Reminders Not Working on New MacBook Pro

Question

Level 1

22 points

Reminders Not Working on New MacBook Pro

Hello everyone,

I've just set up a new MacBook Pro and Reminders is not working. By that I mean, none of the reminders from my old Mac and iOS devices show up, and the window is a complete blank (see screenshot) with menu items such as New List and New Group not working. Notice in the screenshot that the sidebar does not show Internet accounts, such as iCloud or Work (Microsoft Exchange in my case).

I am signed into iCloud with the same Apple ID as my other devices, and in fact, Calendar, Mail, and Contacts on this new Mac do sync and show all of the data from the other devices. I understand that Calendar and Reminders work together, so I am at a loss as to why Calendar works fine but Reminders is dead.

I have tried the usual fixes, such disabling and re-enabling Calendar and Reminders in System Preferences, as well as rebooting.

Any thoughts on how I might fix this would be much appreciated.

Greg

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.3

Posted on Mar 28, 2022 5:46 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

PRP_53

Level 10

84,571 points

Mar 29, 2022 8:14 AM in response to Lypny

1 - Suggest restarting in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

2 - Does the issue present in this mode ?

3 - If not - there could be something in the main User Account playing up. To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac. Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

4 - If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

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Answer 2

Lypny Author

Level 1

22 points

Apr 4, 2022 9:34 AM in response to PRP_53

Thanks for your continued help.

Safe Mode did not fix the problem. But I did fix it. What stuck in my mind was that when I was setting up my new MacBook Pro, I transferred all of the data from my old MacBook Pro from a Time Machine backup using the Migration Assistant. Maybe doing that created some sort of ID conflict because, after all, I didn't even have a chance to give the new Mac a different name from the old one (the duplicate name was caught and (2) was appended to the name, which I later changed). Deleting the following files from my Library folder appears to have worked:

Library/Caches/Cloudkit/com.apple.remindd/[all files deleted]
Library/Reminders/[all files deleted]
Library/Calendar/Calendar Sync ClientID Conflicts.tmp

I don't know if it was necessary to delete all of these; my choices were based on intuition. Maybe just trashing the caches was enough. I shut down the machine, rebooted a few hours later, and Reminders was synced.

I also stumbled upon a thread discussions thread on the same problem with Reminders, where the poster, James, wrote:

"One item of note, I loaded my current OS setup from a time machine backup when I upgraded from the M1 Mac Mini to the Macbook M1 Pro. Everything loaded as it was on the mac mini without issue."

Greg

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Answer 3

PRP_53

Level 10

84,571 points

Mar 29, 2022 6:41 AM in response to Lypny

In the screen shot below - Uncheck the Reminder sync in iCloud.

Restart the computer and re-enable Reminder from previous step.

Attempting to Force a Manual Sync and give it a few moments and then test.

Still not working, Sign Out of iCloud completely.

Restart computer and log back into iCloud.

Attempting to Force a Manual Sync of all Features enabled in iCloud - give it a few moments and test.

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Answer 4

ku4hx

Level 7

23,436 points

Mar 29, 2022 3:49 AM in response to Lypny

This is the main reason I abandoned the use of Reminders years ago as it just did not work consistently ... if at all.

My wife and I use Calendar to remind us of well ... everything. We are both quite satisfied doing so.

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Answer 5

PRP_53

Level 10

84,571 points

Mar 29, 2022 4:11 AM in response to Lypny

The Reminders from what older version of macOS comes into play.

Have a antique Mac Mini circa 2011 running High Sierra.

Reminders with iCloud Account on all other devices running Monterey and the High Sierra Reminder will not sync.

From memory only, this is an expected behaviour.

Somewhere around Catalina and above will not see and sync older versions

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Answer 6

PRP_53

Level 10

84,571 points

Mar 29, 2022 5:07 AM in response to Lypny

The present computer is running Monterey & the Old Computer where your Reminders are, is running what version of macOS ?

In the illustration from personal experience - Monterey will not see the Reminders from High Sierra and visa versa

The Concept are the same on both versions, but High Sierra was release in 2017, Monterey was released in 2021

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Answer 7

ssculler

Level 1

8 points

Apr 22, 2022 9:33 PM in response to Lypny

I have this problem too. They asked me to create another account on my Macbook to see if it worked. It was fine all reminders showed up. The tech person I was speaking to said erase and build from scratch. He didn't seem to have a clue.

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Answer 8

Lypny Author

Level 1

22 points

Mar 29, 2022 4:58 AM in response to Lypny

Thanks for your reply. Calendar could certainly do the job of both. But as I said, it is bewildering that one works and the other does not when they appear to share the same foundation.

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Answer 9

Lypny Author

Level 1

22 points

Mar 29, 2022 5:00 AM in response to PRP_53

Thanks for your reply, although I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that new versions of Reminders don't work with the data saved by older versions?

I suppose I could reinstall the OS.

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