Can't edit Google Calendar events in iCal

I am using Google Calendar's new CalDAV sync system and their "Calaboration" tool to sync my iCal (version 3.0.5, and I'm using Mac OS 10.5.2) with my Google Calendars, per the instructions on this page:
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#ical

It seems to work ok in that I can now see my google calendar events in iCal. I can also add an event to that calendar in iCal, and it will sync to my google calendar. However, I can't seem to edit an event in iCal that was created on the Google Calendar web page. That is, all my events that I created in Google Calendar do indeed appear in iCal, but I can't edit them in iCal. I can edit events that I create for that calendar in iCal, but not ones I created in google calendar. Not a huge deal, but I was wondering if this is how it is supposed to work, because it seems a tad inconvenient.

(I do have my e-mail address in my address book "me" card, so that's not the problem.)

Al Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Dec 7, 2008 11:10 PM

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11 replies

Dec 8, 2008 8:27 AM in response to Arkouda

Thanks for your response!

When I say I can't edit them, I mean I am not even given the option to edit that event.

Any event I create for that calendar in iCal, I can double click on the event and click the "edit" button on the lower part of the event pop-up window in iCal. But any event that was not actually created in iCal does not have an "edit" button on it's pop-up window. It lets me view the event, and says the event was created by the "Organizer" (who is me), but seems to not recognize that I am the organizer.
When I try to drag the event to a different time on the weekly calendar screen in iCal, I get a pop-up alert that says "Invitation Error: Only the organizer can change this event."

The only thing I've found in both Google Calendar help and iCal help is that iCal needs to be able to recognize me as the organizer by me having my e-mail address in the "me" card in my Address Book on my mac. That makes sense, but it doesn't seem to be working. My e-mail address has been in my "me" address book card since before I started using Calaboration. And, on the events I can't edit in iCal, the organizer is listed as me and has my same e-mail address. I can even open my own address book card directly from that event, and it opens the correct address book card. But I still can't edit the event, which implies to me that iCal still does not recognize me as the organizer.

It's quite annoying.

Dec 8, 2008 8:58 AM in response to dgalvan123

I can't be sure, but I reckon it's something to do with Google Account Settings.

I have added all my email addresses here: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount?service=mail&hl=en (this'll probably take you to the right place if you are logged-in already to Google) and I can definitely edit an event that has attendees other than me in iCal.

The other thought that occurs to me is whether your "me" card in Address Book contains the address that Google knows is you already. This might be the place to start?

Dec 8, 2008 9:05 AM in response to Arkouda

Both my google e-mail address and my primary e-mail address are in my Google Account personal settings (the link you provided), and my "me" card in Address book, and have been since before I tried to use Calaboration. So, while I agree that not having an e-mail address in the right place sounds like it would be the problem, all my addresses seem to be in the right place.

Thanks for trying!

Dec 8, 2008 9:13 AM in response to dgalvan123

Sorry, but that's me out of ideas.

I can happily modify events at both ends - with or without attendees.

The only ones I can't get at are those that are originated by others and to which I am invited.

I would say that it's worthwhile deleting the connection from the iCal end and re-making it with Calaboration although I would guess that you have already tried.

Good luck! (and if you do find the answer, I'd be interested for future reference)

Dec 8, 2008 10:46 AM in response to Arkouda

Yeah, I tried deleting the calendars in iCal and re-synching to them via Calaboration, but the same problem persisted.

I did find the solution after a bit of experimenting, though. To solve it, I basically created a new calendar on Google Calendar, imported all my events from my old google calendar into it, then used Calaboration to sync iCal to the new Google calendar, and now I can edit events in iCal and GCal without problems. I don't actually know what the problem WAS, but this seems to have solved it. Maybe I made my original Google Calendar too long ago and it had some old bad settings I couldn't see? I dunno, but it doesn't matter now.

For those who might have this same problem, here's how I transferred my old Google Calendar events into a new Google Calendar without losing anything: (You actually don't need to delete your old Google Calendar at all if you don't want to, so there's no reason to worry about losing your events.)

1. In GCal, click the "settings" link at the top right of the web page. Then select the "Calendars" tab. Click the "Export My Calendars" link, which should be under your list of calendars, next to the cancel button. This will download a .zip file to your computer, containing all of your google calendars as individual .ics files. Go ahead and unzip them so that the .ics file for the calendar you want to duplicate is sitting in a folder somewhere on your computer.
2. Now In GCal, click on the "Create" link on the lower righthand side of the "My Calendars" box, which is on the lefthand side of the screen.
3. Create a new blank calendar and name it whatever you want. This is the blank calendar into which you will import your old calendar's events.
4. Now, in GCal, click "Add" at the bottom right of the "Other Calendars" box, which is under the "My Calendars" box on the left side of the web page.
5. Select "Import Calendar".
6. Click "Choose File" and browse to the .ics file you want to duplicate on your computer.
7. In the "Choose Calendar" pull-down menu, select the new, blank calendar you made in step 3.
8. Click Import. This may take a few minutes, depending on the number of events you have in your .ics calendar file.
9. Once it's done, look at the calendar to make sure your events all came into your new Google Calendar ok. It should look exactly like the original google calendar, but it will be a different color.
10. NOW, use Calaboration to sync your iCal to the New Calendar you just made in Google Calendar.
11. Once it's done synching, you should be able to edit events in the calendar in iCal.

Dec 12, 2008 10:48 AM in response to dgalvan123

I had exactly the same problem. After an extensive search for the cause of the problem I discovered in the event files (located in ~/Library/Calendars/...) that the name of the Organizer was not my gmail address, rather the e-mail address that I used to create my Google Account. I removed the original address from my Google Account settings, I substituted the wrong addresses with the gmail address in all event files (used a stream editor to do it for me), removed the calender cache, and restarted iCal. Everything was back to normal and I could edit my events again. But then, after some weeks, the problem re-appeared. Although there was no trace of my original address in my Google Account, in some of the events, the Organizer was again linked to the wrong address, that is, not my gmail address. I have no clue as to how this can happen, but it is quite annoying. My work around is to repeat the procedure described above whenever the problem pops again. It takes me only a couple of minutes, but it is kind of not so satisfactory.
Bottom line seems to be that in using Google Calendar as a CalDav server in iCal one has to make sure that the google account is in now way linked to an e-mail address other then the gmail address.

Dec 17, 2008 6:22 AM in response to dgalvan123

I actually had the same problem, and I think I created the problem for myself. I had my iCal all set up with 2-way editing capabilities working correctly. I then decided to try syncing my Google contacts with my Address Book contacts, but I didn't have gmail set up. I was using Google with a different email address. I decided to create a new gmail account so that I could do Contacts syncing, but since Google defaults to your gmail account being the primary account address, it created the problem where my iCal would no longer let me edit events on my calendar.

I decided that Google contact syncing wasn't important to me, so I deleted my gmail account in hopes that making my other email address the primary one would fix the situation. It didn't. I tried deleting and re-adding my Google Calendar to iCal, but that didn't help either.

After reading through the posts in this thread, I decided to take another approach. Since it seemed to have something to do with the Me contact in Address Book, I decided to remove that email address from myself, and then when I launched Calaboration, it told me that I needed to have that email address as part of my Me contact. I told it to add it to my contact, and that fixed everything. I can now edit events again just as before.

So I guess the solution is to remove your email address from your Me contact, and then delete the calendar from iCal. Quit iCal, then run Calaboration and allow it to add your email address back to your Me card. That should fix you right up.

Hope that helps!

James

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Can't edit Google Calendar events in iCal

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