iCal sync not working - Mountain Lion

Thanks for the now functioning google sync. However, still not able to sync the calendar with ical - Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) 10.8.1.

nolsena36 wrote:Thanks for the now functioning google sync. However, still not able to sync the calendar with ical - Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) 10.8.1.

Not any help, just adding my voice to inability to sync with OS X 10.8.1

nolsena36 wrote:Thanks for the now functioning google sync. However, still not able to sync the calendar with ical - Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) 10.8.1.

For anyone that is having trouble syncing, it could be good to try an iCal validator (such as the one located here). You can take the sync URL for your calendar (looks like http://www.lds.org/church-calendar/serv ... scribe/<id>) and paste it in your browser's address bar. Then you can save the resulting file somewhere on your computer. Finally, use the validator to check the file.

If the file is valid, then I would suspect that the calendar you are trying to sync with has problems. Depending on how much patience you have, if you are willing and technically able to whittle down the resulting file, you might be able to gather some helpful information about which event(s) are causing the problem.

aebrown wrote:For anyone that is having trouble syncing, it could be good to try an iCal validator (such as the one located here). You can take the sync URL for your calendar (looks like http://www.lds.org/church-calendar/serv ... scribe/<id>) and paste it in your browser's address bar. Then you can save the resulting file somewhere on your computer. Finally, use the validator to check the file.

If the file is valid, then I would suspect that the calendar you are trying to sync with has problems. Depending on how much patience you have, if you are willing and technically able to whittle down the resulting file, you might be able to gather some helpful information about which event(s) are causing the problem.

Adding my voice to the Mac OSX 10.8.1 inability to sync. I tried the iCal validator tool as linked above. It returned an error:

Your calendar is using an invalid newline format. Make sure to use \r\n to end lines rather than just \n (RFC 2445 §4.1).
Sorry, your calendar could not be parsed.
Error: Error was: Error at line 1: Expected [-3], read [-1]

I sure hope this is fixed soon. I'm flying blind without my iCal sync in Mountain Lion. Please fix!

P.S. I also tried regenerating the sync URL on the lds.org calendar sync page. Didn't help.

Moderator note: Thread was broken off from Calendar 2.2.1 Updated as it is a different subject.

Has anyone tried downloading the iCal and then feeding it to the app? One of the big changes is that the updated system only allows one sync per hour. If for some reason Mountain Lion 10.8 is reading the URL more then once, that could be a problem.

aarontomlinson wrote:I tried the iCal validator tool as linked above. It returned an error:

Your calendar is using an invalid newline format. Make sure to use \r\n to end lines rather than just \n (RFC 2445 §4.1).
Sorry, your calendar could not be parsed.
Error: Error was: Error at line 1: Expected [-3], read [-1]

I got the exact same error - on my second sync of the hour. But when I fed it my iCal file I saved in my first sync, it was good. Remember, once you sync, you have to wait an hour before you can sync again.

aarontomlinson wrote:I tried the iCal validator tool as linked above. It returned an error:

Your calendar is using an invalid newline format. Make sure to use \r\n to end lines rather than just \n (RFC 2445 §4.1).
Sorry, your calendar could not be parsed.
Error: Error was: Error at line 1: Expected [-3], read [-1]

Did you actually follow the steps I gave to save the iCal file to your computer and then run the file through the validator? That's the only way I can get it to work. If I pass the URL to the validator it fails every time, and thus gives no useful information.

aebrown wrote:If I pass the URL to the validator it fails every time, and thus gives no useful information.

I tried it just now and it worked fine for me. But that was only because it had been over an hour since my last sync attempt.

RussellHltn wrote:I tried it just now and it worked fine for me. But that was only because it had been over an hour since my last sync attempt.

Thanks for clarifying that. I guess in my earlier testing I didn't pay sufficient attention to the timing of my tests.

It appears that the validator I linked to doesn't handle zero-length data very well. The message "Error: Error was: Error at line 1: Expected [-3], read [-1]" isn't exactly the clearest message that the validator received no data.

