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.
Same for me. This really screws up my calendar, making it useless. I'm reluctant to start deleting, preferring a fix. I wonder if something changed with syncing and iTunes 9.2? I've been syncing my iPhone iCal only with my main computer, but syncing this computer with me.com.
Actually, I just noticed this today after updating my iPhone to OS 4 using my main computer (Intel iMac-10.6.4). My iCal on my iPhone has only one or two duplications of one event while my calendar on my second computer (a G5 iMac-10.5.8) is fine. Both have iTunes 9.2.
I reset my sync on my G5 iMac and am replacing my mobileme data with that. After that is finished I will reset my Intel iMac and have it's calendar data replaced from mobileme.
Wow. This is much worse than I thought. This problem seems to be reflected in a number of previous threads going back before the recent iPhone and iTunes updates. So it is more likely related to a bug in 10.6 and/or mobileme.
A suggestion was to remove the calendar folder and ical caches in ~/library. I copied my OK calendar folder from my OK G5 iMac to my screwed up Intel iMac and put it in ~/library. I also shut off syncing on my Intel iMac and deregistered it. I rebooted. It Worked! I congratulated myself and 2 minutes later my iCalendar synced itself to mobileme anyways and gave me back all my duplicates. So there is no way to stop it from syncing????
Looks like I'm going back to Palm Desktop. I always preferred it over iCalendar, but went over to iCalendar when I got my iPhone last year. iCal is useless to me if it will not sync properly.
OK. I seem to have fixed my problems. Given that the calendar on my G5 iMac was correct, I duplicated the ~/Library/Calendar folder onto the desktop of the G5 (not drag-duplicated)--Just in case. Also, my iPhone starts out connected to iTunes on my Intel iMac and has synced once and is screwed up as I begin. This may not work for you if you do not have one accurate iCalendar on one of your computers--probably not a 10.6 one.
In total I have 3 macs and an iPhone I need to sync. I opened system preferences/mobileme/sync/advanced and deauthorized all of the computers. I was asked if I wanted to delete any of the files saved on mobileme and I only deleted iCal files.
However, on Mobileme, the calendar was still screwed up. I unchecked all of the individual calendars on the left side of iCal on the mobileme calendar. Everything went away on the mobileme calendar, except the unchecked individual calendars were still showing.
I went back and authorized my Intel iMac (which had the problem & which syncs my iPhone whose calendar is now screwed up). I was asked how this first sync should occur and under options I said ignore everything except update the Intel iMac calendar from the mobileme calendar.
It worked--the Intel iMac calendar was now correct. I added an event and synced again. When it finished syncing, all the calendars on the left side of the Mobileme iCal rechecked themselves and the mobileme calendar was correct, including the new event.
I went to my G5 iMac and authorized it in system preferences/mobileme/sync/advanced and again chose under options to only sync calendar from mobileme to G5 iMac calendar. It worked.
Ditto the process for my G4 PowerBook.
Now back to the Intel iMac which syncs calendars with my iPhone. With my iphone already plugged in
and synced, I click on the iPhone icon and then the Info tab. Down at the bottom, under advance, I checked only replace calendars on iPhone from computer one time. Synced and they are all consistent now. Sorry for the wordiness. Hope this helps at least one other person.
I have this problem as well. It is only 1 or 2 events but theye are multiplicating themsleves hundreds of times. Each time I delete them and a few minutes later they appear again. The worse thing is that I have neither iphone sync nor mobileme account (and running on 10.5.8, so no Snow). But my calendar is published on a WebDav server. I tried to unpublish it, then clean all duplicated events. But again, a few minutes later, the calendar was being published again and (previously deleted) events were appearing. I am going mental with that. I can't afford to delete my all agenda. That's screwed up !
I'm having this issue too. I see this thread has quite a few views but not a lot of others commenting. This is very frustrating. My desktop and iPhone 4 now have 4 reminders (alerts) for all the events I had previously set. MobileMe does not provide access to reminders/alerts. I have tried resetting/re0syncing from MobileMe to my desktop, but nothing happens. In fact, I think it ADDS another reminder. Ughh!! So, If I do not have a "clean" "good"copy of my calendar with 1 reminder/alert as originally set, what are my options?
Try option/dragging your ~/Library/Calendar folder to your desktop to make an extra corrupted copy first just in case things get worse instead of better. Delete ~/Library/Caches/iCal. If things DON'T work always option/drag the corrupted desktop folder back into the Library so you keep a copy of the original corrupted file there. That way things won't be any worse than when you started this--better yet keep two copies on your desktop (one in a folder) in case. If you forget and lose the one on the desktop when replacing, make a new duplicate from the desktop/folder/calendar folder always held in reserve.
Option 1. Can you view your calendar online anywhere? if so, if you only have a couple of duplicating events, etc are they all in the same individual calendar, like work or friend/family? If so, online, uncheck that particular calendar and sync. Another option would be, if they are scattered, uncheck all of your individual calendars and then sync. You can always replace the Calendar folder with the duplicate on the desktop if you permanently lose events or calendars. In my situation with mobileme,as soon as I unchecked calendars online it was fixed there.
Make a new event and sync on your Mac while viewing your calendar online. For me the individual calendars rechecked themselves online and the new event showed up. Everything has worked OK for me since.
