Calendar sync issues

Sorry, I apologize if this isn't the forum to ask.

I tried to follow all the instructions on the sync page, and my Google calendar lists my church calendar, but no events show up--at all.

I've migrated all our events over the new.lds.org calendar, and it is full of colorful entries.

Thanks for any help,
D.G.

duanegrasse wrote:Sorry, I apologize if this isn't the forum to ask.

I tried to follow all the instructions on the sync page, and my Google calendar lists my church calendar, but no events show up--at all.

I've migrated all our events over the new.lds.org calendar, and it is full of colorful entries.

Thanks for any help,
D.G.

I have had the same problem with Google calendar syncing ICAL calendars,
I did some searching some time ago and found many complaints about Google calendars inability to stay synced with non Google calendars.

Thunderbird doesn't have a problem, both new and updated events show right away.

Have tried with no success to sync new calendar to google calendar and to outlook. Does anyone know if there is a solution to this or if there is one in the works. Outlook gives error..."cannot verify or add calendar to Outlook. Make sure the following is a valid calendar link...". Google Calendar says "Failed to import calendar from "http://..." or does nothing and just no events appear. Have tried with Firefox and IE8

sls wrote:Have tried with no success to sync new calendar to google calendar and to outlook. Does anyone know if there is a solution to this or if there is one in the works. Outlook gives error..."cannot verify or add calendar to Outlook. Make sure the following is a valid calendar link...". Google Calendar says "Failed to import calendar from "http://..." or does nothing and just no events appear. Have tried with Firefox and IE8

I was just able to import to OL2007 and Google Calendar without issues. Are you trying it from work behind a firewall or with an older version of OL? When trying to import to OL using IE8 you should get three different prompts prior to the actual import. Is this what happens for you?

I'm interested in your success with google--any ideas why it doesn't work with some of us?

I didn't have much luck with OL (2007) til recently, and it seems to work OK.
However, my google calendar looks like it doesn't even try!
D.G.

kyleq wrote:I was just able to import to OL2007 and Google Calendar without issues. Are you trying it from work behind a firewall or with an older version of OL? When trying to import to OL using IE8 you should get three different prompts prior to the actual import. Is this what happens for you?

I added the feed for the church-calendar to my Google apps calendar. I can't see it though. It doesn't even sync with my iPad's exchange account.

Should this work or is there a known bug?

That could be related to a long-standing issue with Google Calendar (not the lds.org feed). "Other Calendars" are notoriously slow to update... sometimes it takes 6 - 24 hours to refresh. The manual refresh button does not refresh calendars that were added by URL (like the lds feed).

You should at least be able to see the calendar in your Google Calendar.

On your iPad, why are you using the exchange account? Can't you use apple's iCal app?

I have subscribed and re-subscribed my google calendar to the sync link from the lds.org new calendar. Weeks ago. Still nothing.
It works about half the time in Outlook.
It doesn't show anything on my phone.

I'm very interested in hearing from someone that has successfully synced the new calendar to google, perhaps there is some way of making it work I could glean from you.

Thanks,
D.G.

bkaz wrote:That could be related to a long-standing issue with Google Calendar (not the lds.org feed). "Other Calendars" are notoriously slow to update... sometimes it takes 6 - 24 hours to refresh. The manual refresh button does not refresh calendars that were added by URL (like the lds feed).

You should at least be able to see the calendar in your Google Calendar.

On your iPad, why are you using the exchange account? Can't you use apple's iCal app?

duanegrasse wrote:I'm very interested in hearing from someone that has successfully synced the new calendar to google, perhaps there is some way of making it work I could glean from you.

I synced the new calendar to my Google Calendar successfully back when it was on new.lds.org. This morning I subscribed to the calendar now that it is on lds.org. That also worked just fine.

I don't know that I have any great insights to offer. I copied the URL from the Sync page in my new calendar. Then I went to my Google Calendar, and under Other Calendars I chose Add > Add by URL, pasted the URL I had copied, and about a minute later it was imported and the events were all visible. It just worked exactly as I expected.

Alan_Brown wrote:I synced the new calendar to my Google Calendar successfully back when it was on new.lds.org. This morning I subscribed to the calendar now that it is on lds.org. That also worked just fine.

I don't know that I have any great insights to offer. I copied the URL from the Sync page in my new calendar. Then I went to my Google Calendar, and under Other Calendars I chose Add > Add by URL, pasted the URL I had copied, and about a minute later it was imported and the events were all visible. It just worked exactly as I expected.

I did the exact same thing as Alan and had no problems. The events appeared within seconds.

I have tried many many times the past couple of weeks to get the new calendar to sync with Google calendar. I've attempted on mult computers, multiple browsers (IE, Crome, FF) and on my own and wife's google calendars and each of our lds.org log-in's and it won't work. It either does nothing, but shows the calendar in the list of calendars but not in the actual calendar section, or it just say's "Failed to import calendar from "http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... subscribe/. . . ""

Yes -- I'm posting in the url link in my login at lds.org in the export calendar section.
I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong or where the glitch is. Thanks.
I've setup the calendar, put in many events and trying to get our ward on board to use it, but want to make sure it's working ok before doing so.

Any other suggestions? I'm going to try via Outlook, but I'd much rather have it directly to Google as it's much more mobile.
Thanks!

gotababy wrote:I have tried many many times the past couple of weeks to get the new calendar to sync with Google calendar.

Can you explain exactly what you are doing with the Google calendar to try to use the URL? You said "Yes -- I'm posting in the url link in my login at lds.org in the export calendar section." But where exactly are you pasting it?

Log into google calendar
Bottom L -- "other calendars", add, "add by URL", then put in the URL given to me by the LDS.org site specific for each person it seems.
It then makes a new calendar under the "othe calendar" sections, with a long abnoxious name. It can be edited, etc. like a regular calendar, but it's not showing anything on the actual google calendar, and it's toggled to be "on"

I'm quite a techy guy and am not exactly sure where the hangup is. I already have google setup between my wife and me - the calendars work fine.

