iCal will not save my events, appointments...

Experiencing the same problem. Events seem to randomly disappear and I've had to reenter some things several times. Between this reliability problem and the "overlapping months" issue, I think I need to use another calendar app.

Anyone else have ideas on how to fix this?

Also having the same problem--it's impacting my work. Also, since the appts. drop, I add them again and then a little later the other one shows up, so now i've got duplicate appts here, dropped appts there--the whole thing has become unreliable. Not okay.
MBP and wondering if Time Capsule isn't impacting this somehow...?

I've got the same thing, but I can watch the events disappear! I create a new event, wait about 20 seconds, and poof--it vanishes right before my eyes. I cannot add any events at all. They simply disappear right after I enter them. Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks

I have experienced the same problem since mid-March which made be stop using ICal.

My son thinks it might be something to do with UNIX file permissions or whatever. Any other suggestions?

Did anybody get clever help from Apple, they just tell me my support-srevice is over-due after more than one year of ownership...

I run Leopard 10.5.1 on a MacBook 1,1

Hi,

Try re-setting the Sync Services database. See my post here:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7629613#7629613

Best wishes

John M

That worked for me. The events are not disappearing anymore.

Thanks for the tip.

I had high hopes, but this did not fix my issue. I am trying to import an ICS file from work to sync to my iPhone (ICS came from GroupWise). I import it to an existing calendar (or a new one) named Work, and all of the appointments show up just fine. I can browse around and open them. I close iCal and then re-open it, and all the appointments are gone.

I tried the reset inside iSync and also tried the full reset via the command line.

If anyone has other ideas, I am dying to get my calendar imported so I can start using the iPhone as my primary source.

Hello All.
I'm having the same problem as drrich.
This is affecting my MacBook, and now my old iBook G4.
I have contacted Apple Support, and with them gone through varied attempts at resetting or even deleting various iCal related cache folders in Library.
The problem in a nutshell, is this: iCal will not remember new events, or edits to existing events. Even if iCal is backed-up as an icbu file, the new events are not remembered. The iCal backup file cannot be used in a different computer, as it comes up as corrupted.
So, in an experiment, I did this:
Yesterday after the conversation with Apple Support, I restored the iCal on my G4 iBook from the backup made on the MacBook. The G4 is running 10.5.4. The icbu file was rejected by iCal on the iBook as being corrupt. I then exported/imported individual Calendars from MacBook to iBook. SUCCESS!!! I then created a new test event, and iCal remembered it in iBook. We were really getting somewhere... All that needed to be done now was to backup the iBook iCal. Backup made, I tried to make a new event, and... after quitting and re-opening iCal THE NEW EVENT WAS GONE!
So, it seems that the problem is caused AFTER making a icbu backup. Once iCal makes a backup, it than will not allow ANYTHING new to be made on board.

Apple Support have just e-mailed me with the following:
I suggest you boot up off install disk-
And select archive and install,
The preserve user and network settings are chosen by default- keep those settings,
We hope issue will be resolved afterwards,
You will have to run software updates later.

I'm not too happy with that answer, as it is clear that this is a problem with iCal - not just with the installation on this MacBook. Otherwise the same problems would not have manifested themselves on my iBook too.
I don't feel that re-installing 10.5 will fix this, as it has only stopped working properly since 10.5.4 has been installed as an upgrade, and after spending half a day installing and upgrading, that's where we're going to end up again!
From looking at the Apple forum, it's also clear that lots of users are having issues with iCal recently.

So, is anyone else having the same/similar problems?

This problem only seems to have appeared since 10.5.4.

Thanks in advance...

Hi Sinnwell,

It's possible that you have some corruption in your iCal calendar files.

Make a backup of iCal as it is (File > Back up iCal...). Then I suggest you export the calendar. Import it as a new calendar. Then delete the original.

Best wishes
John M

SDJR wrote:
Yesterday after the conversation with Apple Support, I restored the iCal on my G4 iBook from the backup made on the MacBook.

Hi SDJR,

How did you restore from the backup? There may be some permissions incorrectly set in your calendars folder. Your user should have read/write permissions on this folder and all folders and files in it.

Go to ~/Library/Calendars on your G4 (where ~ is the path to your Home folder).
Select this folder in the Finder and press Cmd-I.
In the info window that appears open the 'Sharing and Permissions' tab.
You may need to unlock this option by clicking the padlock.
Check you do have the correct permissions.
Click on the cog icon and select 'Apply to enclosing items' from the menu.
Close the info window.

Then test adding events to iCal.

Let me know if this helps.

Best wishes
John M

I don't have any data in iCal, so I have deleted the calendars multiple times. Right now I'm down to a completely blank "Home" calendar. When I try to import my ICS file, I import it as a new calendar. Once it is complete, I name that calendar "Work" and delete the "Home" one just to be sure there wasn't anything in there causing the issue.

When I quit iCal and re-open it, the Work calendar is magically blank.

Hello John.
Thanks for the info.
I did try your suggestion, but had no joy with the outcome.
The backup was made in iCal as an .icbu file.
I have gone through all the obvious things now...
Thanks for the help. 🙂
Any further suggestions from anyone, please?

I'm getting the same problem on one of my Macs. What is interesting is that I use iCal server to share calendars and if you create an event on another Mac then the new event correctly appears on the one with the problem, suggesting that iCal is perfectly capable of writing events into the Calendars folder, it just won't do it if the event is created or edited locally (nor will it write to the CalDAV server).
Just to be on the safe side I have reapplied the permissions to the Calendars folder, as well as trying setting 'everyone' to 'Read & Write': no effect.
I tried renaming the 'Calendar Cache' file to see if that was the source of the problem, iCal just spends a while rebuilding the file before carrying on as before.
FWIT I believe this problem started at the time when I first sync'd my iPhone although that may be a red herring.
This is bizarre: anyone at Apple got thoughts?

Hello Gordon.
Yes, that's exactly how mine is manifesting itself, too.
I'm not sure if Apple know how to fix this, as all the suggestions from Tech support haven't worked so far.

I've been working on this some more: other users on the same iMac can save events so presumably it isn't the application or the files stored in /Library. If you rename the ~/library/calendars folder then iCal will correctly create a new one but will still not save any events into it.
I've tried copying a working ~/library/calendars folder from my MacBook and that shows the same problem on the iMac. I have also tried deleting the iCal preference files in ~/library/preferences and ~/library/preferences/ByHost.
There is a tech note which describes how to clear out the iSync database: don't bother.
MacRumors is reporting that a 10.5.5 is on its way which includes updates to calendars and sync'ing, I hope we don't have to wait until that is released to get this fixed.
SDJR: do you have an iPhone? As I mentioned previously I first noticed this when I first sync'd with mine although it may have started sooner. If you use a single machine you would only notice the missing events when iCal is restarted.