Option 2: If you cannot view your calendar online, you will have to make all of the changes described above from your Mac calendar. After making an event and syncing, wait and see if your unchecked individual calendars recheck themselves or whether your duplicates return.
If your unchecked calendars do not recheck, but your duplicates do not return, see if they still do not return after manually rechecking the individual calendars that were unchecked and syncing.
I don't know if either of these will help. At worst you have a copy of your original corrupted calendar folder on your desktop to return to.
If either worked, you might want to hold on to at least one of the two calendar folders on your desktop for a day or two. You might also want to keep a duplicate end of the day copy of your ~/Library/Calendar folder on your desktop in a dated folder.
Please read the whole post before trying anything.
As I posted to kristelttm above, keeping a duplicate of your current ~/Library/Calendar file on your desktop limits your damage to your existing situation if any of the things I suggested earlier do not work and you see you have lost events, etc., you can always return to the earlier state by using the backup on your desktop.
Other than making duplicates on your desktop, don't follow my suggestions to kristelttm if you have MobileMe, use my earlier suggestions.
Follow the procedure in order of how I said I fixed my problem in an earlier post of a few days ago. I think it's important that you have your iPhone connected to iTunes as you do this so it will already have synced with your main Mac computer.
If the procedure works in resyncing your MobileMe calendar and your Mac iCalendar correctly, do a one time over write of your iPhone calendar to prevent the corrupted info on your phone from recorrupting your Mac calendar.
Another thing I just remembered is that when I first got my iPhone, I had checked syncing my iPhone with my main Mac computer, but I had also checked in my iPhone settings to sync everything with MobileMe. I got lots of duplicates doing that. I made changes to my iPhone settings to only sync with MobileMe for bookmarks, and e-mail accounts, and used just my main Mac calendar and contacts for syncing to my iPhone. If this is your first iPhone, you might want to look at this possible fix first. If you've had an iPhone before use the more involved one. Good luck.
This is weird. I checked the location of my published corrupted calendar and it seems to be on a mobileme server after all. Which is really strange because I do not have a mobileme account anymore (only tried the 60 free days almost 2 years ago and then stopped it) and I was certain it was hosted on my own webDav server. One one side, I am relieved to think again that it certainly is a mobileme issue then.
Now I need to find out how to un-host my calendar from an inexisting account :-/
Fortunately I made a backup of the calendar 3 days ago so I am hopeful that once I can delete the hosted 'mobileme' calendar and prevent the sync, my problem will be solved.
I found a set of my data that didn't have all the multiple alarms and events in it. (This data hadn't been synched through MobileMe, and the computer hadn't been updated to OS 10.6.4.) I had decided to abandon MobileMe and to instead sync through my server. This required me to create .ics files of my two calendars to move them to the server. But when I move the .ics files, the multiple alarms appear. Also, clearing out some of the multiple alarms on some of the events actually causes the events to replicate!
Is there another way to move the data from one calendar (not on the server) to another calendar (on the server)--without creating .ics files?
If not, is there a more stable calendar program for the Mac? I am ready to get past this, and I don't think iCal is in my future. If I could just get my uncorrupted data to a good platform, I would be happy.
I couldn't figure it all out. In the end, it was easier (for me) to just go through each month, each event and delete the repeated alarms (apply to future events). Then, I reset the sync data (Calendar only)on MobileMe with the repaired data on my desktop. It's been 24-hours and everything seems fine. I also just realized my Time Machine was off - so I didn't have a recent backup. I have since turned it on. I wonder if I had a recent backup, if I could have simply repaired my calendar to an earlier version without the issue. At any rate, I back in the swing of things now.
I have a similar problem. I have tried using iCal cleaner to delete multiple alarms. I sometimes have as many as 5 or 6 duplicate alarms. I am convinced it has something to do with mobileme sync. Before iOS4 I turned off calendar syncing on my iPhone and iPod Touch, then used iCal cleaner to delete the duplicate alarms, and it fixed the problem. When I did not use mobileme to sync to iOS devices the alarms did not duplicate. The only two devices syncing were my home mac and my MacBook.
I left it this way for a few months, then when I got iOS4 I tried syncing my iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch again. Again I am getting duplicating alarms. This is certainly a problem with iOS, mobile me, and iOS devices/software.
I am getting duplicate list at side of ical which mostly say Entourage with a tick in the box in many different colours. It is getting ever longer. Any ideas as to how I can remove it and just have the calendars I want. I sync between Mobile me and four different devices, ( Powermac PowerBook iphone and ipod touch. I don't even use Entourage any more.
Same problem here. Thousands of recurring duplicates that keep coming back regardless of attempts to correct the problem. I have tried deleting the dups - takes hours. Also have run the iCal Cleaner from BusyBlog, but nothing prevents them from coming back. I tried moving the most common dups to a different calendar and then not showing that calendar, but the events come back in their original calendar. Turned off the sync in MobileMe which unfortunately contains lots of dups in it's calendar. I'm have a local Wi-Fi and share a calendar with my iMac, 2 iPhones and an iPad. They each show different dups in their individual calendars.
Since this seems to be happening to many of us - with no apparent solution, I'm thinking this has to be an Apple fix to iCal. Has anyone contacted Apple support with this problem? That's my next step and I'll report back here with any helpful results.