Seems it is attemping a long address @import.calendar.google.com

Thanks for any suggestions!

I too am having problems with syncing with Google calendar. If just past the URL in a browser I get the following:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

When I sync a different lds.org calendar with iCal that URL actually downloads and ics file.

Just tried it again and got the following error:

Failed to import calendar from "http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... xxxxxxxxxx".

I did the same thing as Alan about 6 weeks ago and it worked perfectly. Tonight I tried to help the 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency do the same thing and got the error 'Failed to import calendar from "http://lds.org/church/calendar..."etc. Is anyone aware of any issues?

duanegrasse wrote:It doesn't show anything on my phone.

If you are trying to sync it to the iPhone calendar app, here is how I did it. I assume this would also work on an iPad or iPod Touch.

• On the iPhone, use Safari to navigate to the sync page of the new ward calendar.
• Use the iPhone's copy and paste feature to copy the one of the http//: subscription URLs. I used the one for iCal.
• Click the Home button on the iPhone to exit Safari.
• Tap the Settings icon.
• Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars
• Select Add Account...
• Select Other
• Select Add Subscribed Calendar
• Paste the URL into the Server field, then tap Next, then tap Save.

If the iPhone was able to verify the URL, then you should now be able to open up the calendar app and see whatever events are in your ward calendar.

I am unable to sync with Google Calendar. Initially the URL is accepted and the calendar is created. No events display. After a short period of time, I get a notice from Google calendar that provides an error message and then the calendar is removed from the list of calendars.

I'm able to subsequently add the calendar, but eventually the process repeats.

The error message says:

Settings Error
Failure to import calendar from "..." where ... is the sync URL provided.

I am having the same problem. Nothing more to add.

I can successfully subscribe to the calendar with iCal, in fact it it immediately imports to the iCal. It seems like it is an issue with google calendar.

Alan Brown -- still having same issues as before, seems mult others are also. Thanks!

gotababy wrote:Alan Brown -- still having same issues as before, seems mult others are also. Thanks!

I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with this post that is directed to me. I'm well aware that some people are having issues. I'm also well aware that many people are syncing with no problems. I'm in no position to change anything -- I have only reported my experiences.

Alan_Brown wrote:I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with this post that is directed to me. I'm well aware that some people are having issues. I'm also well aware that many people are syncing with no problems. I'm in no position to change anything -- I have only reported my experiences.

I was just hoping that you may have heard of a possible work around or something. Thanks again! -James

I'd be curious as to why it worked for some and not for others. Is it a characteristic of the event being exported? The calendar being imported to? From what I'm reading, it's consistent but no other pattern has been observed.

I have been trying to get the Google Calendar sync to work for about a week--with no success. Today I started getting the "failed to import" google error that occurs a few minutes after adding the URL in my calendar.

So I took the URL and tried to get my browser to open it. It crashes Firefox for some reason, and IE returns an HTTP 500 error. Here is what I get using the wget utility. It appears something is wrong with the lds.org calendar app or something. Here is the output:

K:\usr\bin>wget.exe --no-check-certificate http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... subscribe/[link removed by moderator]
--2010-12-09 21:15:42-- http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... subscribe/[link removed by moderator]
Resolving lds.org (lds.org)... 216.49.176.33
Connecting to lds.org (lds.org)|216.49.176.33|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://lds.org/church-calendar/service ... subscribe/[link removed by moderator]
--2010-12-09 21:15:42-- https://lds.org/church-calendar/service ... subscribe/[link removed by moderator]
Connecting to lds.org (lds.org)|216.49.176.33|:443... connected.
WARNING: cannot verify lds.org's certificate, issued by `/C=US/ST=UT/L=Salt Lake City/O=The USERTRUST Network/CN=USERTrust Legacy Secure Server CA': Unable to locally verify the issuer's authority.
WARNING: certificate common name `*.lds.org' doesn't match requested host name `lds.org'.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 500 Internal Server Error
2010-12-09 21:15:43 ERROR 500: Internal Server Error.

One thing of interest is the certificate error. Also notice that even though I am trying to open http:// it gets switched to https://. This could be part of the problem since there is a certificate error of some kind.

If I try to open the webcals URL, I get an indication in IE that it is getting a response from the server, but it can't interpret it.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
REID

reid_bolander wrote:One thing of interest is the certificate error.

I wonder if the reason that I'm not getting and error in iCal or on the iPhone is that they is not checking (or re-checking) the certificate. It might be that something got mixed up with the certificate when new.lds.org was transitioned to just lds.org.

When thinking about this, there has to be a reason on why the calendar is not syncing. I attempted to sync my calendar a few months back, back when the link was new.lds.org. Alan Brown, when did you try first try to sync, did you start when it was new.lds.org or after it became lds.org?

As each of our calendar subscriptions are unique to ourselves, I am wondering if it had to do with when we first attempted to sync, or export the calendar.

I didn't notice the change to the dropping of the new.lds.org until researching this issue. I then noticed that I still had the new.lds.org as a calendar subscription but it still had not sync'd. I tried dropping the new, tried copying and pasting the updated address (just lds.org, without the new) to avail.

If I paste the link into chrome, it downloads the .ics file just fine. I can then import the calendar file into iCal or to google calendar (which is what I have been doing on a weekly basis anyway for the last two years).

Any thoughts? Also, I know this is not the right place to ask this question, but does the ldstech forums support tapatalk?

I am on Mac OS 10.6.5, using Chrome, Safari and Firefox, getting the same results.

rytrunkie wrote:When thinking about this, there has to be a reason on why the calendar is not syncing. I attempted to sync my calendar a few months back, back when the link was new.lds.org. Alan Brown, when did you try first try to sync, did you start when it was new.lds.org or after it became lds.org?

My first syncing was done on new.lds.org several months ago. When it switched to lds.org, I deleted my previous synced Google calendar and added a new one using the lds.org URL. Both worked fine.

Alan_Brown wrote:I deleted my previous synced Google calendar and added a new one using the lds.org URL.

Ding, ding, ding! This was the key for several of our members who lost the ability to sync about the time of the transition.

