Iphone Exchange Calendar Synch Issues

If you are like me, you had to scan all of the google posts hoping to find a "fix" for calendar issues on the iphone.

We created a "fix" but there are some catches, it's time consuming, but it did work and if you are in desperation this may be your angle.

Our environment:

Exchange 2003

Outlook 2003/07/10

Iphone 4s

Microsoft Tools:

Calcheck.exe

MFCMapi.exe

1. On an Outlook 2003 Client, sign is as the employee having the recurring calendar issues (ours were disappearing). Create a PST and copy the current calendar over. This is for historic reference only.

2. Run Calcheck (with no switches) against the employee calendar

3. Delete and/or reschedule ALL recurring meetings that were found in error. Make sure you set an END DATE and do not leave them to default values.

4. Run Calcheck again to make sure the recurring meeting errors are gone.

5. Make a NEW PST and copy the current calendar over. This is to import later back into Outlook.

6. On your Exchange server use MFCMapi to log into the Employees information store and delete the calendar. Select Hard Delete when given the option.

7. On the Outlook client, on a command line, type in outlook.exe /resetfolders

8. Close Outlook and reopen to verify you have a clean calendar

9. Go to the 2nd PST calendar and change your view to ACTIVE appointments only. That's right, historical data WILL be lost. Select them all and move them over to the clean Outlook/Exchange calendar.

10. Reset and delegate permissions you might have

11. Resynchronize the apple devices (we deleted all calendars and added them back)

12. Verify changes to appointments are working.

We found this out through trial and error on our CEO's calendar and IPhone. Painful but it worked. I HOPE this helps someone. IF so, please post it here.

Thank You!

CalCheck cleanup with -F switch (moved 1819 events w/ errors), then removed exchange account on iphone and added back.

Exchange 2007

Outlook 2007

iphone 4s

One of the annoying things about thise kind of board is people not reading the original post properly and preferring to write their own solution to a completely different problem. I hope I have not become one of those as I do think the problem I have is related to the one in the original post, even though the cure that worked for that person does not work for me.

I have a situation where I can create appointments in both the iPhone and the PC (yes I am using the right calendar!), but some time later (I think it is if the appointment is amended and probably only when that is amended by somebody else), the appointment disappears off my IOS devices.

I had one today where I knew I had an appointment but could not see it on my iPhone. I looked on my iPad and there it was. Lo and behold if a few seconds later it didn't disappear off the iPad too. It is definitely still on the Exchange/Outlook calendar. I had to delete the calendar off my phone and re-instate it for the appointment to appear. This is clearly not an acceptable fix, and neither are any of the others I have seen on here, as even if they worked, how would I know to implement them as I DONT KNOW WHAT I DONT KNOW

Thanks for any help

The lack of guidance from Apple on this issue is very frustrating and worrisome. I realize there are many variables to contend with, but when the President of my company has to keep approaching me on the same topic, it makes me look foolish. Apple... if you can't play nice with Exchange, then don't support it! Crossing my fingers that this is resolved in an update or iOS6, but given the lack of administration support I have continually seen from Apple, I'm not expecting much. Seems the only guidance is from other admins exploring options... this is unacceptable.

PS: the supposed "fix" was applied and worked well for several weeks only to appear again today. My specific issue involves meetings randomly falling off of user calendar (both device and outlook). The same meeting will be retained on the Executive Assistant's calendar. This issue first appeared when user migrated to iPhone 4s. Not sure what to do with this anymore...