So those who are reporting that particular error need to be aware that any attempt to sync starts the clock, and you won't be able to sync again for another hour. That "attempt to sync" includes entering your sync URL in your browser to attempt to download an iCal file, passing the URL to a validator, a sync that you configured with another system (Google, Outlook, iCal, etc.) happens to kick in (note that you may not control that timing). Unless you're certain that no sync attempt has happened in the last hour, getting that error message doesn't tell you much.

I just tried syncing my ward calendar with ical, and I get the following error:

Your Calendar couldn't be refreshed. There was an unexpected error with the request on subscribed calendars (error -1).

Any suggestions? I've read through this thread, but can't seem to figure out the once an hour syncing issues that my be plaguing my attempts. TIA

csneddon wrote:Your Calendar couldn't be refreshed. There was an unexpected error with the request on subscribed calendars (error -1).

Is this during the setup phase or on a system where the calendar has already been set up.

Do you have any control over how often the system checks for updates? Because the new system only allows one update an hour for all of your devices.

I'm confused too. In iCal preferences it says refresh every...(I can select every minute) minute, I guess this is different than "sync. I've always been able to sync my wards calendar in iCal. Whats up? Is this the church's problem, or Mt Lion's? WHEN will it be fixed. And I dont get how to "save " the ical "file when pasting the URL generated sync, into my browser. I get nothing on that page. (I'm in Safari). HOW do you save something thats not there? What am I doing wrong? Will this (if you can better explain your technique to make it work) FIX this problem? I NEED to make this work, please help Scott

ssnow92253 wrote:I'm confused too. In iCal preferences it says refresh every...(I can select every minute) minute, I guess this is different than "sync. I've always been able to sync my wards calendar in iCal. Whats up?

You obtain your personal sync URL from the Sync page under Settings in the LDS.org Calendar. Anytime you or any system accesses that URL, that is what the LDS.org calendar calls a "sync." Currently you can only do a sync once per hour. That's a temporary measure, but we don't know how long it will be in place.

So if you have configured your iCal preferences to sync every minute, or ten minutes, or 30 minutes, those sync operations will fail. You should set your sync to happen every 120 minutes or more (something very safely larger than 60 minutes).

ssnow92253 wrote:Is this the church's problem, or Mt Lion's? WHEN will it be fixed.

It's a problem with the way the Church's calendar system is doing the synchronization. The developers haven't figured out the exact problem yet. But one thing that is definitely making things worse is when people configure their third-party calendars (such as your iCal) to refresh too often. That puts unnecessary strain on the Church servers. Church calendars are not changing very often, so a refresh once a day should keep you quite reasonably up to date and configuring it that way will reduce strain on Church servers.

I know the developers are working on this problem, but I haven't heard any specific date they expect it to be fixed.

ssnow92253 wrote:And I dont get how to "save " the ical "file when pasting the URL generated sync, into my browser. I get nothing on that page. (I'm in Safari). HOW do you save something thats not there? What am I doing wrong? Will this (if you can better explain your technique to make it work) FIX this problem?

Saving the iCal file is really just a troubleshooting step. It won't fix anything. The fact that your iCal is accessing the sync URL frequently is making it so you can't save your iCal file. But don't worry about figuring out how to do the save -- since it won't actually fix anything, there's no reason for you to make the effort to figure it out.

Refresh, sync, in this case it's the same thing. You can NOT refresh more often then once an hour. ANY attempt by any means to do it more often will result in a blank file. I'd suggest you set your refresh rate to once every 4 hours or more. To leave room for any other devices you own to be able to sync.

It's not going to work if you keep on trying. You've got one chance, then you have to wait an hour.

I need to add a note in the calendar help about manually setting your synchronization in iCal on Mountain Lion to once every 120 minutes. However, I don't have Mountain Lion. Can someone list the steps for manually setting that sync interval?