Delete previous calendar. Sync new calendar.

I posted a few days ago regarding the "failed to import" issue with Google. Since then, I have added my calendar and it has been stable for about a day now. The only problem is that the events aren't appearing in the Google calendar.

So - if something has changed on the lds.org side, it seems to have made a difference for me in that the calendar has persisted...

This is still an issue for me. Is someone looking into it? I can give someone who is my custom URL so that they can confirm that the link only displays the following in Chrome:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

It is not linked to an ICS file.

jbh001 wrote:If you are trying to sync it to the iPhone calendar app, here is how I did it. I assume this would also work on an iPad or iPod Touch.

• On the iPhone, use Safari to navigate to the sync page of the new ward calendar.
• Use the iPhone's copy and paste feature to copy the one of the http//: subscription URLs. I used the one for iCal.
• Click the Home button on the iPhone to exit Safari.
• Tap the Settings icon.
• Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars
• Select Add Account...
• Select Other
• Select Add Subscribed Calendar
• Paste the URL into the Server field, then tap Next, then tap Save.

If the iPhone was able to verify the URL, then you should now be able to open up the calendar app and see whatever events are in your ward calendar.

I've tried multiple times in Google calendar, and just get a long pause with "Importing calendar from URL..." at the top. Eventually, I get an error message "Settings Error":

"Failed to import calendar from "http://lds.org...etc."

===

I tried iPhone/iPad using the above technique: I get the error message, "Unable to verify account information." on iPhone.

Putting in my LDS account username and password doesn't help either.

===
In Thunderbird, I can subscribe, but simply don't get any entries at all. No error message, though.

===

This has never worked for me, either before or after the new.lds.org to lds.org shift. I tried from scratch both times, with no results. Pity, because it would be a great feature if reliable.

GLS

I was able to get the new calendar to sync with Google calendar by using the url provided by the new.lds.org site (http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... **********) but by adding a s after the http. As soon as I did that it worked in seconds. I also tried it on a different Google account, and again worked like a charm.

spud65 wrote:I was able to get the new calendar to sync with Google calendar by using the url provided by the new.lds.org site (http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... **********) but by adding a s after the http. As soon as I did that it worked in seconds. I also tried it on a different Google account, and again worked like a charm.

I tried this in Google and with iPad, with the same result - failure.

GLS

lajackson wrote:Ding, ding, ding! This was the key for several of our members who lost the ability to sync about the time of the transition.

Delete previous calendar. Sync new calendar.

Well, It kind of sort of worked. I deleted the calendar, then re-added it. The events showed up nearly instantaneously... for a moment at least. Then they blanked out, and I got the following pop-up: Settings Error: Could not fetch the URL.

spud65 wrote:I was able to get the new calendar to sync with Google calendar by using the url provided by the new.lds.org site (http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... **********) but by adding a s after the http. As soon as I did that it worked in seconds. I also tried it on a different Google account, and again worked like a charm.

I got the same results as above when I put the s after http.

rytrunkie wrote:I didn't notice the change to the dropping of the new.lds.org until researching this issue. I then noticed that I still had the new.lds.org as a calendar subscription but it still had not sync'd. I tried dropping the new, tried copying and pasting the updated address (just lds.org, without the new) to avail.

My iCal and iPhones still appear to be syncing fine, but I can't get my newly added Google calendar to sync.

I don't recall an issue with the transition from new.lds.org to lds.org. After the transition, my old link to new.lds.org continued to work and sync with iCal and my iPhones until I changed it to lds.org a week or so later. Perhaps there was a window when the new.lds.org link was automatically being redirected to lds.org instead.

jbh001 wrote:Perhaps there was a window when the new.lds.org link was automatically being redirected to lds.org instead.

That is happening now. If you enter new.lds.org you will be redirected to http://lds.org.

jbh001 wrote:Well, It kind of sort of worked. I deleted the calendar, then re-added it. The events showed up nearly instantaneously... for a moment at least. Then they blanked out, and I got the following pop-up: Settings Error: Could not fetch the URL.

I failed to notice that the calendar also deleted itself out of Google. But I just tried to re-add the calendar again and the events showed up almost instantaneously, and they didn't disappear like they did before.

The inconsistent behavior is bewildering.

I have had and continue to have the sync issue mentioned a number of times in this post. I have copied the URL to Google and each time the same thing happens; it sits and spins. It indicates it is updating but after approximately 15 minutes it appears to refresh but no data from my ward calendar appears. There does not seem to be any definitive information about this issue; it either works or it doesn’t. Has anyone had it not work, and done something to make it work?

Is there anyone out there from Headquarters who can shed any light on what appears to be a wide spread issue?

I am getting the same situation. It worked with the new.lds.org url when we had just a few test events on the calendar. I deleted that calendar and added a new calendar with the lds.org url, but now I am getting the problems stated above.

I am also unable to sync the calendar. I have noticed, as others have, that every time I go to the sync page, the id at the end of the subscribe urls changes. It seems that that id should not be changing, so I wonder if that isn't somewhere close to the root of the problem...

nathanmoon wrote:I am also unable to sync the calendar. I have noticed, as others have, that every time I go to the sync page, the id at the end of the subscribe urls changes. It seems that that id should not be changing, so I wonder if that isn't somewhere close to the root of the problem...

The ID portion of my URL remained the same throughout the beta and continues unchanged now. I am able to sync to Outlook, but not with Google. The problem symptoms when trying to add the calendar on Google are the same as reported by others. Google reports that it is syncing, but eventually seems to time out and pops up an error that complains about the URL. Prior to this week, I had not attempted to add my church calendar to Google, so I don't know whether or not it would have worked for me during the beta.

nathanmoon wrote:I am also unable to sync the calendar. I have noticed, as others have, that every time I go to the sync page, the id at the end of the subscribe urls changes. It seems that that id should not be changing, so I wonder if that isn't somewhere close to the root of the problem...

