even then, some backups may still fail and argue irregularly that your laptop is using battery power.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question presented by the Macworld reader Robert.
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