Time Machine not detecting any changes

[Thank The Cheese]

I have Time Machine setup to backup my home directory. I first set it going last night and all worked fine (backed up ~30GB of stuff). Since then, however, it ticks down every hour, but when it gets there it does nothing. 13 hours later the "lastest backup" still reads yesterday evening, even though I know I have made many changes since then (going back in time machine reveals the new files added since then are not backed up; I've also used spotlight to check the backup disk directly and foudn the files were not there).

Moreover, I found that I can force a backup by clicking ont he Options button in TM prefs, then clicking OK, and this updates the "latest backup" date, but it only backs up around 7K of stuff -- leaving all my new files un-backed up.

I feel like I am standing with my pants down at the moment, as I"m not confident anything is being backed up. anyone know what might be happening?

using an External FW hard disk, which has 31GB free

 

[Thank The Cheese]

Hmm, seems to be working now all of a sudden. There were still a few folders, however, that remained not backed up. I managed to get TM to "see them" by going in and modifying 1 of the files, then saving over it to update the 'last modified' date. After I did that, TM saw it and backed up the whole folder.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps I was working on those folders while TM was doing its initial backup, and this confused its database. I don't recall what i was doing while it was backing up, so this may not be the case, but is the most plausible I can think of.

Anyway, thought I should post back incase other people are having similar issues. It may be a good idea for people to have a look to confirm their most important folders are being backed up when they first begin TM, and if not, use the workaround described above.