Does anyone have any insight as to why the sync URL changes for some people but remains static for others? I think that if your URL changes, your previous URLs become invalid. So if you're receiving an error, try grabbing the latest URL and doing another sync. I tried replicating this issue on my machine, but my sync URL remains the same no matter what I do.

tomjohnson1492 wrote:Does anyone have any insight as to why the sync URL changes for some people but remains static for others?

Wild guess - does it change if there is any change in the subscription? Perhaps the addition or deletion of calendars?

tomjohnson1492 wrote:Does anyone have any insight as to why the sync URL changes for some people but remains static for others? I think that if your URL changes, your previous URLs become invalid. So if you're receiving an error, try grabbing the latest URL and doing another sync. I tried replicating this issue on my machine, but my sync URL remains the same no matter what I do.

After reading the updates on this thread I walked through the code with one of the developers. We found a bug related to newer users and the sync URL changing.

The bottom line is that the sync URL should never change for a user. We have fixed the issue and are testing internally. This fix should be in the next release of the calendar app.

On a side note thank you for all that each of you are contributing to this application. Your efforts are noticed and, as in this case, make a difference in the quality of the application. Please keep up this incredibly helpful work!

Has anyone been able to successfully copy the link in the instructions and paste it into iCal to have the website calendar subscribed as part of your iCal?

wrigjef wrote:Has anyone been able to successfully copy the link in the instructions and paste it into iCal to have the website calendar subscribed as part of your iCal?

At least a couple people have reported success with iCal in this thread: see here and here.

aebrown wrote:At least a couple people have reported success with iCal in this thread: see here and here.

Thanks. The first post was specific but seemed to focus on the mobile devices. The second post was to vague on how it was done. I have followed the directions using the url on the calendar help page and iCal gives me an error. If we are not going to be using the new calendar for a year, perhaps this feature will get figured out.

wrigjef wrote:Has anyone been able to successfully copy the link in the instructions and paste it into iCal to have the website calendar subscribed as part of your iCal?

I have been successful in doing this.

wrigjef wrote:Has anyone been able to successfully copy the link in the instructions and paste it into iCal to have the website calendar subscribed as part of your iCal?

When I first tried syncing with iCal back in August 2010 I had problems getting the sync to work. The issue later resolved itself automagically with no intervention on my part. The steps I used were:

1. Copy the http: URL from the calendar sync page after signing in to lds.org.
2. Open iCal and, from the iCal menu bar, navigate to Calendar > Subscribe...
3. In the pop-up window that then appears in iCal, paste the URL into the Calendar URL: field.
4. Click the Subscribe button.

I have tried to follow the directions as stated to sync our Stake calendar to y iCal, but I keep getting an error. I see many people with the same issue. Any thoughts?

mjr33 wrote:I have tried to follow the directions as stated to sync our Stake calendar to y iCal, but I keep getting an error. I see many people with the same issue. Any thoughts?

If you read this whole thread, you'll see lots of thoughts. Some are based on actual experience, and some are speculative. It seems clear that there is some problem that affects many people, but several people are successful, too. People have tried to come up with a pattern, but as far as I can tell, no one has any reasonable theories as to why some poeple are successful and others aren't.

Hi,

This may seem too easy.

For those that were able to get this to work. Can you go into your google calendar and post the link that you used.

Apparently, the link on lds.org changes for every log in.

Thanks.

The calendar sync page states

This URL is provided for your own personal use. It should not be shared with anyone else.

this issue should be fixed in the next release, see post #43 in this thread

kwanj wrote:For those that were able to get this to work. Can you go into your google calendar and post the link that you used.

No one should post the link, because the link is specific to each individual, so their link won't do you any good. The Sync page in the calendar says "This URL is provided for your own personal use. It should not be shared with anyone else."

For everyone, the link will look like: http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... /<19-digit number>

It's the 19-digit number that is different for everyone.

Also, note that Google seems to be having problems on their end as well, as you can read here.

kwanj wrote:Apparently, the link on lds.org changes for every log in.

If you're referring to the link on the calendar's Sync page, then that does seem to be the case for some people, but should not be happening (and it never changes for me). For verification of this from one of the developers, see here. That post indicates that this problem will be fixed soon.

yes, the issue with the google calendar synch appears to be related to the 19 digit identifier at the end of the url, which is reportedly supposed to be (1) unique to each user, and (2) is never supposed to change for a given user. however, every time that i refresh the page on which my personal url is diplayed, a new 19 digit identifier is produced (and none of them is ever valid). obviously, i am one of those having a problem with the google synch, because the url that i give to google calender is never valid, and is constantly changing. i'm hoping that the update to the lds calendar will give me a stable and valid identifier.

does anyone know when that update will be accomplished?

The Google Calendar sync URL is broken. Not only does it not get appointments to show up in my Google Calendar, but when I go to the URL directly my browser reports that the server returned an HTTP 500 error:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

AArnott wrote:The Google Calendar sync URL is broken. Not only does it not get appointments to show up in my Google Calendar, but when I go to the URL directly my browser reports that the server returned an HTTP 500 error:

As reported multiple times in this thread, the sync URL is definitely not broken for some people, but for others it is indeed broken (note that the URL is unique for each individual). I am in the lucky group, and the sync URL works fine for me, both in Google Calendar, and when I go to the URL directly in a browser. Sadly, it appears that you are in the unlucky group.

The issue is being worked on and hopefully a fix will be released soon. See here.

I have an issue with the Google URL Sync and the new LDS.org calendar. I can see the stake calendar just fine in the GMAIL calendar view - great addition, thanks a ton for this - but the calendar times have bee shifted one hour. I live in Utah, my Stake Calendar (LDS.org) shows the correct time, my GMAIL calendar time zone is set for US, Mountain Time Zone (not AZ, or non DST adjusted) - all all of the events appear an hour later (i.e. a Meeting at 6pm on the LDS.org calendar shows up at 7PM on the Gmail Calendar view using the URL link to LDS.org). If I shift my Gmail calendar to a different time zone I can fix it, but then it messes up all my GMAIL native content. Seems like the LDS.org calendar is in the Central Time zone, and when I show it in the Mountain time zone the times are shifted one hour. Can't find a place to change that in the LDS.org site - how can we "tweak" the time zone on LDS.org Note: The items in my LDS.org calendar were imported using the Wizard Function from the classic LDS.org calendar - maybe there is something in that transfer as well??? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Ray

ray.isaacson wrote:I have an issue with the Google URL Sync and the new LDS.org calendar. I can see the stake calendar just fine in the GMAIL calendar view - great addition, thanks a ton for this - but the calendar times have bee shifted one hour.

