Hang during Smart Update

[hoodsmom]

Well, it happened again. I keep most of my data on an external nonboot drive and that's what I back up regularly - almost daily to my "usual" backup target and every month or two or three to a 2nd backup target. I am having no trouble backing up my to "usual" backup target, but when I tried to back up to the volume that was last duplicated (without incident) in September or so, SD! hung (and wouldn't quit when I canceled the duplication). I tried again, no joy and had to force quit. I paid enough attention to Activity Monitor to see 0 disk reads or writes at the time of the hang. I was able to guess at where SD! hung, so I manually copied the suspect folder, which had very little info. The suspect folder is a subfolder of the folder I had problems in in September, but the latter (parent) folder is also the one that is most heavily changed. Then I repeated the backup - SD! seemed a little slow as it approached the point at which it had been hanging, but it got thru the process. I used DiskWarrior to check the directories of both the source and target volumes and didn't find anything terribly unusual and I surface scanned both the source and target drives with TechTool and didn't find bad blocks.

The SD! log isn't very helpful - just says it was working on the suspect's parent folder at the time of the hang.
My source drive is less than a year old. The target drive is a probably a little older than a year (I had a problem with the case when the drive was about 6 mos old, sent it back and I think all they did was replace the case). My computer shouldn't be sleeping during the backup and I try not to involve the backup volume in any active processes other than SD! when I'm backing up. I do, however, have the box that says "put hard drives to sleep when possible," checked in the Energy Saver settings.

My hang log says:

September
Date/Time: 2010-09-09 14:48:32 -0700
OS Version: 10.5.8 (Build 9L31a)
Architecture: i386
Report Version: 4

Command: SuperDuper!
Path: /Applications/SuperDuper!2.6.2.app/Contents/MacOS/SuperDuper!
Version: 2.6.2 (87)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: SuperDuper!
Source Version: 933
Parent: launchd [85]

PID: 290
Event: hang
Time: 10.36s
Steps: 68

yesterday - first try
Date/Time: 2010-10-30 22:17:01 -0700
OS Version: 10.5.8 (Build 9L31a)
Architecture: i386
Report Version: 4

Command: SuperDuper!
Path: /Applications/SuperDuper!2.6.2.app/Contents/MacOS/SuperDuper!
Version: 2.6.2 (87)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: SuperDuper!
Source Version: 933
Parent: launchd [86]

PID: 2240
Event: hang
Time: 47.17s
Steps: 409

second try
Date/Time: 2010-10-30 22:37:24 -0700
OS Version: 10.5.8 (Build 9L31a)
Architecture: i386
Report Version: 4

Command: SuperDuper!
Path: /Applications/SuperDuper!2.6.2.app/Contents/MacOS/SuperDuper!
Version: 2.6.2 (87)
Build Version: 2
Project Name: SuperDuper!
Source Version: 933
Parent: launchd [115]

PID: 318
Event: hang
Time: 10.63s
Steps: 72

and my console messages screened for anything having to do with SD! say
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;9:31:35 PM SuperDuper![2240] line number: 2
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;9:31:35 PM [0x0-0x15d15d].com.blacey.SuperDuper![2240] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;9:31:37 PM [0x0-0x15d15d].com.blacey.SuperDuper![2240] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:17:47 PM com.apple.launchd[86] ([0x0-0x15d15d].com.blacey.SuperDuper![2240]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 2431 PPID 2430 system_profiler
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:17:47 PM com.apple.launchd[86] ([0x0-0x15d15d].com.blacey.SuperDuper![2240]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 2430 PPID 1 bash
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:17:47 PM com.apple.launchd[86] ([0x0-0x15d15d].com.blacey.SuperDuper![2240]) Exited: Terminated
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:24 PM SuperDuper![318] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:24 PM SuperDuper![318] line number: 2
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:25 PM SuperDuper![318] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:25 PM SuperDuper![318] line number: 2
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:24 PM [0x0-0x29029].com.blacey.SuperDuper![318] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:31:29 PM [0x0-0x29029].com.blacey.SuperDuper![318] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:37:33 PM com.apple.launchd[115] ([0x0-0x29029].com.blacey.SuperDuper![318]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 374 PPID 373 system_profiler
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:37:33 PM com.apple.launchd[115] ([0x0-0x29029].com.blacey.SuperDuper![318]) Stray process with PGID equal to this dead job: PID 373 PPID 1 bash
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:37:33 PM com.apple.launchd[115] ([0x0-0x29029].com.blacey.SuperDuper![318]) Exited: Terminated
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:55 PM SuperDuper![472] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:55 PM SuperDuper![472] line number: 2
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:55 PM SuperDuper![472] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:55 PM SuperDuper![472] line number: 2
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:55 PM [0x0-0x39039].com.blacey.SuperDuper![472] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/30/10 Sat, 10/30;10:48:59 PM [0x0-0x39039].com.blacey.SuperDuper![472] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:53 AM SuperDuper![243] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:53 AM SuperDuper![243] line number: 2
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:53 AM SuperDuper![243] .sdef error: Operation could not be completed. (NSXMLParserErrorDomain error 1549.)
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:53 AM SuperDuper![243] line number: 2
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:53 AM [0x0-0x35035].com.blacey.SuperDuper![243] crontab: no crontab for myname
10/31/10 Sun, 10/31;9:18:55 AM [0x0-0x35035].com.blacey.SuperDuper![243] crontab: no crontab for myname


got any suggestions for me?
SD 2.6.2 v87, Mac OS 10.5.8

PS - Dave, the two of us have never been able to figure out why SD! doesn't quit automatically on my machine, if that means anything.