IMac freezes & Time Machine doesn't work anymore

Hello,
For several days now my trusty iMac (two years old) keeps freezing without a recognizable pattern. Programs like iTunes, iPhoto or maybe even the Finder just stop working and display only the rotating ball - the only thing left to do for me after that is to manually terminate that process or (in the case of the Finder) to restart the whole iMac. I'm really clueless as to where this behaviour suddenly comes from, up until about a week ago the iMac worked perfectly. And now something like this happens every single time I start it.
Another thing that doesn't work anymore is Time Machine. My last automatic backup is from September 17th. After that it just stopped working. Every time an automatic or manual backup is initiated it just says "Searching for backup volume" but doesn't find it, even after several hours of looking. The Time Capsule itself works perfectly, no errors whatsoever.
My iMac is up-to-date, I also already ran the disgnostics of the hard drive program - everything seems to be fine. Can anyone help me?
Thank you in advance,
Paul

When you next have the problem, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Scroll back in the log to the time you noted above. Select any messages timestamped from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat. Copy them to the Clipboard (command-C). Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

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