To help troubleshoot this, you may want to paste the sync URL into your browser. You should end up with a text file of the activities. You may want to look at the times involved and see if they are correct. In my case, the times are expressed in "Zulu" or International time. I think in my case the times were correct, but I'd have to go back and double-check.

RussellHltn wrote:To help troubleshoot this, you may want to paste the sync URL into your browser. You should end up with a text file of the activities. You may want to look at the times involved and see if they are correct. In my case, the times are expressed in "Zulu" or International time. I think in my case the times were correct, but I'd have to go back and double-check.

Looked at the URL in notepad and found that the event date and start stamp are shifted one hour - they are coming from the LDS.ORG site shifted one hour. It is like the LDS.org doesn't have the correct time zone for my stake - I put in the correct time, it thinks we are in the Central time and is 6 hours shifted from Zulu time, when we are actually 7 hours shifted. The GMAIL URL Link shows a 6 hour shift, and thus shows the times one hour off. Maybe there is some master time zone link from our stake to the Church site that has us an hour off? Any help from the LDS.org site would be helpful on this one - can it be that my Stake - Utah Roy North has the wrong timezone applied and thus gets shifted in the URL timestamps? Thanks for the insight and help.

ray.isaacson wrote:It is like the LDS.org doesn't have the correct time zone for my stake - I put in the correct time, it thinks we are in the Central time and is 6 hours shifted from Zulu time, when we are actually 7 hours shifted.

You are right that in that you're normally -7 hours, but you are -6 hours during daylight savings. MDT is between March 13 and Nov 6, 2011.

However, Daylight savings was changed not all that long ago. If someone's using an old subroutine library, they could get the times between March 13th and April 3rd wrong.

What dates are you seeing the problem?

I'm trying to sync my calendar to Outlook but when I enter the URL all I ever get is "The webpage cannot be displayed". What do I do?

RussellHltn wrote:You are right that in that you're normally -7 hours, but you are -6 hours during daylight savings. MDT is between March 13 and Nov 6, 2011.

However, Daylight savings was changed not all that long ago. If someone's using an old subroutine library, they could get the times between March 13th and April 3rd wrong.

What dates are you seeing the problem?

The puzzle gets more interesting - My Pc (Win7) shows the correct times for the new native LDS.org calendar - my iPhone and iPad showed the times shifted on hour - odd, so I check my location settings on the iPhone and iPad, set properly to Mountain time, my PC had the proper time but was set to Pacific time. Changed the OS time zone to Mountain Time and changed the clock to be correct - went back and re-checked the new native LDS.org calendar - and the dates were shifted on the PC like the iPhone and iPad. Deleted the entire stake calendar - re-imported the calendar from the classic site with the proper times - they now show up properly in all three devices using the native LDS.org calendar. Now to check the GMAIL Url calendar - and all of the new calendar items are shifted one hour "later" - so I rechecked the Gmail calendar time and it shows Mountain time properly, but the URL calendar link still shows all of the time shifted one hour (zulu -6) instead of (zulu -7). Hummmm Opening the URL again shows the time shifted one hour - to Gmail appears to be showing the time it gets from the URL link. The question is - when the link is requested from LDS.org - is there some date/timezone request from asking device that gets sent to the church, and then the times are shifted on the fly? The answer is not really because I can can shift the time zone in GMAIL to Pacific and the URL link shows the same Zulu Time - it just shows it correctly in GMAIL because it thinks its Pacific time zone. The issues seems to stem from the fact that the LDS.org calendar is affected originally from having the proper time zone set in your OS/browser settings, but when the Sync URL is returned it is not shifted properly for the Mountain Time zone - it is -6 instead of the proper -7 hours. Appears to be some kind of location coding issue with the time zone, or daylight savings time from LDS.org creation of the URL link in my case/my stake etc. Thanks for the responses, nice to see people check and respond, I appreciate the help and ideas.

ray.isaacson wrote:my PC had the proper time but was set to Pacific time. Changed the OS time zone to Mountain Time and changed the clock to be correct - went back and re-checked the new native LDS.org calendar - and the dates were shifted on the PC like the iPhone and iPad.

Uhhhh, except PST is Zulu - 8.

Hello all,

It appears that I am in the "unlucky" group. Just to possibly help a bit, I droped my calendar sync URL into a web page and received this error:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

This seems a bit different than the errors I was seeing others describe, so I wanted to post, hoping it might get resolved soon.

I've tried putting my URL into my iphone, ipad, ical, and google calendar - they all fail...as I would expect from the error describe above.

dgmorrisjr wrote:Hello all,

It appears that I am in the "unlucky" group. Just to possibly help a bit, I droped my calendar sync URL into a web page and received this error:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 1 at column 1: Document is empty
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

This seems a bit different than the errors I was seeing others describe, so I wanted to post, hoping it might get resolved soon.

I've tried putting my URL into my iphone, ipad, ical, and google calendar - they all fail...as I would expect from the error describe above.

The error you are seeing is the same one as in this post, so at least you're not alone in your bad luck.

In any case, it does seem consistent that those who can't retrieve an .ics file by using their URL directly in a browser can't sync with any other calendar.

Forgive me if this was addressed earlier in this thread, or another thread. A link to either would be appreciated.

I removed some events (some stand alone, some from recurring events) from lds.org, they are however still showing both on my Google Calendar, and on the lds.org/leader page. It is something I did?

EmrolGould wrote:I removed some events (some stand alone, some from recurring events) from lds.org, they are however still showing both on my Google Calendar, and on the lds.org/leader page. It is something I did?