Thanks,

Tom

Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro and just upgraded to Mountain Lion (10.8.2) today. Here are the steps to set it to a manual sync, because there is not a choice to have it automatically sync less frequently than an hour (the only automatic interval options are every minute, 5, 15, 30, and 60). So to set it to manual:

Calendar --> Preferences --> Accounts --> [select the "Refresh Calendars:" list of values to "Manually"]

I have the LDS calendar subscription link in my MacBook Pro iCal, in my iPhone calendar, and in my iPad calendar, so it looks like I'm going to have to set all of them to manual in order to avoid the once-per-hour limit, and then try not to refresh any two of them (manually) less than an hour apart!

Hi everyone, I would like to add my experience and seek help. I have 0S 10.8.1 Mountain Lion on a MacBook Pro.

Sometime in August the following two events occurred to my subscribed LDS calendar: a) the calendar would not refresh properly, an exclamation mark in a triangle was shown next to the calendar name (I assume from information in this thread this was caused by the once-per-hour refresh limit); b) all events prior to August disappeared. No-one has mentioned the disappearing events problem - has anyone else noticed this?

This occurred when version 2.2 was introduced - before then it worked fine. It also coincided with the release of Mountain Lion which I thought might be a factor, but since my other calendars work OK, I assume the Church calendar upgrade is the problem.

To try and fix it, I generated a new sync URL, deleted my existing subscribed calendar, then created a new calendar with the new URL. Result: a completely blank calendar. I set it to refresh once per day, so there is no one-hour limit issue, but still no events show. Interestingly, no matter what name I choose for the the new calendar in the setup dialogue box, when it appears in the calendar list it displays the name of the old calendar - is there an information cache somewhere that I need to clear?

Incidentally, it might be helpful if a brief message was displayed on the Church calendar sync page - I assume people worldwide are tearing their hair out over this, not realising its a universal problem.

Craig

boliviakid wrote:Here are the steps to set it to a manual sync, because there is not a choice to have it automatically sync less frequently than an hour

I'm sure many will thank you for that. Good information to have. Interesting that you can't go more then a hour before an automatic refresh. I've been pretty happy with the once a day sync that I get via my Gmail account.

marshallcl wrote:all events prior to August disappeared. No-one has mentioned the disappearing events problem - has anyone else noticed this?

I haven't noticed, but since the changes were made to control the server load, it wouldn't surprise me but what "past" events, or at least "distant past" events are not synced.

marshallcl wrote:I set it to refresh once per day, so there is no one-hour limit issue, but still no events show.

I assume you are subscribed to a calendar with events - is there another device syncing that may be blocking you? Remember, the once a hour limit is for all devices that use that URL.

marshallcl wrote:Interestingly, no matter what name I choose for the the new calendar in the setup dialogue box, when it appears in the calendar list it displays the name of the old calendar - is there an information cache somewhere that I need to clear?

With Google, I found it memorized the URL and I couldn't change the name or settings until I generated a new URL. I know you said you generated a new one, but I'm not sure of the sequence of events.

Thank you for your comments, RussellHltn. I have an update: after leaving all devices in my household (2 iPhones, an iPad, 2 MacBook pros) idle for a carefully measured hour, events have re-appeared in my MBP laptop. Clearly my blank calendar was a result of one or more other devices syncing less than an hour previous. However, in ALL my devices events prior to mid-August 2012 are still missing.

Thank you everyone for supporting each other and getting clarification on this issue. From this thread it has become quite evident that we need to review the allowed sync interval. We'll be discussing it today. If the decision is to change then it will go out with our next update which will be coming very soon.

Just for conversation what interval do y'all feel would be reasonable and useful?

As an update to my post yesterday, I turned off all subscriptions to my LDS calendar on all my devices last night. Like "marshallcl" mentioned in a previous post, when I was getting the error I deleted the LDS calendar entry in my MacBook Pro and couldn't add it back in. So this morning I was able to add it back successfully (no error message), but none of the calendar entries have appeared yet.

Interestingly, when I added it, it did give me the option of "Once a day", which was different than going into the settings for an existing calendar.

So, still no LDS calendar entries, but I'll give it an hour and do a manual refresh to see if it will pull them in.

kyleq wrote:Just for conversation what interval do y'all feel would be reasonable and useful?

