Open the Cadence menu first. It shows the disk status, the Time Machine mode, the last successful backup and the next scheduled one, which usually explains a skipped backup straight away.
The usual reasons
- The backup disk wasn’t mounted. Cadence only backs up to a disk that is really connected. Network backup disks aren’t supported yet.
- Your Mac was on battery with Only when on power on.
- An attempt ran recently. Cadence waits at least 20 minutes between attempts.
- Time Machine was switched back to Automatic. Cadence steps aside when Time Machine schedules itself. Switch back to Manual in the Cadence menu to hand the schedule back to Cadence.
- Setup isn’t finished. If the banner in the Cadence menu asks for a step, such as Full Disk Access, backups can’t start until it’s done.
A warning icon instead of the spinner
If the helper stops reporting for more than three minutes, Cadence shows a warning icon rather than pretend a backup is running. The banner in its menu offers to restart the helper. After an app update, Cadence may also ask to restart an outdated helper; that’s expected and needs no password.
Find the Cadence log
Choose the log from the Cadence menu, or open /Library/Logs/Cadence/cadence.log in Console or a text editor. It rotates at 1 MB. If none of the reasons above apply, attach the log to a support ticket and tell us your Cadence and macOS versions.