Unable to Sync to Google

I am attempting to sync my church calendar to Google for the first time. I have followed the directions listed under the Sync settings and pasted the URL into Google (Add by URL). Google attempts to load the calendar, then errors out with the following message, "Settings Error: We could not parse the calendar at the URL requested.". I have generated a new URL and get the same error.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

mclay wrote:I am attempting to sync my church calendar to Google for the first time. I have followed the directions listed under the Sync settings and pasted the URL into Google (Add by URL). Google attempts to load the calendar, then errors out with the following message, "Settings Error: We could not parse the calendar at the URL requested.". I have generated a new URL and get the same error.

Chances are that there is something in the iCal feed for your calendar that is not quite right. You could pass the URL to an iCal validator such as the one at http://icalvalid.cloudapp.net -- that might tell you where the problem is. Then you could report the specific problem, or if it is a special character or something in a particular event, you might be able to work around the problem by changing that character.

I had the same problem at first, but it seems to be working now (and the cloudapp.net page reports no errors). However... the calendar doesn't send along any time-zone settings, so all of the imported events (into Google) are all off. And yes, I've already activated a resource and selected a time-zone, etc.

Any thoughts?

jglanfield wrote:I had the same problem at first, but it seems to be working now (and the cloudapp.net page reports no errors). However... the calendar doesn't send along any time-zone settings, so all of the imported events (into Google) are all off. And yes, I've already activated a resource and selected a time-zone, etc.

Yes, that is a bug affecting us all, which has been reported multiple times. See this post for links to the various threads.

aebrown wrote:Yes, that is a bug affecting us all, which has been reported multiple times. See this post for links to the various threads.

Oh, whoops. Sorry!

aebrown wrote:Chances are that there is something in the iCal feed for your calendar that is not quite right. You could pass the URL to an iCal validator such as the one at http://icalvalid.cloudapp.net -- that might tell you where the problem is. Then you could report the specific problem, or if it is a special character or something in a particular event, you might be able to work around the problem by changing that character.

Hum... that didn't seem to help much. Here's what I got from the iCal parser:

[INDENT]The validator couldn't parse your input. Things to check:

Was the URL correct?
Was it really in iCalendar format? Sometimes, for example, an URL that you think points to an iCalendar feed really points to a web page that in turn points to the feed.
Does it load into another calendar program, such as Google Calendar, Hotmail Calendar, Outlook, etc? If not then there's almost certainly something badly wrong.

If your feed fails in other calendar programs too, here's how to narrow down the problem:

Capture a copy of the feed in a file.
Try removing things and validating each reduced version as a snippet. Eventually you'll get to a minimal version that works. Then try adding things back to see what breaks.

Back to the iCalendar Validator

Message: expecting "COLON", found ' ' [/INDENT]

It looks like it may be missing a colon, but it doesn't tell me where. I looked for any standard tags (i.e. DESCRIPTION, LOCATION, DTSTAMP, DTSTART, BEGIN, END, SUMMARY) that may be missing a colon, but don't see any.

Did you generate a new key before doing that test? You may want to post the URL (minus the key) that you copied into that web page. It worked fine for me, but I generated a new key first.

I generated a new URL. I don't see anything in the instructions about a "key" unless you're referring to the alpha-numeric string at the end of the URL. Here's the latest URL I generated that Google is still rejecting:

<snip>

mclay wrote:...Here's the latest URL...

So, mclay did post a valid link. I accidentally clicked on it and my Outlook opened and imported the calendar. I didn't snoop around too much, but definitely saw ward meetings. Unfortunately, I was a little too stunned to try in in Google.

mclay wrote:Message: expecting "COLON", found ' '

My guess would be something data-dependent that prematurely ended a data field like this. Interesting that the iCal validator would not tell you where the error was.

mfmohlma wrote:My guess would be something data-dependent that prematurely ended a data field.

Good guess. mclay, take a look at your 10-11 Dec 2011 event for High Council Speaking Assignment. It seems to be a two-day all-day event (do your high councilors really speak that long? ), but I think the biggest problem is that it has an HTML table in the description that also includes some strange characters. If you fix that event, your sync should start working -- that's the only event that seems to be problematic.

And yes, I looked at your data so I could help you by finding the problem, but I have discarded all traces of the data.

I am having much the same problem. I get the error stating that the Settings Error: We could not parse the calendar at the URL requested. When I run it through the validator as suggested above I get the following error...The validator couldn't parse your input. Things to check:

Was the URL correct?
Was it really in iCalendar format? Sometimes, for example, an URL that you think points to an iCalendar feed really points to a web page that in turn points to the feed.
Does it load into another calendar program, such as Google Calendar, Hotmail Calendar, Outlook, etc? If not then there's almost certainly something badly wrong.
If your feed fails in other calendar programs too, here's how to narrow down the problem:

Capture a copy of the feed in a file.
Try removing things and validating each reduced version as a snippet. Eventually you'll get to a minimal version that works. Then try adding things back to see what breaks.
Back to the iCalendar Validator

Message: expecting "END", found '7'

