Since the most recent updates to the Mac OS and MobileMe, I find that various iCal events have been replicating themselves, sometimes two or three times. Also, within many events, alarms (for the same times I had set) are appearing multiple times. Is there a way to stop this from getting worse? Is there a way to clean this up without going through my entire calendar.
Took this issue to the Apple Store Genius Bar and the solution is to rebuild "Sync Services". The iCal duplicate events/alarms are caused by Sync Services being dysfunctional. As the Tech explained, it's not an iCal problem or a MobileMe problem, but is within the syncing process itself. The sync function is not communicating within itself that it has completed tasks, consequently it keeps performing the same task until some internal stop notification occurs.
I am returning to the Apple Store with my iMac for the rebuild. The Tech stated that it only takes about 15 minutes. He said he could explain how to do it myself, but since I'm not a Techie I'm leaving it to him.
Now, every couple hours, all my computers that are synced using mobileme, ask if I want to replace, or merge synced information. I am now wondering if this is that same problem. That sync services need to be rebuilt. Has apple posted a "how to" anywhere, because mine is happening on macbook air and imac desktop, which I'd rather not carry in?
FALSE REPORT by me about rebuilding "Sync Services" at the Apple Store Genius Bar!
This solution looked good when I left the store, but later as I was reviewing older calendar events a sync with MobileMe added a duplicate calendar, using a different color. It's not the same duplication I experienced before, but something is still duplicating some events and alarms.
This problem is far from over!!
Something I/we haven't discovered is causing these problems.
I'll keep looking and report any new developments. Hopefully all of you are doing the same thing.
I thought my method worked, actually it did for about two weeks, but Monday I got about 42 events that were duplicating ad nauseum. When I went through each individual event in edit mode, they did not show an end date like they should have.
I did the iCal cleaner after that. And then the SyncServices after that. Everything seems "OK" right now, again, but who knows for how long? For me, my two PPC computers do not show errors. It is MobileMe iCal and iCal on my Intel iMac running 10.6.4. Because I sync my iPhone iCal with that computer, it gets screwed up also.
What I decided to do, and may do again is say screw iCal except on my main work computer and my iPhone. If I go this route, I will delete iCal from my two PPC computers, and stop syncing iCal on my Intel iMac with MobileMe, just sync it with my iPhone directly. Seriously, my iPhone is with me most, if not all, of my waking day. I will use that to enter my appointments.
It disappoints me that Apple allows such bugs to exist on a program that is so central to their hype. That's their problem. It used to eat at me if I couldn't figure out a software glitch on my Mac(s), but at almost 60 I'm working two part time jobs and going to school full-time, and I need my main computer to write evaluations for work and papers for school.
I'm removing myself from this discussion at this point. Good luck to you all.
After I started this post, I found an old set of data without multiple alarms. However, when I synced this set of data over MobileMe, the multiple alarms reappeared. I ultimately discovered that the problem was that I had the option checked in iCal to add an automatic 15 minute alarm. If I tried syncing without that option checked, the problem went away.
It's now been a week or so, and the problem has not occurred again.
Someone complained that many were viewing this topic, but few commenting. So I will. I discovered duplicate identical alarms on various iCal items a few days ago. I spent forever cleaning it up. Now I find it on new iCal items. 4 alarms identical to the one I originally created at some distant point in the past. And these aren't even the default alarms I have set, but ones set specifically on these items.
Seeing the same problem. Some of my events have duplicated 8 times. It does seem to be only the ones I've set alarms to. I deleted all the copies and resynced MobileMe using Advanced and and reset sync data replacing all data with the computer I did the changes on. So far it seems to be working.
Same here. For quite a while now, I find some iCal events alarms magically multiplicating themselves. Only alarms, not the events - fortunately! I am also synching to iPhone and iPad via MobileMe. Up to now, I have been manually deleting these alarms, whenever I stumbled over one. A solution would be highly appreciated.
Ok, now I found some events duplicated as well, but on iPhone only, not on MobileMe, nor in iCal. To delete these duplicated items from iPhone, I have to tap "delete" and then "only this one" (german: "nur dieses"). When tapping delete and "all future items" (german: "alle zukünftigen"), then the event will remain in my calendar. Very strange behaviour.
I've been having a similar problem. I synchronise six calendars of my own through MobileMe with my desktop iMac, 2 laptops, an iPhone and an iPad. In addition I subscribe to various family member's calendars, and events calendars. Up 'til recently this all worked well, but since the new iCal Beta I now have duplicates. On my Macs there are groupings: On my Mac, Name@me.com and Subscriptions. However this means that the calendars published from the Mac are now appearing twice. Furthermore some events are not synchronising, depending on which calendar they are entered on. How do I get back to normal?
I have this going on, and I don't have a Mac
or iCal involved.
iPhone 4
Windows XP with MobileMe Control Panel app, syncing with Outlook 2003
iPad
Seems to happen when I modify an appointment with recurrences in Outlook. If I modify the recurrences, the appointment starts duplicating ad infinitum in MobileMe, and appearing in the same fashion on the iPhone and iPad. Right now I have a few hundred to ixnay. And just to make matters worse, it isn't simply replicating appointment occurrences. It's replicating the
series, so I wind up with duplicates that themselves have recurrences. Hundreds of them.
Getting rid of the buggers is like trying to exterminate roaches. Good fricking luck. This is, as they say, a PITA 😟
Just the other day, appoinments made on my iphone 4 using ios 4.1 started duplicating events. I had this before right after iphone 4 came out with ios 4.0 and downloaded some ical cleaner and since then had no problems, I thought maybe the updates to ios 4.1 fixed it all, but now I am not so sure. Maybe I need ical cleaner again. Anyone else?