This is one of the most comprehensive threads on this topic on the forums. Thanks to all who have contributed. FWIW, I have summarized a bunch of the links I followed here/elsewhere in the following run-down. While not a "fix" per se, it does provide a run down of some common "gotchas" that may lead to desynchronization of Exchange -> iOS calendars:

How to troubleshoot missing and duplicate appointments in Outlook

• Minimize delegates
• Define standard process
• Don't move invites
• Use cal logging in Outlook

Considerations when you use the Delegate Access feature in Microsoft Outlook

Use same Outlook version (delegate-manager)

Outlook: Troubleshooting guide for missing, duplicated or unsynchronized calendar items (lots of good best practices)

• Always process meeting invites from the Inbox folder
• Process all meeting invites that you receive. Do not just delete the invite if you do not want to attend
• Use an "End Date" for recurring meetings
• Enable calendar logging in Outlook (2007 / 2010)
• Enable calendar logging on mobile devices (OWA -> Options -> Phone -> Start Logging)

Current issues with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and third-party devices

Organizer cancels 1 meeting, device deletes all recurring meetings: Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 SP3 + iOS 4.3+

Outlook meeting requests: Essential do's and don'ts

• Try not to delete a meeting request outright because this is one way that meetings get "lost."
• Send cancellation and delete meeting
• Cancel recurring meeting
• Deleting request on one computer after accepting on another can cause meeting to disappear
• Always accept or decline a meeting request from your Inbox
• Don't move a meeting request from your Inbox to a different folder before you accept or decline ("sniffer" code in Inbox)
• If delegates involved, turn off automatic acceptance of meeting requests

I have an exec who uses 2 iphones and 2 iPads (IOS 6), I had to reset once of his iPads and this is the only that has problems syncing with his Calendar. Furthermore the Exhange 2007 server generate Event ID 1008 and server resources are exhausted. When I disable calendar sync on this iPad the errors go away and server resources go back to normal levels.

I replaced this iPad altogether with the same symtoms, yet his other i-devices are OK.

I'm planning on running calcheck against his mailbox to see what this issue is, any other ideas?

Problem: Putting appointments in iphone4s (ios5), syncing ok to exchange2010 (+ other devices ipad2 etc) but dissappearing off iphone where appointment is entered. 1 user affected, all other users fine.

Tried/checked all the above Do's and don'ts - didnt work

Went through an upgrade from iphone4s to iphone5 during this problem - problem still existed on new phone.

Found 1 work around -

1. Before checking appointments on device with problem, ask user to turn off calendar, click yes to delete all, then turn on calendar again. This will re-sync and all appointments again. But any new ones added from this point will obviously dissappear. This option is a pain for the user.

Found 1 fix

2. Re-create everything and start again!!! Create new account on windows server and mailbox on exchange, move required history from e-mail, move email address to it, wipe apple devices (to delete exchange account and itunes info off it) and recreate with new pc and itunes account profiles on all pc's. A lot of work but worth it if your MD is breathing down our kneck and the guys in the apple store are telling him its your exhange server! I'm not exactly sure which step in this process fixed it but. Obviously you could try lesser parts of this approach first like new mailbox on exchange first, wipe and add it itunes on PC/Mac, then setting up a new account if you really need to. It wasnt much more work for me to do all this as we were getting new PC hardware anyway.

After bumping into a lot of threads on this subject, this one is particularly helpful. I started with a few simple meetings going lost, but it turned into a long sad story that's recounted here . It seems like I got a "poison meeting" on my calendar, and somehow the sync process wouldn't update any of the meetings. Perhaps this is a recurring meeting with no end date, after all that's the default for Windows users.

It's disappointing that this "bad meetings bomb calendar sync" problem has been around since 2009, this thread has 143K views, and there is no real solution. There are tools (Calendar Cleaner is often mentioned, but I haven't used it) that remove the "poison meeting" under some conditions. Apparently, the Apple solution is to live with it until the "poison meeting" ages off the calendar in a few months. I'm not at all happy with that as an Enterprise solution. Some of the cleanup solutions discussed in this thread run on the exchange server side. While I appreciate the benefits of that, I'm looking for a user-side solution. I might be willing to cleanup the company president's exchange box every few weeks, but as we allow more BYOD I can't have my IT admins doing that sort of thing for everybody.