Google Calendar takes quite a while to sync (some people report two or more days), so I'm not surprised that it's showing older events. I don't have any experience with how fast the lds.org/leader page is supposed to sync calendar events.

I can't imagine that it's anything you've done wrong -- just be patient.

So... when I take in everything that has been discussed to this point, there is an anomaly taking place in which the 19 digit code that is generated for unit web site users is at times coming up 1 digit short? You are either among the fortunate users in which the correct code is generated or the less fortunate users who do not get an accurate code, right?

My code is only 18 digits long. Ergo, I'm hosed until we discover a fix for the bug?

bschroader wrote:So... when I take in everything that has been discussed to this point, there is an anomaly taking place in which the 19 digit code that is generated for unit web site users is at times coming up 1 digit short? You are either among the fortunate users in which the correct code is generated or the less fortunate users who do not get an accurate code, right?

My code is only 18 digits long. Ergo, I'm hosed until we discover a fix for the bug?

Actually, I don't recall seeing any documentation that said that the code must be 19 digits to work correctly. I think that some of us just noticed that it always seemed to have 19 digits, so we started referring to it as the "19 digit code". So I wouldn't assume that an 18 digit code is necessarily bad, but then again, this might be an indication of a problem.

Have you actually tried the URL given to you on the Calendar Sync page to see if it works?

I saw that on the Calendar help wiki today is supposed to have some bug fix releases to fix the sync issues. Does anyone know if this has happened yet, and if it has proven successful?

Link to wiki section: https://tech.lds.org/ldshelp/index.php5 ... endars/eng

From the wiki:

Note: There are currently some bugs with the sync process. The project team is releasing a fix on January 4, 2011 that should resolve these issues.

aebrown wrote:Google Calendar takes quite a while to sync (some people report two or more days), so I'm not surprised that it's showing older events. I don't have any experience with how fast the lds.org/leader page is supposed to sync calendar events.

I can't imagine that it's anything you've done wrong -- just be patient.

The leader page is now updated, and is updating on the fly. So I lost patience and removed the subscription from Google Calendar. I then went for the subscription URL and tried to add it to Google Calendar again. Now nothing is happening on Google Calendar.

My calendar was synchronizing to Google in the past. Now it's not. I created a temp Google calendar and used my "share" link to import the events to that calendar and they all imported correctly. The direct-linked calendar still does fails to function and is empty.

Well the new URL after this fix isn't giving me an error any more, and I do get a 10KB file, but Google Calendar isn't showing any events as a result of me subscribing to that calendar.

Same. Creates a file that can be imported to Google calendar, but the live URL does not populate Google calendar.

Note: On adding the URL calendar to Google, it refreshes the calendar page and then states "Importing calendar from url...". Then it sits there, for a long time. It's been about 5 minutes and still not auto refresh by Google. Other URL subscriptions import immediately for me.

tortdog wrote:Same. Creates a file that can be imported to Google calendar, but the live URL does not populate Google calendar.

That's the same problem I've had. It's unclear to me if somehow the the church is blocking Google's access to their servers or if the problem is at Google's end.

Looping in another thread that may explain at least some people's issues.

https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... -iCal-file

I have been able to get my iPad to sync with my lds.org calendar but there is no sync with my Google calendar. Is the Google calendar sync problem being addressed?

djdinut1 wrote:I have been able to get my iPad to sync with my lds.org calendar but there is no sync with my Google calendar. Is the Google calendar sync problem being addressed?

It appears that the problem is at least in part on Google's end. See here.

I have never been able to sync lds calendar to Google calendar. Have attempted dozens of times on several pc's and over many weeks. But I have always been trying on a PC. Today I tried it on my iPad to the same Google account calendar and it linked and synced fine. It then showed correct on the the PC's as an added calendar also.
Just as a test I then copied the URL that lds Calendar gave me on the iPad and moved to a PC and pasted it into different google account calendar and it linked also.
So now I am not sure if that had anything to do with it or if Google just applied a fix but I am happy it finally linked up.

I'm assuming that the text of the link you "export" from the iPad is the same as the link you "export" from a PC, i.e., there is nothing special about copying/pasting the link from the iPad itself.

I have unsubscribed from calendars I don't want to see, such as Singles and Stake Leadership. They don't show up on the LDS.org calendar, but when I go to my third party calendar (which finally started syncing yesterday, although I tried last week and it wouldn't because the URL changed each time I went to the sync page), it shows all of the calendars. Is it supposed to do that, or should it only show subscribed calendars?

The list of subscribed calendars on the right of the main page only toggles the display of subscribed calendars, to unsubscribe you need to go to the select subscriptions page under options and unselect from that page

Two weeks ago when I tried to add my calendar to my google calendar, it added it and showed no events. So tonight I deleted it and re-added it. This time a message showed that it was importing calendar events from the url, but after 5 minutes a message came up stating there was an error importing events. I am glad to see that others are having success. I guess I'll just keep trying.

Revisiting that page shows that I did unsubscribe correctly. Any other thoughts?

I'm having the same experience others have commented about.

On about Jan 7 my lds.org calendar started syncing with my Google Calendar. I had purposely subscribed to all my lds.org calendars to be sure I would notice when the sync began to work (I had no success getting a sync before Jan 7). All my events synced over to my Google Calendar.

Things were fine until I went back to my lds.org calendar and unsubscribed from some of the calendars, leaving only those I wanted to retain (yes--I also discovered that unchecking the boxes in the right window of the calendar does not do the job--you must go to Options > Select subscriptions and unsubscribe from there). Now, my calendar on lds.org is correct, not showing those calendars I have unsubscribed from, but my Google Calendar is still showing all of them.

There must be a sync issue between lds.org and Google. Can others confirm this?

It's a known problem and there is no fix yet. It has been reported to lds.org via feedback. Cozi works for syncing in the meantime. (Not helpful for WebOS since it doesn't have Cozi for the cloud.)

