Time Machine backup problems [View all]

Anyone else having these? Time Machine stalls either very early in the process or very late in the backup process. After checking many possibilities (bad backup drives, bad FireWire connector, Mac hard drive errors) I surmised that a recent Software Update (OS to 10.7.5, iTunes?, Safari, Microsoft Office) may contain a glitch. I called Apple and they asked me to send them some diagnostic info that allegedly their engineers are examining. They said other users have reported some Time Machine issues but were not clear about whether they were the same as mine.

Still no answer from Apple's engineers yet. I'm getting nervous because one of our Macs is old and the drive could go at any time so we like to keep the backups current (had a crash several years ago with only partial backups and wasted a lot of time), but realize I can't do anything but wait. I was just curious and/or wanted to warn people to watch out for this.