iphone4 synch problem with outlook calendar

After backing up my Outlook.pst file, I applied all updates to Outlook 2007 and Vista. The problem I'd had with syncing calendars between iPhone and Outlook has not reappeared. I don't know what the cause of my problem was. Just glad to have things working now.

Here's a weird fix that worked for me:
In iTunes, under Devices, select your iPhone, then go to Info, and in the Sync Calendars with section, check the box called "Do not sync events older than X days" and I entered 99999. No idea why this worked, but glad it did.

Well, I can tell you something else NOT to try. I went to the Info tab on iTunes and in the Advanced box checked Calendars. It made sense that it would replace the information on my iPhone 4 with the Calendar information in Outlook. Well, I have NO calendar information on my iPhone now.

Okay, I have to update. I had my calendar opened to Dec, when I went back a month to Nov all of a sudden I was able to see my calendar information, and back to Dec and it is all there now??? Problem is still not syncing, I have 107 calendar conflicts and 1 contact conflict.

why are there so many iPhone issues these days that Apple is not resolving???

Message was edited by: Miam185

Beginning of New Year, entering in dates for 2011, and wondering has anyone found a solution to this problem? Has Apple found a solution to this problem? Just wondering before I start having to do all this twice. Thank you.

The following seems to have cleared up this issue.
1. Plug in Iphone and let sync process go to completion.
2. In left-hand margin, left click on Iphone under DEVICES.
3. Click on "Info" to open menu. Pull right-hand slider down to bottom so you can see "Advanced" menu. It will offer "Replace information on this iPhone" and five options.
4. Click the "Calendars" option and then press the "Apply" button below that.

This will force a one-time sync of the calendar information. After that was done, I disconnected my Iphone and changed a calendar entry in my Outlook calendar. I re-connected the Iphone and the change was sync'd normally. I hope this fix holds...

I really really wanted this to work. I tried it twice and when syncing, it said "syncing calendars" and I was really psyched (twice) that it would work. Unfortunately, it did not work. Sugar.

The precise same syncing problem returned on Friday. New and changed calendar items quit moving from phone to Outlook and from Outlook to phone. I'd put myself in the habit of backing up outlook.pst. As before, I copied the current outlook.pst and then put the backup from two weeks prior in its place. Then I imported from the copy of the corrupted(?) outlook.pst, ignoring duplicates. My calendar syncs are working again.

This is quite the annoying problem.

I am also having a problem with my Outlook 2007 calendar syncing with my iphone 4. Contacts and everything else sync perfectly. The calendar also used to sync perfectly, but now does not sync in either direction at all. Strangely, it is almost like Outlook has an old ghost of a calendar somewhere that syncs with my phone, because the same, old, incorrect stuff keeps appearing. Stuff I changed a couple of weeks ago. No newer changes reflected, no new appts transfer in either direction. Problem is, I can't be sure when the problem started. Reason I think it may have to do with Outlook is that I wiped my phone clean and set it up as a new phone, and that same old calendar keeps appearing. What the heck! I have spent so many hours clicking and unclicking the different options, trying to troubleshoot Outlook/iphone/itunes, I can't even count. I desperately need to fix this problem because the whole reason I bought the phone was to have my calendar and tasks (I use Toodledo) with me at all times outside the office. This is affecting my work! HELP!!! Anyone else with the same problem??? Thanks!

Hi all, same problem here. I re-created PST files, un-installed reinstalled iTunes. The only thing that I did not do was to allow my pc calendar to over write my iPhone calendar as this is from three different sources.

The only thing that I was able to do as to create a calendar item on my PC and have that sync to my iPhone, but from my iPhone to my pc no way Jose. It does not work. If anybody has any suggestion I would like to hear (see) them.

The precise same syncing problem is back today. (See also my posts of Nov 24 and Jan 13.) New and changed calendar items quit moving from phone to Outlook and from Outlook to phone. I'd put myself in the habit of backing up outlook.pst. As before, I copied the current outlook.pst and then put the backup from two weeks prior in its place. Then I imported from the copy of the corrupted(?) outlook.pst, ignoring duplicates. My calendar syncs are working again.

What is causing this? I didn't even go two weeks this time without the problem resurfacing... Though I loathe the idea, maybe I need to switch to Google calendar. Or get a Blackberry.

