Ical Request Error - Authentication Failed

We get this too. One thing I've found that "fixes" it, is I start up Server Preferences, go to User accounts, and simply click on each user. Just clicking on the users seems to load or refresh something, and then logins work.

I sometimes have to do this a couple of times a day.

Next time this happens to your staff, can you try that, and report back if it fixes the problem?

I don't know what we can do to get Apple to fix this, beyond us both reporting it with bugreporter. I guess two people reporting it adds a bit of weight to the problem.

Since clicking on the users "loads" them, I thought I had a work around with "dscl" listing user information, and wrote a script that I ran every 15 minutes that did that for each user

foreach n (`dscl localhost -list /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1/Users`)
dscl localhost -read /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1/Users/$n >> /dev/null
end

Unfortunately, that doesn't do the same as clicking on the user.

So I have no solution. I guess we can only hope Apple fix it in the next update, but I tend to find Server bugs take forever before fixing - I guess there just aren't enough of us using Server to warrant urgency.

I'm actually kind of glad I'm not the only one seeing this though. Because there are so few Server users it seems, when you hit a bug it often feels like it must be something you've done wrong.

Kia ora,

In my humble experience when this happens it is because for some unknown reason the account has stopped connecting using ssl (port 8443 from memory) and now connects via port 8008, turning ssl back on fixes the problem

iCal client prefs/accounts/server settings