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iCal - inconsistent data - cured it!

Recently I migrated two users to new systems as follows

User1 = iMac G4 OS 10.4.11 --------> Mac Pro (early 2008) OS 10.5.1

User2 = PowerBook G4 OS 10.4.11 ---> MacBook OS 10.5.1

Everything worked correctly except User2 could not synchronize iCal with User1 via .Mac. The persistent error message at the end of each sync attempt was

*Calendars could not be synced due to inconsistent data.*
*Confirm that your computer's data is valid, then reset Calendars on .Mac in System Preferences.*

I followed the steps in

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307052

but no joy. Note that neither user's calendar contains groups.

Here are the steps that worked. This may be overkill, but at least now I have all 16 calendars in iCal synching in both directions again.

I considered User1 to have the "gold" version of iCal data. But even though User1 could sync with .Mac there must have been something corrupt on the User1 side (I went through a lot of debug steps on the User2 side to reach this conclusion...)

So the goal was to reconstruct a clean version of iCal data on User1 and push it through .Mac to User2.

As always, make sure you have a reliable backup before poking around deleting files and folders!

1. User1

Open iCal
In the menu bar choose File -> Backup iCal...
You will want this for File -> Restore iCal... if all else fails

In iCal, in the section named Calendars, select a calendar
In the menu bar choose File -> Export...
Save the file in a convenient folder
Repeat for each calendar in your list
Quit iCal

2. User1

Open iSync
In the menu bar choose iSync -> Preferences...
At the bottom, under Advanced, click the Reset Sync History... button
Confirm you want to do this
Quit iSync

Quit all applications
Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Deselect every item
Deselect "Synchronize with .Mac"
Click the Advanced... button
Select User1 in the list
Click the Unregister button
Click the Done button

Navigate to the folder ~User2/Library/Calendars
Delete the contents

Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/iCal
Delete the contents

Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/iSync
Delete the contents

Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/iCal
Delete the contents

Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/SyncService
Delete the contents

Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/SyncServices
Delete the contents

3. User2

Repeat each of the steps in the previous section '2'

At this point you now have default data in iCal on User1 and User2. You can see this by opening iCal on either machine. There will be two empty calendars named Home and Work. Quit iCal again before proceeding.

4. User1

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Select "Synchronize with .Mac"
Set the drop-down menu to "Manually"
Select "Calendars"
Select "Show status in menu bar"
Click the Advanced... button
Click the Reset Sync Data... button
In the drop-down menu select "Calendars"
Click on the arrow pointing to the right so that the sentence reads "On .Mac sync info from this computer."
Click the Replace button
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating, especially up in the main menu bar

5. User2

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Select "Synchronize with .Mac"
Set the drop-down menu to "Manually"
Select "Calendars"
Select "Show status in menu bar"
Click the Sync Now button
Respond to the dialogue by clicking the More Options button
In the drop-down select "Calendar - Replace data on computer"
Click the Sync button
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating, especially up in the main menu bar

At this point, if you still have the "inconsistent data" problem you will get that error message. Swear or whatever helps, restore your calendar as in section '1', and wait for progress from Apple...

But if the sync succeeds then you are half way through the tunnel!

6. User1

Open iCal

In the menu bar choose File -> Export...
Select "Import an iCal file"
Click the Import button
Select one of the .ics files you previously exported
Click the Import button
In the drop-down menu select "New Calendar" (if your calendar is named Home or Work just select the appropriate default)
Click the OK button
Repeat for each calendar you exported

(If you are not using the default Home and Work calendars, select each and use Edit -> Delete to remove them)

Rearrange the order of calendars to suit your tastes
Quit iCal

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Click the Sync Now button
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating

7. User2

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Click the Sync Now button
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating

Depending on how your preferences are set in iSync, you may get a dialogue box warning you that more than 5% (or 10%, or...) of your data on this computer is about to be changed. Allow this to happen and proceed.

Open iCal

If all has gone well you should now see everything identical with User1. Do the happy dance or whatever feels good, then get ready to reinstate the other sync selections.

Quit iCal

8. User1

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Select Bookmarks or Contacts or ...

I selected only one at a time in order to keep maximum control while debugging, but you can probably reselect all of your previous categories at once to avoid time spent iterating.

Click the Sync Now button
Respond to any dialogues by indicating you want to use data from this computer
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating -- could take awhile depending on your selections and internet connection

9. User2

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Click the Sync Now button
Respond to any dialogues by indicating you want to use data from .Mac
Wait for the sync indicators to stop gyrating

Depending on how your preferences are set in iSync, you may get a dialogue box warning you that more than 5% (or 10%, or...) of your data on this computer is about to be changed. Allow this to happen and proceed.