I beg to differ. While Cozi will sync with the entire calendar for me and Google will not, Cozi displays all calendars, rather than just my subscribed calendars.

stefpratt wrote:I beg to differ. While Cozi will sync with the entire calendar for me and Google will not, Cozi displays all calendars, rather than just my subscribed calendars.

When you sync with Cozi are you using the URL from the calendar Sync page labeled as Outlook? I would doubt that. Or are you using the one labeled as Google or Apple iCal? That seems more likely (and those are both the same URL: http://lds.org/church-calendar/services ... be/<unique ID>)

The sync URL produces an iCal file that contains events from calendars. There is no way that Cozi can have any knowledge of more events than are contained in that iCal file. So Cozi could only display more than just your subscribed calendars if Google would do the same.

You can test this by copying your unique URL to your browser's address bar. When you go to that URL, your browser will prompt you to save a file. Give it an .ics extension, and then examine it in any text editor. If it contains events that are on calendars that you are not subscribed to, then any external calendar would display those events. I'd be very curious to know if that happens. Please note that the Sync process uses all subscribed calendars, regardless of whether you have checked the box next to each of those calendars on the main calendar page to include them in the display.

stefpratt wrote:I beg to differ. While Cozi will sync with the entire calendar for me and Google will not, Cozi displays all calendars, rather than just my subscribed calendars.

Do you mean subscribed calendars or displayed calendars?

The subscribed calendars are all the calendars listed on the right hand part of the screen. You can manage this list using the Select Subscriptions menu item under the Options drop down menu. See Viewing Calendars in the calendar help for more information.

The displayed calendars are the subscribed calendars that are also checked on the right side of the screen. These are the calendars that are currently displayed.

The sync function always syncs all subscribed calendars, not just the ones you have displayed. To change the calendars that get synced you need to change your subscriptions as indicated above.

After looking into it, it appears that the problem is actually that our singles group is posting to the Stake calendar instead of to the Singles calendar, which is why I am still seeing their activities. All is well, thank you for your help.

If anyone is looking for samliddicott's discussion (which used to be in this thread) of a workaround for the sync problem with Google calendars, note that it has been moved to its own thread at: Workaround to fix calendar sync problems.

I'm having the same problems automatically synching my LDS calendars to Google Calendar as everyone else. So, I tried exporting the LDS calendar to a text file and then tried uploading that to Google Calendar. I got a message stating that the file was imported, yet the calendar still appeared blank. It didn't seem to work. Having never used Google Calendar before, I was unaware of something that I just now stumbled across. On the left hand side of the Google Calendar, in the "My Calendars" section, there were two entries, one the name of my Calendar (my name) and another entry labeled "Tasks". I assumed that because they were listed, if there was anything in them, the content would show up. WRONG. When I clicked on the name of each of these entries (not the adjacent pulldown list icons), the calendar entries from my LDS calendar suddenly appeared in the main calendar area and an empty Tasks List appeared on the right side of the calendar. Perhaps everyone else is already aware of the need to select these names before imported calendars appear, but maybe there are one or two others who could benefit from this tip.

Now, if we could just get Google Calendar to directly import from our LDS Calendars. Anyone know how to determine what version of the LDS Calendar is currently being used and when the next version that reportedly will fix the Google synch problem is targeted for release? If we can view when the Calendar version changes, we'd better know when to try resynching automatically with Google Calendar.

ch15154 wrote:Now, if we could just get Google Calendar to directly import from our LDS Calendars. Anyone know how to determine what version of the LDS Calendar is currently being used and when the next version that reportedly will fix the Google synch problem is targeted for release? If we can view when the Calendar version changes, we'd better know when to try resynching automatically with Google Calendar.

There are abundant reports of people successfully syncing other calendar systems with their LDS Calendar. It just seems to be Google that has the problem. Now it's certainly possible that there is a problem with both Google and the LDS Calendar. But it's possible that Google could fix this on their end.

In any case, have you tried the Workaround to fix calendar sync problems? That has helped many people.

>In any case, have you tried the Workaround to fix calendar sync problems?<

Per various suggested fixes for the Google Calendar Synching problem, I had previously tried changing the first part of the URL link from http://lds.org to http://new.lds.org and on another occasion, tried changing the http to https. Neither of these modifications helped.

So, I decided to try re-reading the suggested workaround listed above. I wasn't so sure about trying the private link that was provided, so I kept on reading and came across the suggestion to try both the https AND the new.lds.org together. So I tried the following link:

https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/ser ... /<19-digit#>

The calendar entries appeared on the calendar almost instantly! Eureka!

ch15154 wrote:Anyone know how to determine what version of the LDS Calendar is currently being used and when the next version that reportedly will fix the Google synch problem is targeted for release? If we can view when the Calendar version changes, we'd better know when to try resynching automatically with Google Calendar.

The calendar has the version listed in the head html tag as an attribute (so you can view source and see it). That was more of a pain than I wanted so I have a grease monkey script for firefox that adds the version up by the menu toolbar and flags it when the version changes.

Using https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/ser ... /<19-digit#> worked great for me.

Using both https and "new" did not work for me. Bummer. Still stuck.

I added the LDS calendar URL to my Google Calendar about a month ago, and didn't see any events show up for two whole weeks, then magically they appeared. I thought I was in business, but after making changes to the LDS calendar a week ago, I still haven't seen the changes.

After reading this post, I tried unsubscribing the URL calendar, and then adding a modified form of the URL that used "https" and "new.lds.org" in the address instead of "http" and "lds.org". Didn't work for me...

I then decided to unsubscribe and add the URL that samliddicott is graciously hosting:
https://mail.liddicott.com/ldscalendar.php/ with my own LDS calendar's 19 digits tacked onto the end. This worked immediately (or at least after waiting the 60 seconds to import the calendar). Thanks samliddicott - I'd be dead in the water without you! Hopefully your work will lead the LDS calendar developers to a solution...

CliffordKing wrote:I added the LDS calendar URL to my Google Calendar about a month ago, and didn't see any events show up for two whole weeks, then magically they appeared. I thought I was in business, but after making changes to the LDS calendar a week ago, I still haven't seen the changes.