It's hard to say. In my case the one-hour sync limit is only a problem with multiple devices since one can prevent others from updating, otherwise it would be okay. In fact, now I am aware of the issue it isn't really a problem. Perhaps 15 minutes or possibly 30 minutes minimum - with a default setting of daily?

[Moderator note: This post originally also raised a separate subject, which is now in the separate thread Sync only goes back 30 days.]

kyleq wrote:
Just for conversation what interval do y'all feel would be reasonable and useful?

I not 100% sure but the behavior I seem to be seeing is that in just trying to subscribe with Apple's iCal on my MacBook Pro, as soon as you enter the URL in the subscribe process it seems to "ping" the calendar server to make sure it's there. When I go to the calendar there are no entries - perhaps because it's then trying to pull the data but since it's not been an hour since the last query it can't do it?

I can understand the load that may be placed unnecessarily on the servers by people checking their calendars every minute or every five minutes (which, for a church calendar, is certainly unnecessary for nearly everyone) but the side effects are painful and not user friendly, especially for those who subscribe directly from multiple devices. I still don't have my calendar back on my MBP, only on the iPhone and iPad at the moment. It's a mess trying to figure out how to sync and when to do it to avoid the access limitation.

Please give serious consideration to lifting the timeout period all together with some strong recommendations on the Sync page that users set the frequency to once a day or at a minimum once an hour.

I've spent a lot of time on this since the change, just trying to get it to work again. Mandatory limits on the connection frequency don't work well with the tools we have today and makes for a very frustrating and confusing experience - compared to what was a totally successful and uneventful process before.

RussellHltn wrote:One of the big changes is that the updated system only allows one sync per hour.

Please document this information on the Calendar sync page.

Based on the feedback in this thread we've adjusted the request period to a minimum of 9 mins. We feel like we'll still get the performance protections we need with this interval and hopefully provide users with the flexibility needed. You guys are spectacular! Thank you very much for your feedback and willingness to help us out. It means a lot and carries a lot of weight in our discussions about how to improve the product.

RussellHltn wrote:One of the big changes is that the updated system only allows one sync per hour.

So what happens if I have, for example, 2 GMail accounts each with their own calendar and each having imported by URL my LDS calendar? Won't they both try to sync and only one succeeds per hour? Or if I want to sync my LDS calendar with Outlook and my iTouch, wouldn't that conflict as well?

It seems like you could limit the sync per hour to a particular device, or requester. It would be nice for developers like me who want to integrate the calendar sync into 3rd party apps to at least be able to sync with different browsers each once in the same hour. Even better would be to reduce the hour limit to 20-30 minutes. Thanks.

aebrown wrote:For me personally, I have no problem with the 30 day limit. I am constantly looking forward, but rarely looking back. I can see why you might want more than 30 days, but a full year seems overly generous. In any case, the developers need to strike the right balance between usability and performance -- it's a tricky problem.

I suppose for many users this is true; not everyone needs to look back more than a month or so; but sit in a planning meeting for next year's ward or stake calendar and in five minutes the need to look back at least a full year is obvious. Indeed, in a multitude of leadership roles the need to check the date of a previous event or meeting occurs frequently. Of course, one can always check online, where all past events are still available, but that requires an internet connection which is not always available and is less convenient. I suppose it is tricky striking the right balance, but for my personal needs the minimum is a full year of back entries; though ideally I would prefer the current year plus the previous year.

I have followed this and related threads carefully and contributed a few times. Last week I decided to delete my subscriptions and start from scratch including a new URL. What a frustrating and perplexing experience! My household setup: my wife's MacBook Pro, my own MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad - four devices in all. We share our calendar which is hosted in iCloud. We use OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) and iOS 6.0. The system was smooth and flawless until calendar version 2.2 appeared in August. Note in the following account that I carefully monitored calendar use on all devices to avoid the 1-hour sync limit since I didn't know when this would be changed to 9 minutes (this was a painstaking chore). My experience:

