Time Machine Losing Backups (But Disk Has Them)

[ajbrehm]

I was surprised today to find that the next usable backup according to Timemachine is from March.

Other dates show up in Timemachine but are not selectable. They are light-blue and only dark-blue dates are selectable.

The two most recent entries are "today" and "July 20" and the two most recent dark blue entries are "today" and "March 3".

I checked the Timemachine disk and it has a folder for July 20 and all the files are in there (using hard links, I think).

Why would Timemachine not recognise certain folder it had created? What would have happened if I had needed to restore from that point in time?

 

[ajbrehm]

After leaving Timemachine do whatever it wanted over night, I notice that it has added a few hourly backups (as it should), but that those backups are still not accessible.

In fact the Finder windows behind the Now window are black. And the arrow button brings me back to March 2.

Any ideas?

 

[ajbrehm]

Screenshots

Timemachine showing Now window and unusable recent backups:

http://www.netneurotic.net/bin/Picture1.jpg


Timemachine showing last unusable and first usable backup (March 2):

http://www.netneurotic.net/bin/Picture2.jpg


When I enter Timemachine all the windows behind the Now window turn dark and I cannot select them. On the disk itself all the backups/files/folders seem to be in order.