Timeshift on btrfs

General system Newbie
1

I’m having some issue’s with timeshift on btrfs, I want to have the recovery from grub, thus rsync is not an option.
Something seems to be wrong with my target subvolume or the mounting of it by timeshift ?
In full disclosure, this is a fresh EOS install, except I moved the subvolumes (all) to a different btrfs partition, with a btrfs snapshot and restore, don’t think it should matter though.

$ sudo timeshift --create --comments “Top_Level_Fixed” --tags D
Using system disk as snapshot device for creating snapshots in BTRFS mode
Mounted ‘/dev/nvme0n1p5’ (subvolid=0) at ‘/run/timeshift/10293/backup’
Creating new backup…(BTRFS)
Saving to device: /dev/nvme0n1p5, mounted at path: /run/timeshift/10293/backup
Created directory: /run/timeshift/10293/backup/timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2025-11-15_18-22-49
E: ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Text file busy

E: btrfs returned an error: 256
E: Failed to create subvolume snapshot: @
Failed to create snapshot

$ timeshift --version
Timeshift 25.07.7

$ sudo btrfs subvolume list /
ID 257 gen 416797 top level 5 path @home
ID 4121 gen 416797 top level 5 path @
ID 4124 gen 416765 top level 5 path @cache
ID 4126 gen 416797 top level 5 path @log
ID 4128 gen 405795 top level 4121 path var/lib/portables
ID 4129 gen 405795 top level 4121 path var/lib/machines
ID 4135 gen 406191 top level 4121 path swap

(I have already disabled cache and log mounts, make no difference)

If anybody has an idea about what to try or how to fix, feel free, I tried a few things already, but I’m a bit out of clue what is the issue here. Thank you :smiley:

2

Are you using a swapfile? If you are, make sure your swapfile is in it’s own subvolume. You can’t take a snapshot of a subvolume with a swapfile in it.

3

Good point, but I should be good on this front, let me include my blkid for more clearity:

blkid
/dev/nvme0n1p7: UUID=“b36283bc-7d51-4e29-9adc-2a5a8e89b036” UUID_SUB=“4497c78f-ee65-459f-80dc-1c9ed5e4cbff” BLOCK_SIZE=“4096” TYPE=“btrfs” PARTUUID=“c619cc93-55cc-49fe-981c-f101e9f1e8bc”
/dev/nvme0n1p5: UUID=“1e9c91f1-0ad8-4cfc-9032-38ed91faa053” UUID_SUB=“0bc18ded-46a3-4886-88b6-a11cdeeccfc4” BLOCK_SIZE=“4096” TYPE=“btrfs” PARTUUID=“33b168f8-1701-4e3b-abd3-da86c71d0871”
/dev/nvme0n1p3: BLOCK_SIZE=“512” UUID=“D4E66DE5E66DC876” TYPE=“ntfs” PARTLABEL=“Basic data partition” PARTUUID=“22f9c2a2-4ecd-4616-9c51-4892f9eb9d51”
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID=“8465-A2AF” BLOCK_SIZE=“512” TYPE=“vfat” PARTLABEL=“EFI System Partition” PARTUUID=“0f97a544-97aa-489e-a321-89a1aa871ca3”
/dev/nvme0n1p6: BLOCK_SIZE=“512” UUID=“54FED50BFED4E670” TYPE=“ntfs” PARTUUID=“1c4b8327-3a5e-441e-aab2-896ea70ff4f2”
/dev/nvme0n1p4: BLOCK_SIZE=“512” UUID=“F86E207F6E203930” TYPE=“ntfs” PARTUUID=“6201eb70-a269-41a8-80eb-ba11ee13c333”
/dev/nvme0n1p2: PARTUUID=“34d2a656-0ce3-407c-94ea-17db9896c77c”
/dev/sda1: LABEL=“MyPassportUltra” UUID=“12272715-dc91-4494-a99f-82b46a5a853b” BLOCK_SIZE=“4096” TYPE=“ext4” PARTLABEL=“My Passport Ultra” PARTUUID=“c110247f-5de4-4103-a7f5-bae2b93fad6d”
4

That doesn’t really provide any more clarity. What matters is do you have a swap file on that btrfs partition?

Either way, I would try taking a snapshot manually and see if it works or what error you get.

sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot / /snaptest
5

Giving me the same error indeed:
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot / /snaptest
ERROR: Could not create subvolume: Text file busy

Ah I think this would be more like the required info, so yes I guess?
$ sudo btrfs subvolume list /
ID 257 gen 417165 top level 5 path @home
ID 4121 gen 417165 top level 5 path @
ID 4124 gen 416765 top level 5 path @cache
ID 4126 gen 417165 top level 5 path @log
ID 4128 gen 405795 top level 4121 path var/lib/portables
ID 4129 gen 405795 top level 4121 path var/lib/machines
ID 4135 gen 406191 top level 4121 path swap

6

Oh yeah, that was it I guess:

$ sudo swapoff /swapfile

$ sudo timeshift --create --comments “Top_Level_Fixed” --tags D
Using system disk as snapshot device for creating snapshots in BTRFS mode
Mounted ‘/dev/nvme0n1p5’ (subvolid=0) at ‘/run/timeshift/69411/backup’
Creating new backup…(BTRFS)
Saving to device: /dev/nvme0n1p5, mounted at path: /run/timeshift/69411/backup
Created directory: /run/timeshift/69411/backup/timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2025-11-15_21-46-34
Created subvolume snapshot: /run/timeshift/69411/backup/timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2025-11-15_21-46-34/@
Created control file: /run/timeshift/69411/backup/timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2025-11-15_21-46-34/info.json
BTRFS Snapshot saved successfully (0s)
Tagged snapshot ‘2025-11-15_21-46-34’: ondemand

thank you

:star_struck: