A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'

I had this problem in the past with my iPod and suddenly the same is happening to my iPhone: Calendars are no longer syncing to my 'iDevices.' This started with 10.5 for me, but I don't know that it's related to the OS version. There are lots of Apple Discussions suggesting to export all calendars, delete them in iCal, and then re-import them. Resetting the Sync History in iSync's Preferences is also mentioned all the time as a possible solution.

I tried those methods, but they never worked for me. Sometimes the calendars list in iTunes just went empty, and other times it didn't show all my calendars or only very old, long-deleted ones. Since the behavior was the same with my iPod and my iPhone, I could at least rule out a problem there. Today I finally discovered the culprit:

I am sharing my calendars via icalx.com, and it turns out that sometimes iCal simply "forgets" the URL I have set there and reverts back to .Mac, which I don't use. Reverting all the URLs to the correct values solved the problem immediately -- all calendars sync perfectly again now!

So if you're having the same problems, it might be a good idea to check the URLs of all those shared (and subscribed?) calendars in iCal.

From our Sponsor...

The macosxhints Poll

What version of OS X are you running as your main OS?

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices' | 8 comments | Create New Account

Click here to return to the 'A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'' hint

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: bcamp1973 on Tue, Mar 18 2008 at 8:09AM PDT

i'm dealing with the same issue, however it's affecting computers and not 'iDevices'. It's been a problem since the start for me with OS X. I can only seem to get one computer working with calenders and any attempt to sync others fails. The funny thing is my iPhone connects to one of those computers and *it* syncs the calendars just fine...even though it's relying on a computer that doesn't???? Anyone else having similar issues. THere are a LOT of threads about this in Apple's discussion forums, but none of the proposed solutions work. I've had this problem through multiple OS installs, multiple computers etc...it's driving me a bit insane...

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: Herve5 on Tue, Mar 18 2008 at 8:20AM PDT

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: morespace54 on Tue, Mar 18 2008 at 11:27AM PDT

sorry for this side question, but why are you using icalx instead of e.g. PHPiCalendar ( free and open), that you can host on any webserver endowed with php, including with .htaccess-related protection...?
H.

Maybe because this way, they don't have to set-up a webserver? ;)
Anyway, icalx is free too and basically just store .ics files on a secured space on their webserver.

FYI, I had this issue once and found out that I could often solve it just by editing the culprit calendar (double-clicking it) without doing any changes to the calendar. Worst case scenario, I had to remove the subscribed calendar and add it again.

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: poenn on Wed, Mar 19 2008 at 1:52AM PDT

Hi everyone,

I'm the hint submitter and I use icalx because it's free and straightforward and has existed for years now. So I didn't have the need to find altenatives. :-)

I once also had the following: Sometimes it seems that the "special" birthday calendar can help. Removing it by deselecting the option in iCal's Preferences suddenly showed a long-gone calendar. After deleting it and re-enabling the birthday calendar all was fine again.

poenn

Thank you!
Authored by: yDNA on Wed, Mar 19 2008 at 2:44PM PDT

So, I'm not going insane? Syncing my calendar to the iPhone was simply out of sync. I didn't realize the general iSync history could be involved. I didn't keep track of just what I did, but something from this hint has finally restore sanity to my iPhone calendar (for now).

As a extra bonus, the iSyncExternal or whatever process has stopped churning my harddrive for hours on end. Things must have been pretty messed up in there.

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: kcdot on Sun, Mar 30 2008 at 10:50PM PDT

None of these solutions seem to work for me.
I just use iCal. I have a bunch of calendars because I like to categorize my appointments, but whenever I hit sync it pretends to do something and it does nothing.

I erased my sync history or whatever in iSync, I restored my iCal calendars, nothing is synching. HELP! I switched from a perfectly good Sony Ericsson P990 for this loser iPhone and have had NOTHING but problems. What a disappointment (and several MISSED appointments...).

Any other ideas? I'm totally lost.

Works so far!
Authored by: GanjaManja on Wed, Dec 31 2008 at 10:31AM PST

Brilliant...

I had 5 calendars set to publish to the local webserver (w/ the built-in Apache/WebDAV webserver on OS X 10.5) so that GoogleCalendars could post them online.

The moment I chose to "Unpublish" all of those in iCal, the missing iPhone-created events suddenly appeared on my iCal (even though the Phone's not connected)!
(it turns out that 2 of the published calendars had incorrect addresses/logins and weren't really published anyway... those were probably the culprit, as it was fixed the moment i unpublished the last one of those broken ones)

Excellent hint, I'm amazed that I don't even need to sync again for that to have already fixed the problem, it must just be a bug with iCal displaying the sync'd data of a published calendar. I hope Apple knows of this iCal bug.

I also have the "Birthdays" calendar showing, but my missing events appeared without touching it.

Later, I will try to re-publish the calendars and see if the situation stays corrected.

A possible fix for iCal sync issues on 'iDevices'
Authored by: zakwer on Thu, Apr 9 2009 at 3:11AM PDT

I found a terminal command does a full deep reset of iSync cache, it worked for me.

See http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1627

Hint Options

Search

From our Sponsor...

User Functions

What's New:

Hints

Comments last 2 days

Links last 2 weeks

What's New in the Forums?

The Editor's Corner...

Hints by Topic

News from Macworld

The macosxhints Poll