After reading this post, I tried unsubscribing the URL calendar, and then adding a modified form of the URL that used "https" and "new.lds.org" in the address instead of "http" and "lds.org". Didn't work for me...

I then decided to unsubscribe and add the URL that samliddicott is graciously hosting:
https://mail.liddicott.com/ldscalendar.php/ with my own LDS calendar's 19 digits tacked onto the end. This worked immediately (or at least after waiting the 60 seconds to import the calendar). Thanks samliddicott - I'd be dead in the water without you! Hopefully your work will lead the LDS calendar developers to a solution...

This worked for me as well

CliffordKing wrote:I added the LDS calendar URL to my Google Calendar about a month ago, and didn't see any events show up for two whole weeks, then magically they appeared. I thought I was in business, but after making changes to the LDS calendar a week ago, I still haven't seen the changes.

After reading this post, I tried unsubscribing the URL calendar, and then adding a modified form of the URL that used "https" and "new.lds.org" in the address instead of "http" and "lds.org". Didn't work for me...

I then decided to unsubscribe and add the URL that samliddicott is graciously hosting:
https://mail.liddicott.com/ldscalendar.php/ with my own LDS calendar's 19 digits tacked onto the end. This worked immediately (or at least after waiting the 60 seconds to import the calendar). Thanks samliddicott - I'd be dead in the water without you! Hopefully your work will lead the LDS calendar developers to a solution...

Worked for me as well. Thanks LiddiCott!!

I have tried the add calendar by url option in google calendar several times with no luck. I get a screen saying that is importing the calendar and that is as far as it goes. I can come back days latter and it shows the calendar as imported but it doesn't appear to pull any data across to my google calendar. It shows the calendar as active in my calendar list / navigation window.

Have you read the Workaround to fix calendar sync problems thread? That's the only way some of us have gotten it to work with Google.

I have problems with the Google Calendar too. It has worked ok for a while but now it is not syncing in new entries (and they are more than 48 hours old). I have tried to remove the link and add it again but still the same issue. I loaded my http link into notepad and could see the new entries there so it definately cannot be an issue with lds.org (unless new entries or changed have to be marked in a certain way).

I just tried this without success. Church site now says the "one-way sync your Church calendar to your Google calendar" is "Temporarily unavailable - we're working with Google to fix this". Shucks.

However, when I read https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... c-problems, I tried this option and it worked!

ch15154 wrote:>In any case, have you tried the Workaround to fix calendar sync problems?<

Per various suggested fixes for the Google Calendar Synching problem, I had previously tried changing the first part of the URL link from http://lds.org to http://new.lds.org and on another occasion, tried changing the http to https. Neither of these modifications helped.

So, I decided to try re-reading the suggested workaround listed above. I wasn't so sure about trying the private link that was provided, so I kept on reading and came across the suggestion to try both the https AND the new.lds.org together. So I tried the following link:

https://new.lds.org/church-calendar/ser ... /<19-digit#>

The calendar entries appeared on the calendar almost instantly! Eureka!

combblai wrote:I just tried this without success. Church site now says the "one-way sync your Church calendar to your Google calendar" is "Temporarily unavailable - we're working with Google to fix this". Shucks.

What exactly did you try without success? The quote you included mentioned four different techniques: using "new.lds.org" instead of "lds.org", https instead of http, both of those in combination, and also the workaround (wrapper). As I have followed this issue for many months, the first three have very limited success, and the wrapper almost always works.

Is anybody working on a real solution so you don't have to continually clear/import your calendar for google? I own an adroid phone and this would help me tremendously to keep in sync with my calendar.

aemadrid wrote:I own an adroid phone and this would help me tremendously to keep in sync with my calendar.

As do I. I use the workaround found here. I'm not sure how often Google pulls for new data. It may be once a day. So you may need to wait up to 48 hours for things to sync.

For me I just started typing in the 2011 calendar events
I wasn't sure if the SYNC worked or how to work it
Then print out your calendar incase its deleted with 2.0 is added
But this works for me

Gotababy,
Hi, according to your description, you want to sync your google calendar isn't it? Maybe this article will help you.
blog.recovery-android.com/how-to-sync-iphone-with-google-contacts-calendar/

The calendar sync got turned off I guess and no already busy members have another burden to juggle. The only way to see the church calendar in month view is on the glitchy website. Even then if there is more than one event scheduled you have to tap on each day to view the events. Please restore the calendar sync to google and Apple calendar.

jakesmith101 wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:28 pm Please restore the calendar sync to google and Apple calendar.

See the threads Calendar 4.0 released and how to sync ward calendar into google calendar for more up to date information. At post #136, on 9 Feb 2023, in the first thread and in post #40 of the second thread there was an announcement that the calendar sync had been restored. If you are trying to use old links, prior to Calendar 4.0, then the sync will not work. A new link will be required. Since there is continued work on Calendar 4.0 there may be temporary problems or outages. Sync links may need to be re-established.

As a stake high councilor, my default list of calendars was quite long, so I created a new listing, which is a great feature, by the way.

Steps I took:
Log into church website, navigate to Calendar.
Click the gear/settings, then Sync
Create new Custom Synced Calendar Groups
Add my custom name, and choose which calendars I'd like to see.
Copy the URL created.

Open Google Calendar
Under Other Calendar, I had the original, non-functional link. Click the X to Unsubscribe.
Note: Under General Settings, I can see the settings for the calendars subscribed, but can't remove it/unsubscribe.
Click the + to add new "From URL" calendar.
Past the custom URL generated from the Church site. - Add Calendar.
Select the newly added link to the calendar (called the http"//churchofjesuschrist...." in your Other Calendar settings.
Customize the name. (I named it Church)
Return from Google Calendar Settings to the Calendar.
Customize the color of the calendar, to your preference, by selecting the triple dots icon that appears when you mouse over the Calendar name.

I hope that helps. Getting what I do on my desktop to show on my phone was the next challenge:
Android
Google Calendar
Settings
Refresh
That seemed to work.