On one site, backup_migrate_files is creating file backups that include the backup_migrate directories, without regard for the fact that those directories are included in the exclusion list for the profile being used.

This occurs with both manual and scheduled backups using that profile.

The default list of excluded directories was as follows: 

backup_migrate
imagecache
css

These appear to be default settings, as I see them whenever I configure backup_migrate_files on a site.

Note also that these directories all have files in them.

This very quickly resulted in ballooning backup sizes and timeouts. I downloaded an archive and expanded it, to learn that not only had the backup included the backup_migrate directory and its children, but had include only directories in the files/backup_migrate hierarchy.

I amended the exclusion list as follows: 

backup_migrate
backup_migrate/manual
backup_migrate/scheduled
imagecache
css
js
xmlsitemap

After deleting the very large files, I ran a manual backup using that profile. The backup again included only files in the files/backup_migrate hierarchy.

I've compared the configuration with that of other sites running backup_migrate_files, and can't see any differences that look to me like they should be making a difference. What could I be missing?

(Dev version I'm running here is 2/28/2011, on top of Backup and Migrate 6.x-2.4 and Drupal 6.2.)