delete all calendars and start over with import from Palm?

Question

Level 1

5 points

delete all calendars and start over with import from Palm?

I tried to sync my Palm desktop with iCal a long time ago, but the result was a mess (events on wrong days; multi-day events repeating on every day instead of ending when they were supposed to). Not having time to straighten things out at the time, I went back to using Palm desktop 4.2.1.

Now, in preparation for syncing with my iPhone, I want to make the switch to iCal/Address Book. Problem is, I can't get rid of the old/wrong calendar events in my home calendar. Following instructions from another post, I tried deleting all the contents of ~library/application support/iCal as well as the two iCal-related preferences in ~library/preferences (com.apple.iCal.AlarmScheduler.plist and com.apple.iCal.plist) in order to start fresh with a blank calendar. I emptied the trash, logged out and back in, but iCal still found the old calendar data and brought up all the outdated events.

Any suggestions?

G5-Dual 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 12, 2007 10:53 AM

Reply

Answer 1

wiswic Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 12, 2007 3:19 PM in response to wiswic

Okay, so the answer was ridiculously easy: create a blank calendar first (there always has to be at least one calendar in iCal), and then delete the one with all the outdated info. Somehow iCal "help" doesn't mention this little tidbit! The Missing Sync website does, however, so I was able to start fresh with a new calendar.

New problem: all my data seems to have made the transfer over to iCal and Address Book via the missing sync. For some reason, however, events that spanned several days in Palm Desktop now show up as multiple daily events in iCal. The events start/stop on the correct dates, but all those individual little bubbles are annoying and undermine the at-a-glance graphical representation of an event's duration. Is there a setting that I missed, or is this a flaw in the Palm Desktop -> missing sync -> iCal process?!!

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 12, 2007 9:34 PM in response to wiswic

There are a whole series of 'representation disconnects' between the Palm calendaring application and iCal. While this article— iSync: About Syncing Recurrent Events Between iCal and Palm OS Based Devices—would lead to you believe that iSync is primarily the issue, it's not: this behavior occurs primarily because of the differences between the calendaring programs in each environment, and only secondarily because of the manner in which records are pushed and pulled by the synchronization framework.

iSync itself is simply another compliant sync client, and there is unfortunately no workaround for the issues delineated in the article.

Reply

Answer 3

wiswic Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 12, 2007 10:15 PM in response to Michael Lafferty

Thanks for the link--seems I'll just have to deal with the Palm/iCal calendaring anomalies. Do these "representation disconnects" have anything to do with the weird behavior of my iCal calendars, now that I've synced my palm data to iCal? Immediately after the original Palm/iCal sync, the calendars came up in iCal with no problem. Once I quit iCal, however, and then re-opened it, the list of calendars had disappeared from the "Calendars" pane to the left of the grid, and all of the events had disappeared as well.

As someone reported elsewhere in this forum, changing the viewing mode (day, week or month) causes the events themselves to reappear, but the "Calendars" pane remains blank.

I had hoped to ditch palm desktop and streamline my calendar /contact--computer/iPhone syncing, but iCal's odd behavior is making me question whether or not it is stable enough to fully rely on.

Is there anything that will make the calendars and events perform more reliably?

G5-Dual 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 13, 2007 7:22 AM in response to wiswic

No, they don't. If only it were that simple. Others have reported the sort of anomalies you describe, but in years of using iCal, I've never seen anything like that. It sounds as though there is an issue with your specific configuration.

Since the iCal experts like Ferd and John aren't likely to see your additional question buried in this thread, why not start a new thread entitled "Why do my calendars disappear?" or, something to that effect. Short of tossing the com.apple.iCal.plist from this location…

Macintosh HD:Users:<username>:Library:Preferences

…I cannot think of a quick fix that would directly address your issues with the manner in which iCal displays information.

It's been quite reliable for me, and I have never lost data, despite a complicated synchronization configuration which includes it.

Reply

Answer 5

wiswic Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 13, 2007 9:04 AM in response to Michael Lafferty

Thanks for the suggestion--I did start a new thread about the disappearing/reappearing calendar.

Reply