1. I could not get the Apple calendar on my laptop to accept an LDS calendar subscription - after pasting the URL it attempted to connect but gave an error message. After 8 or 9 attempts over most of a day it suddenly, inexplicably worked and the subscribed calendar was set up (I didn't do anything different from previous attempts).
2. Although the subscription was now set up, it would not sync any events - it was an empty calendar. I continued to attempt syncing for two full days, then like the subscription it suddenly worked and my stake and ward events appeared.
3. The subscription was finally successful on my wife's laptop, but the calendar is still empty after three or four days of trying! We just get a message saying the LDS calendar can't be refreshed.
4. The iPad and iPhone sync more easily than the MBPs - so even while the calendar was empty on my laptop the iPad and iPhone picked up the events. They also seem to refresh more easily - test events I insert in the ward calendar appear quickly in the iPad but take hours if not days to appear in my laptop.
5. Even though the sync limit is now 9 minutes, most of the time, including when using my laptop in the morning after all devices have been switched off overnight, there is an exclamation triangle next to the subscribed calendar, indicating that a refresh is not possible. Manual syncing appears to work randomly and is certainly not possible at 9 minute intervals.
6. Thinking the problem might be something to do with using iCloud as host, I removed the subscriptions from iCloud, and located them on the local device, but the same issues persisted.
7. All our other calendars sync without difficulty and almost instantly - the problems ONLY occur with LDS calendar.

HELP!!! For my family at present LDS calendar is a time consuming challenge - yet it used to be an easy, helpful and time-saving tool.

marshallcl wrote: 3. The subscription was finally successful on my wife's laptop, but the calendar is still empty after three or four days of trying! We just get a message saying the LDS calendar can't be refreshed.

Update: First thing this morning I opened Calendar on my wife's laptop, and all the LDS calendar entries appeared - five days after the subscription was set up! I did the same thing on previous mornings, and periodically during each day - I did nothing different this morning, simply switched on the computer and opened Calendar.

I opened Calendar on my own laptop (more than 9 minutes after turning my wife's off) and test entries which I inserted in our ward calendar yesterday morning, which have appeared in my wife's calendar do not appear in mine. "Info" in my Calendar informs me that the last update for LDS calendar on my computer was two days ago, on Tuesday, even though I have it set for "daily" automatic updates and have attempted several manual updates as well.

Our stake calendar changes month by month and sometimes week by week so this unpredictability is a major issue; I can never be quite sure if I have the latest information or not.

You've really done some excellent testing here. To be honest I'm not exactly sure what is the root cause of the issue here whether it's still a timing problem or if there is something more sinister like an issue with the actual sync code itself. I'll be trying to replicate your issues with it over the next several days. If anyone else can report about success or failure please let me know. Especially with the iOS products.

My suggestion would be to turn off all syncing and manually use the URL to retrieve the file. Verify that you can retrieve every 9 minutes. If not, then either the 9 minute limit isn't working, or there's still something syncing that you haven't found and turned off.

I am trying to write a program which will regularly (once a day) downfile the .ics file and compare it with the prior downloaded file and report the differences (new events, changed events, removed events).

Does anyone know if the once per hour download time is per device or once per unique weblink?

The reason I am asking if because I use the link for both my Google Calendar, in iOS and also through my program and if the download of once per hour for all my devices/programs then its a problem for me as I cant know when the other devices last did an update.

kennethjorgensen wrote:Does anyone know if the once per hour download time is per device or once per unique weblink?

The limit is not once per hour -- it is once per 9 minutes. But it is indeed a limit for the link. If Device A accesses the sync URL at 10:00, then no other device can access it until after 10:09; if Device B then accesses it at 10:10, then no other device can access it until after 10:19, etc.

Thanks for the clarification. I will have to think about how to tackle that.

I'd suggest a twofold strategy:

1) Minimize the number of calls made by various devices. You don't have control over Google calendar, but I find it to be about once a day. I assume you can set the frequency in iOS.

2) Have your program detect a failed result and try again in 9 minutes.

Thanks Russell, nice to see my thoughts written up

I think its my iPad I need to update much less frequent as even putting the link into the browser only returns a file sometimes and the same is the case in .NET where it returns a null most times.