I have the same problem. MacBook transfers iCalendar content to iPhone. Not vice versa. I checked with a couple of friends. They have the same problem. I then spent an hour on the phone with a helpful iTunes expert who could not work out the cause. At the end his best suggestion was to remove iTunes from the laptop and reload it or to put the iPhone settings back to the original and start again. Either solution would take an hour and success is not guaranteed.

This seems to be a generic technical fault. Why is Apple not doing something about it ?

HELLO APPLE CAN YOU HEAR ME ? ANYBODY ELSE GOT ANY GOOD IDEAS ?

I have intermittant problems with the Calendar sync as well.
To me the most annoying part of it is that iTunes ALWAYS claims a successful sync. even when no data at all is transferred in either direction.

I am using Windows Vista, Outlook 2007 (stand-alone no Exchange server).

In my case at least my latest problem with calendar sync. was the recently introduced iPhone "Birthdays" calendar.

After doing the following my calendar is again sync-ing normally (for now...)

1) HIDE the birthdays calendar on the iPhone:
From the calendar page touch calendars in the upper left corner
and UNcheck "Birthdays"


2) Go into Outlook and delete the "extra" birthdays it has populated on your calendar or edit the end dates to be something specific (say 5 or 10 years out).
You may find this easier to do if in Calendar you change the view to "all appointments" then sort on the field "Recurrence Range End" look for those that have "*No End*" ...

3) While you are at it get rid of any other events that repeat forever (no end).
From past messing around it seems there is some unpublished limit to the total number of events that iTunes can sync. If you exceed this ... you are hosed.

"Try it now"

Hallelujah! jimbob5941's 1/26/2011 fix works for me.

I was once again in the same unsuccessful sync situation I've reported multiple time in earlier posts. As jimbob prescribes, I'd previously hidden "Birthdays" on the iPhone. But a few days ago I had imported my church's database (I do this a couple of times a year) and for whatever reason, this time I was looking at a couple of hundred birthdays on my calendar instead of the dozen or so family & friends previously calendared.

Per jimbob's instruction, in Outlook I deleted the excess birthdays (making most calendar views much more usable, by the way) and deleted perhaps a half-dozen other events at the same time. Then I did a sync. The sync took longer than usual but this time it actually worked, transferring events in both directions. (Subsequent syncs have been speedy, as well as successful.)

Kudos to jimbob5941. I was wondering if I'd have to dump my iPhone, despite really liking it, in favor of a Blackberry or some other platform. Or I'd have to begin syncing between Outlook and Google Calendar and access my calendar from Safari. Hopefully we're all out of the woods on this now.

I wonder if jimbob isn't right, that there is an unpublished limit to the total number of events that iTunes can sync. That would be poor, though not as bad as reporting a successful calendar sync when nothing was actually synchronized. Bad, Apple, bad.

Thank you, jimbob5941.

I've got a similar sort of problem currently http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12985691#12985691

Had NO help really to solve the issue as my birthdays do sync but nothing else for the calendar items. My contacts, notes, bookmarks etc... sync fine - any clues?

I just read your posts on the other thread.

Two questions.

(1) On the iPhone calendar app, if you click Calendars do you see that Birthdays is unchecked? (My thinking is that you want to make sure it's the Outlook birthday entries you're seeing and not the iPhone-created entries.)

(2) I'm wondering whether reducing the number of appointments you have in Outlook might allow sync to begin working. An earlier post by jimbob theorizes that iTunes has an unpublished limit on calendar entries that will sync. Totaling the 5 or so groupings found in Outlook with "view > all appointments" puts me at 4,384 calendar entries. Within iTunes I have marked "info > sync calendars with Outlook > Do not sync events older than 30 days" so I don't know that all of mine count against the supposed unpublished limit.

If you're not already doing it, maybe one easy thing to try is to within iTunes set events older than 30 (or however many) days to not sync.

If that doesn't work, you might from within Outlook export your calendar to a .pst file. Then (for redundancy's sake) backup Outlook.pst. Then delete a bunch of calendar entries (which you can later import or just put the old Outlook.pst back in place). A successful sync would lend credence to the jimbob theory that there's an unpublished limit to calendar entries that will allow for a successful sync.


It's a shame that users have to debug a company's product, but if we can get specific enough on the cause of the problem, maybe Apple (given that iTunes is the culprit) will put an engineer on it to fix it.