My solution (abandoning the Apple SyncService for the Microsoft Sync capability) is very drastic, and I can't really recommend it. What we really need is a fix to the SyncService that applies more format checking, and continutes through the rest of the meetings if it finds a problem. That solution I have not yet found. Thanks to Clif H and all the other folks that are looking, and consolidating the answers for Apple.

/Randy

We have the same problem of appointments not showing up on (some) iPhones. Most of this thread progress was made around April - June I think. Some refered to Apple being active to resolve 'it'. Has this issue indeed been resolved by Apple?

Hi @all

We have still the same problem ... so the calendar missing items is ongoing... never ending story.

Environment: MEX 2010 / SP2

iOS: 6.0.1 ... more than 3000 Users...

Some have to problem (missing calendar items) some are lucky and don't even know of the issue.

All these calendar repair tools and workarounds will work for a while... but the problem will pop up again...

We have sent a hundrets of MB of Logfiles to apple. Unfortunately no solution... and the sync diagnostic will go on (with sync diagnostic profile, OWA Logs, TMG Logs...).

By the way we also use more than 2000 Windows Phone 7 Devices - without any troubles.

What you can do: keep users informed! Tell them to work with meeting requests / answers / declines by outlook client (not on iOS Device) to minimize calendaring issues.

so if anyone has a solution concerning these annoying appointment probles - let me know... 😕

Best regards,

Adibach

Thanks very much for the update. Any news on ".........I can cofirm the commitment of Microsoft - they also have an open Case with Apple in US.................". ?

Concerning the commitment of Microsoft - still no news...

they thought with iOS 6.0.1 there will be solved a lot of exchange issues - ... so until now no luck with this.

Sorry to be not able telling you some positive news.

Regards

adibach

Event ID: 8260, Source: EXCDO An attempt was made to save an appointment with the subject "blah" to mailbox Blah@Blah.com. The duration of the appointment was too large, so it was not saved.

Event ID: 8206, Source: EXCDO Calendaring agent failed with error code 0x80040219 while saving appointment.

Event ID: 8199, Source: EXCDO just started on our server. Calendaring agent failed in message save notification with error 0x80040219....and tells me which calendar event to look for but it does not exist to remove.

Same errors over and over on

Win2003 Svr using Exchange 2003 with Outlook 2007 and iPhone4S

Helllo All,

Yeah! I have a little solution for the sync problem!

But first our configure and the problem discription:

CAS/MBX Ex2010 SP2 RU5v2

Outlook 2010 SP1 in CacheMode, full patched to Build 6131

200x iPhone 4S / 5 and iOS 6.1

Install the latest applicable updates for Microsoft Outlook

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2625547/en-us

Step by Step

reproducible the sync. failure:

* Create a recurring appointment, e.g. mulitday event 9:oo-10:oo am

* Invite a automatic booking resource(!!!), e.g. meeting room

* Send it

* On your iPhone you have PUSH enabled, then wait a moment before you see the event.

* Outlook: Now, make a exception of one of the above created recurring event, e.g. 10:oo-11:oo am.

That means, drag&drop one of it to a new time slot.

* Whait for the automatic answer of the succesfully booked resource.

* This exception will never sync. to your iPhone!

Never!

This will only happend, if you invite a automatic booking resource!

* for cleanup, delete now the whole recurring event.

* Now, disable PUSH in your iPhone settings!

Each time you open your Cal App, the calendar items will be synced.

Test now the same test scenario (with new created events) again and you will notice, all recurring events and the exceptins will be synced :-)

Can anyone comfirm this ?

I have test this with several colleagues, and each have the same problem if PUSH was enabled.

We will also open a support case by Apple.

If we heard any news, I will write it here.

thanks,

waspy9999

Apple opened a similar Case for exception to a recurring calendar event:

When you respond to an exception to a recurring calendar event with a Microsoft Exchange account on a device running iOS 6.1, the device may begin to generate excessive communication with Microsoft Exchange Server.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4532