Open appropriate applications to confirm that data has synced as expected.

10. User1

Open .Mac in System Preferences
Select the Sync tab
Adjust the drop down from Manually to whatever frequency you desire

11. User2

Ditto

That's it. For experienced users that was way too much detail, but I know others like "the recipe".

Cheers -sailhome

Mac Pro (early 2008), MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Feb 3, 2008 6:19 PM

Reply
55 replies

Feb 5, 2008 10:20 AM in response to Sailhome

Glad it worked for you folks, too.

By the way, for anyone else, I just noticed a typo in section '2' of the instructions.

That section explains some steps on User1. Everywhere in that section it says

"Navigate to the folder ~User2/..."

should actually have said

"Navigate to the folder ~User1/..."

Obviously if you are working on User1 then the path should be ~User1 !

Small detail, but for someone requiring a precise recipe that typo might have been confusing.

-sailhome

Feb 14, 2008 5:29 PM in response to Sailhome

FWIW, when I went to the Sync Preferences on my G4 AGP, I noticed that in addition to my other computers being registered to sync, a .Mac Sync engine or something similar (it has been deleted, so I don't recall the name exactly) was on the list. I unregistered this sync engine, then tried syncing my laptop (which has been showing the "inconsistent data" error) one more time.

It worked! Could this .Mac sync engine be something that was used in earlier versions of iSync before it became integrated into the .Mac Systems Preferences?

In any event, it might be worth the time to see if this sync engine appears on the Sync Preferences of any computer being synced, then deleting it, before going through all the steps listed. Note that this sync engine only showed up on one of my computers, so I would check every computer.

Feb 14, 2008 6:34 PM in response to Nancy Gee

Nancy -- that is a great observation and I concur -- if anyone is having the same problem to look for that registration and try de-activating before the lengthy steps above.

I do not specifically recall if there was a ".Mac" something-or-other regesitered next to the other entities in my setup. I saw so much ".Mac" written at every turn that, if it was there, it's now lost in the fog of my memory...

I'm happy to report that my .Mac syncs have remained problem-free since taking the steps above.

Also, the 10.5.2 update states that a fix to iCal "Addresses stability issues related to .Mac syncing of iCal calendars." so perhaps people with the problem should first upgrade and see if the problem goes away. I recently applied 10.5.2 and sync remains fine.

Good luck everyone -sailhome

Feb 25, 2008 11:25 PM in response to Sailhome

*Great post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

This seems to have fixed all my many iCal problems and increased the speed of a sync considerably. It also reduced the size of my iCal data from 28MB to 8MB.
I did find that I needed to reboot my computers before Step 4 would work.

This post needs to be seen by all iCal users--it's amazing how many issues there are with it.

I hope Apple gives you a job! Maybe you could also make the delete old events feature work--although now that syncing is so speedy and the size of my iCal data so much smaller, maybe it's not needed.

Feb 26, 2008 8:23 AM in response to Sailhome

THanks Sailhome, worked for me. Two comments though. In section 2 you list, "Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/iCal and Delete the contents" and Navigate to ~User2/Library/Application Support/SyncServies Delete the contents" twice. In step 5, I would not get an option to re subscribe my computer if I accessed iSync though System Preference. I did get the option when I selected iSync > .Mac sync preferences from the menu bar.

Mar 8, 2008 10:50 AM in response to Herr Lohmann

You're welcome -- glad it is helping people.

How did I figure it out? I read through a lot of posts and tried to connect dots. Also I began to realize that this was not a widespread problem. Sure a lot of people have the problem, but probably fewer than 2%. So even though it might be a bug, it seemed more likely it was a configuration or corruption problem.

I'm pretty fastidious about keeping back ups, so I decided to aggressively tinker knowing that I could restore from clones if I mucked up iCal too much.

If you take a top level view of the steps, you'll see that basically it just resets iCal to "zero" -- wipes out all the data etc. Then it tests to see if .Mac sync works as expected. If it does, then restore from export. If it doesn't -- oh well put everything back the way it was before wiping and wait for a fix.

Fortunately, it confirms that iCal and sync work just fine. Also fortunate is that iCal calendars can be successfully repopulated from the export.

As pointed out, all these steps may be overkill -- but by golly they do eliminate a lot of potential trouble spots all at once. And it works which is the important thing!

I haven't had a bit of trouble with iCal since taking these steps.

Cheers -sailhome

iCal - inconsistent data - cured it!

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