Hi everyone, I'm struggling with Time Machine backups to my Unraid server via SMB. It worked perfectly on my MacBook Air M2, but after switching to a MacBook Pro M1 Max (both running the same macOS version), it consistently fails. The Problem Time Machine creates the .incomplete bundle but fails when trying to rename it to .sparsebundle: Failed to rename '.../.incomplete' to '....sparsebundle', error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=513 "couldn't be moved because you don't have permission to access timemachine" NSUnderlyingError: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 "Permission denied" Backup failed: BACKUP_FAILED_DISK_IMAGE_NOT_CREATED (20) Environment Unraid 7.2.2 macOS Tahoe 26.1 (both MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M1 Max) SMB share on XFS array disk Same user account, same network What I've Tried (in order) 1. Basic Permission Adjustments Changed force user = nobody to force user = jonas Set create mask = 0600, directory mask = 0700 Result: Still failed 2. Removed Force User Removed force user and force group completely Changed to create mask = 0664, directory mask = 0775 Result: Manual mv .incomplete .sparsebundle now works, but Time Machine still fails 3. Disabled Unix Extensions Added unix extensions = no (globally and per-share) Result: No change 4. Case Sensitivity Set case sensitive = no, preserve case = yes Result: No change 5. Maximum Permissions guest ok = yes, create mask = 0777, directory mask = 0777 Disabled all ACL/permission inheritance Filesystem set to chmod 777 on Unraid Result: Still fails with same error Interesting Observations A test script that creates .incomplete folders and renames them: Fails without sudo (same "Permission denied" error) Succeeds with sudo Manual mv .incomplete .sparsebundle in Terminal works without sudo after permission adjustments Time Machine itself still cannot rename despite all permissions being wide open Current smb-extra.conf [global] unix extensions = no server multi channel support = no ea support = yes vfs objects = catia fruit streams_xattr fruit:metadata = stream fruit:posix_rename = yes [timemachine] path = /mnt/user/timemachine guest ok = yes writable = yes create mask = 0777 directory mask = 0777 force create mode = 0777 force directory mode = 0777 unix extensions = no case sensitive = no inherit permissions = no inherit acls = no store dos attributes = no vfs objects = catia fruit streams_xattr fruit:aapl = yes fruit:time machine = yes fruit:time machine max size = 2048G fruit:metadata = stream fruit:resource = file fruit:posix_rename = yes fruit:veto_appledouble = no fruit:wipe_intentionally_left_blank_rfork = yes fruit:delete_empty_adfiles = yes ea support = yes Why would this work on MacBook Air M2 but fail on MacBook Pro M1 Max with identical macOS version, user account, and network setup? Is there a specific Samba setting or macOS security difference between these machines that could cause this? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

There's a Samba bug in the release that comes with all 7.2.x Unraid versions (4.23.2) that breaks Time Machine Part of the bug was fixed in Samba 4.23.3, but there's an additional opath that hasn't yet been merged, the next Unraid release after that is out should resolve the issue, but if you need TM, now best bet for now is to downgrade to 7.1.4, https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15926

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Time Machine SMB Backup Fails with "Permission denied" on Rename

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Solved by JorgeB

December 4, 2025Dec 4

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February 9Feb 9

Having this identical issue and also wanted to check in and see if any update since early January - thanks

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3 weeks later...

February 25Feb 25

Community Expert

Please update to 7.2.4 and retest, it should be finally fixed there.

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Time Machine SMB Backup Fails with "Permission denied" on Rename

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