Stack trace: at antlr.Parser.match(Int32 t) at DDay.iCal.iCalParser.component(ISerializationContext ctx, ISerializerFactory sf, ICalendarComponentFactory cf, ICalendarObject o) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\Serialization\iCalendar\iCalParser.cs:line 457 at DDay.iCal.iCalParser.icalbody(ISerializationContext ctx, IICalendar iCal) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\Serialization\iCalendar\iCalParser.cs:line 230 at DDay.iCal.iCalParser.icalendar(ISerializationContext ctx) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\Serialization\iCalendar\iCalParser.cs:line 157 at DDay.iCal.Serialization.iCalendar.iCalendarSerializer.Deserialize(TextReader tr) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\Serialization\iCalendar\Serializers\iCalendarSerializer.cs:line 100 at DDay.iCal.Serialization.iCalendar.SerializerBase.Deserialize(Stream stream, Encoding encoding) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\Serialization\iCalendar\Serializers\SerializerBase.cs:line 54 at DDay.iCal.iCalendar.LoadFromStream(Stream s, Encoding e, ISerializer serializer) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\iCalendar.cs:line 216 at DDay.iCal.iCalendar.LoadFromStream(Stream s) in C:\Users\jon\dday-1.0\DDay.iCal\iCalendar.cs:line 178 at ValidatorWebRole._Default.Validate(Int64 byteCount, TextReader tr, String id) in C:\Users\jon\icalvalid\gitwork\icalvalid\DDay.iCal.Validator.Client.CloudApp\ValidatorWebRole\Default.aspx.cs:line 346

joxsmith wrote:I am having much the same problem. I get the error stating that the Settings Error: We could not parse the calendar at the URL requested. When I run it through the validator as suggested above I get the following error...The validator couldn't parse your input.

If you want to narrow it down, the advice given by the validator is quite sound:

joxsmith wrote:Capture a copy of the feed in a file.
Try removing things and validating each reduced version as a snippet. Eventually you'll get to a minimal version that works. Then try adding things back to see what breaks.

That's a tedious process, but it will work. If you keep cutting it in half, it shouldn't take too long. In the earlier case, that's what I did, and I found the problematic event in less than 10 minutes.

I am new at this so ... How does one capture a copy of the feed in a file?

I was finally able to get my calendar to import! Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions!

joxsmith, your error looks very similar to mine. If the iCal parser hits a control character, it barfs and produces a stack trace for the parser program itself (not your calendar file). That can be misleading.

I would recommend you download your calendar as a file for examination. You can do this by placing your calendar URL from the lds.org website into your browser location bar and press enter. You will be presented with a dialog to save a file. Save it and open it with a text editor (i.e. notepad). Chances are most likely that the offending characters will be in one of the "SUMMARY:" or "DESCRIPTION:" fields since these are the fields that are user editable. Scroll through your file, checking the text following these fields for anything that doesn't look right. In my case, I had a couple entries like the following:

[INDENT]BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20111031T192311Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20111210
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20111211
SUMMARY:High Council Speaking Assignment
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000001029419@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:"... " <table compact><caption><b>Assignments:</b></caption><tr><td><small>Buena Vista        </td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Bumby</td>
<td><small>...</td></tr>
<tr><td><small>Conway</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Ocoee</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Olympia</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Semoran</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Windermere</td> <td><small>...</td></tr>
<tr><td><small>Windy Ridge</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Winter Garden</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> </table>
END:VEVENT[/INDENT]

You'll notice that the DESCRIPTION contains HTML (which should just be treated as text) but also, at the end of Buena Vista, are some funky A's. Since this calendar entry is related to the stake (High Council), I contacted the stake Executive Secretary and asked him to clean them up. Once he did that, viola!! It imported just fine.

Hope this helps! Sorry if it's a little verbose. I like leaving detailed information for people who search the forum for similar problems.

Any idea while the calendar ical would work on an iOS device, but not Google? I was able to use the iCalendar Validator and found errors and my Google Calendar will not accept it, but my iphone does just fine...

pwilson wrote:I was able to use the iCalendar Validator and found errors and my Google Calendar will not accept it, but my iphone does just fine...

Apparently iOS is more forgiving then Google.

mclay wrote:I was finally able to get my calendar to import! Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions!

joxsmith, your error looks very similar to mine. If the iCal parser hits a control character, it barfs and produces a stack trace for the parser program itself (not your calendar file). That can be misleading.

I would recommend you download your calendar as a file for examination. You can do this by placing your calendar URL from the lds.org website into your browser location bar and press enter. You will be presented with a dialog to save a file. Save it and open it with a text editor (i.e. notepad). Chances are most likely that the offending characters will be in one of the "SUMMARY:" or "DESCRIPTION:" fields since these are the fields that are user editable. Scroll through your file, checking the text following these fields for anything that doesn't look right. In my case, I had a couple entries like the following:

[INDENT]BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20111031T192311Z
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20111210
DTEND;VALUE=DATE;VALUE=DATE:20111211
SUMMARY:High Council Speaking Assignment
UID:000000000000000000000000000000000000001029419@calendarws.lds.org
DESCRIPTION:"... " <table compact><caption><b>Assignments:</b></caption><tr><td><small>Buena Vista        </td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Bumby</td>
<td><small>...</td></tr>
<tr><td><small>Conway</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Ocoee</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Olympia</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Semoran</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Windermere</td> <td><small>...</td></tr>
<tr><td><small>Windy Ridge</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> <tr><td><small>Winter Garden</td> <td><small>...</td></tr> </table>
END:VEVENT[/INDENT]

You'll notice that the DESCRIPTION contains HTML (which should just be treated as text) but also, at the end of Buena Vista, are some funky A's. Since this calendar entry is related to the stake (High Council), I contacted the stake Executive Secretary and asked him to clean them up. Once he did that, viola!! It imported just fine.

Hope this helps! Sorry if it's a little verbose. I like leaving detailed information for people who search the forum for similar problems.

Perhaps a better solution is to have event submission script filter out control characters in the event descriptions and titles (heck, out of any user-specified field)? I had the same problem with back-to-back carriage returns in one of the event descriptions. Google and iCalValidator kept having issues with this. Calendar event submitters can't see that they've pasted control characters in the dialog boxes. So, to be safe, the submission script needs to simply filter these out.