iCal Stuck in Unusable State after Changing Google Account Password

Question

iCal Stuck in Unusable State after Changing Google Account Password

Hello,

I use iCal and Google Calendar using the WebDAV support for syncing the two. When I started using iCal, I set up my Google Calendar account in iCal's preferences, and all was hunky-dory.

Recently, I changed the password to my google account. As expected, the next time I started iCal, it was unable to connect because it did not have the correct password stored. This is where the problems begin.

Whenever iCal is opened, it gets stuck in a loop with two display dialogs. The first reads.

"The server responded with an error.
The server did not recognize your user name or password for account "<myaccount@gmail.com>." Make sure you enter them correctly."
And gives me two options to "Go Offline" or "Revert to Server"

If I choose "Go Offline" from this dialog, I am simply presented again with the same dialog with the same options.

If I choose "Revert to Server" I am presented with a second dialog that reads:

"The server responded with an error.
The server did not recognize your user name or password for account "<myaccount@gmail.com>." Make sure you enter them correctly."
And only gives me the option to choose "OK".

After clicking OK, I am returned to the first dialog box.

Unfortunately, these dialogs lock me out of the preferences dialog for iCal where I could change the account password.

Any help in either accessing the preferences, editing the password from outside of iCal, or simply resetting all application data for iCal so that I could resync all my calendars from the server would be great.

Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 16, 2009 9:20 AM

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Answer 1

HMarc

Level 1

0 points

Nov 17, 2009 4:03 PM in response to ProverbialSun

I'm having the same problem, meaning iCal is unusable!

I set up calDEV to sync my iCal calendar with one I have at Google, so I could get to it from my new Motorola Droid. It didn't really sync, but iCal still worked.

Then I got a message from iCal or calDEV asking if I wanted to connect to the Google account, and replied OK.

Now it's stuck in a loop and iCal is useless. I thought when I switched to OS/X a few years ago that Apple never had this kind of problem (which I ran into on Windoze many times). Guess I was wrong. And so were the developers of iCal or calDEV.

Anybody got a fix for this?

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Answer 2

Dec 1, 2009 7:08 AM in response to ProverbialSun

Same problem!!!

I changed my Google account password and that's why iCal can't connect, but I don't get an option to change the password, I get the same message (The server did not recognize your username or password for account Google:Ricardo, make sure you enter them correctly) and I only get an OK button, if I press it the same message comes up, the second time I press it iCal crashes before I can even take it offline or go to change the password.

Please help!

Ricardo.

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Answer 3

Dec 1, 2009 7:15 AM in response to ProverbialSun

Fix/workaround posted at: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10668606#10668606

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Answer 4

shedali

Level 1

19 points

Dec 22, 2009 10:21 AM in response to ricardovj

The same thing has happened to me. I've tried the workaround but that did not work for me.

It all started when I changed my google password. Since then I'm having problems getting Mail, Contacts and Ical to sync to the google exchange server; if I fill in the password field in preferences manually it goes blank straight away.

I suspect it is something to do with my keychain, but having blanked my keychain this hasn't fixed it.

Any ideas?

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Answer 5

malbase

Level 1

10 points

Feb 1, 2010 1:28 PM in response to ProverbialSun

Try this.
Open ICAL.
Go to preferences.
Go to Accounts.
Your old password should appear there.
Change the password to the new password.
Close ICal, and restart.
I had the same problem all day today.
Realised that ICAL stores your email password.
If I find anything else out I will post it here.

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Answer 6

Apr 6, 2010 8:05 AM in response to malbase

this idea does not work because you can not go to Preferences while the error message is displayed and iCal crashes after you click ok.

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Answer 7

May 4, 2010 3:25 AM in response to ProverbialSun

have the same error. Actually multiple times. I was connected to a collegues calendars also. I started getting popup error messages in cascade. I first unchecked the boxes, the rechecked them. I finally deleted the external calendars. My google calendar continued to cause problems. I retyped the password again and again in the Preferences pane. Did not fix the problem. One error message continuously pops up.

"The server responded with an error.
The server did not recognize your user name or password for account "<myaccount@gmail.com>." Make sure you enter them correctly."
And gives me two options to "Go Offline" or "Revert to Server"

Is there a fix for this?

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Answer 8

Sep 11, 2010 10:54 AM in response to ProverbialSun

I was able to successfully fix this issue by resetting the Keychain.

Go > Utilities > Keychain Access > Preferences > Reset My Default Keychain

I've tried everything else, but this was the only solution that worked for me.

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Answer 9

Sep 28, 2010 9:46 PM in response to chicagophoto

The gift that keeps on giving, it seems. I'm having the problem on multiple Macs with the latest.

Thought it was the iCal Beta causing the issues, but sounds like an old issue.

Resetting Keychain. What are the downsides of doing that?

Thanks.

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Answer 10

Dec 30, 2010 5:51 AM in response to ProverbialSun

I sync 3 Macs. I have noticed that whenever moving or changing multiple events in iCal these errors or warnings (revert to server etc) pop up. What works for me when I get any of the errors is to go to the menu bar / Calendar drop down and select "Go Offline" then wait a moment, go back and select "Go Online". Works every time for me...

* I have also have found that when I need to make more then a few changes to events in iCal, if I select "Go Offline" first, then make my changes, then "Go Online" everything works as expected WITHOUT ERRORS...

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Answer 11

baforer

Level 1

41 points

Jan 1, 2011 4:46 PM in response to chicagophoto

If the problem is with your password that is in the KeyChain then I would just go to /Library/Keychains/System.keychain and double click on the file to open it in Keychain Access application. Then find the account password that is causing the issue and double click on it. This will open the item in a window. At the bottom of this window check the "Show Password" box, edit the password and then save.

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Answer 12

carlnyc

Level 1

0 points

Jan 23, 2011 5:52 PM in response to malbase

This fixed it for me. Thanks.

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Answer 13

fitopia

Level 1

5 points

Feb 25, 2011 3:27 AM in response to malbase

Thank you. That worked.

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Answer 14

Apr 6, 2011 4:06 PM in response to chicagophoto

I had changed the password to Mobile me. I did put the password into System Preferences under MobileMe. But apparently you have to go into Keychain Access and change the iCal internet password to the one in which you changed if you were in a situation like me.

To do this go into Keychain Access then in the application find cal.me.com which is an internet password then double-click on it. It will then come up with a dialog box and at the bottom of the box it will have a check box that reads "Show Password" click on that. Then an authentication window will pop up. Enter your User name and password then select ok. The password will now be changed so that iCal can now use the correct password and not pop up with the error that the server returned an error that the user name or password was wrong. This is how I was able to fix my problem.

I hope this helped you people.

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Answer 15

Apr 21, 2011 12:59 PM in response to Macsterguy

the go offline, go online trick was a work of genius. Thank you very much!

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