Duplicate iCal alarm messages

Question

Duplicate iCal alarm messages

Since we started synching our machines with Mobile Me I'm now getting multiple alarm notifications from iCal. If I set an notification to email me a reminder about an event on one computer, I get a message from every computer that synchs to Mobile Me... even one from my wife's machine using her email address. We have four computers and an iPad synching to our Mobile Me account, so I get five notifications for every event. Not only that, I get iPhone alarms, possibly because the iPhone is synched with that calendar. So does my wife, and she doesn't want the alarm at all (neither did I want the one that woke me a 4 AM). Is there a way to tame this to get only one email and no iPhone beeps? There must be a simple fix. Either that or Apple has started hiring software designers from Microsoft.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Dec 16, 2010 3:02 PM

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Answer 1

hosshead

Level 1

13 points

Dec 17, 2010 6:57 AM in response to George Franco1

I am having duplicate events on my calendar...EVERYTHING is duplicated.
Fortunately, I don't have alarms set for just everything on the calendar.
It occurs to me that Sync-ing means to do just that. It seems that iCal's definition of Sync-ing is to just just put everything from both devices,(my iPad and my desktop), into a single pile and call it a calendar.If each calendar has the same info, well....it just goes in there twice.
I can't find a "Report Bugs" option in the drop box, either. 😟

As for alarms...can your wife select which calendar she receives alarms from in the settings?
I think that, as long as you have all of your devices synced, you'll get notifications from any device "attached" to your calendar. I think that's the purpose of syncing.
I mean, that is the point of having a sync, so you never miss anything you've placed on the calendar.
So I think that your issue is more about feeling TOO synced.... But I don't know how you'd stop the notifications, aside from turning off the sync on each device that you don't want to receive the info. I am not sure that you can be as selective with how the mobileme service sends your events to your devices so much as you may have to select how you receive those events to each device.
I guess maybe not sending alarms for 4am is a good choice if you don't want to be bugged by that?
😉
Good luck, I am going to see if there is any other thread regarding the Events Multiplicity issue. I also get these VAST duplications of contacts in my contact list and I don't understand that one, either.

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Answer 2

Mar 5, 2011 12:23 PM in response to George Franco1

Did anyone find a fix for this?
I also get alarms from all my synced machines.

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Answer 3

Apr 7, 2011 8:17 AM in response to George Franco1

I have the same problem as George that started the tread.
I'm looking for an easy way to disable alarms on all our iOS devices except one iPhone.

Right now when an alarm goes off, I hear it cascade all through my house.
Most annoying is that they alert my wife on her iPhone.

Also, while we're at it, iOS needs a global "do not disturb" setting.
No alerts between, say 12pm and 7am, under any circumstances.
Obviously, the alarms from the Clock application are the exception here.

Thanks for listening.

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Answer 4

Apr 15, 2011 8:23 AM in response to PowerPage.org

Yes, I hate having my iPad, my iPhone, my wife's iPad, and my wife's iPhone beep with alarms for calendars that they don't even have active!!

Seems pretty ******** to share calendars through mobile me without any ability to turn off notification alarms. I just want to know what my wife's day looks like, not get her reminders.

How does one turn off the alarms for calendars that are in mobileme, but not active on a device?

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Answer 5

Apr 22, 2011 2:33 PM in response to LarsGunnerPederson

I've had Apple products since 1984, but the company's quality is slipping over the past 5 years. Seems like Apple is too busy chasing kewl iPad3 features and thinner iPhones and forgetting about what got them where they are: "great software that just works"! Calendar syncing was one of the reasons i bought MobileMe, but it's never worked properly, these issue have been known for some time and still not a solution from Apple. Do they read these threads?

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Answer 6

Jet787

Level 2

171 points

Jul 4, 2011 11:01 AM in response to George Franco1

Hi, I have the same problem! Actually it should be easy since on the MAC iCal you can disable all notifications... so it's really strange that Apple has not implemented a similar feature on iOS devices...

Hopefully they'll fix soon.

Cheers

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Answer 7

Aug 9, 2011 6:32 AM in response to George Franco1

Same here, i get a notification three times for each appointment however this only occurs on my ipad.. has anyone found a solution yet?

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Answer 8

Aug 9, 2011 9:43 AM in response to George Franco1

Let us be clear here least Apple misunderstand the issue.

Just allowing iPad or iPhone to not respond to notification (i.e. turn alarms off on one particular device) is not a real solution. This would be a Microsoft solution and labeled as an enhanced feature. I want the products to work as advertized right out of the box. Sync my iPhone or iPad to my MacBook Pro via Mobileme and have all devices show the same set of appointments with alarms. On one device (e.g. my iPad), I should be able to tell the calendar app to NOT show me "lab alarms" or "surgery alarms" or other "work related" alarms (although the calendars would still be visible if I want to check something) while STILL receiving "home alarms" and "family alarms". At work, I might want my Mac Pro to only give me work related alarms and no personal alarms. But I want to set things up the way I want, not all or nothing.

Note, this assumes that Apple has already fixed the double and triple alarm feature, whereby my iPhone tell me three time in a row that I have a "Departmental meeting at 2PM". Twice in a row is too much. Come on Apple, get your syncing to work correctly.

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Answer 9

Nov 7, 2011 9:06 AM in response to George Franco1

I'm having the exact same problem. I keep un-selecting that calendar in iCal on my iPhone, and yet it still insists on alerting me when the alarm goes off. Furthermore, these particular alerts are set to "run script" not "message". If I did not specify my alert to "message" then my iPhone should not show a message!

So I have 2 issues:

1) allow me to select which calendars will alert on my device

2) do not show message on my device if the alert is not set to show message. If it's set to "run script", CERTAINLY don't show a message on my iOS device!

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Answer 10

Apr 23, 2012 5:34 AM in response to DrCummings

there is one of these guys in every post I read here on apple...if it's not 1001 people saying "me to" with out giving any suggestion to the original poster...it's a guy saying he's been with Apple since 1845 and everything has gone to crap since "XX" happened.

I'm not sure if you people know or not but when someone asks a question on a board it's there to either advance the question or answer it...not have 100,000,000 apple product users go "me to" or "i'm angry".

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Answer 11

Apr 23, 2012 6:49 AM in response to carboncow

Dear carbon cow ,

Although I understand your frustration with reading a hundred me too's I don't agree with you. People add this to show the magnitude of the problem. Is the thread starter just one guy with a buggy setting (who does not know how to use his product ;-) or is this a bigger issue.

However maybe you could help out as you did stumble upon this post. Does that mean you have the same issue?? Or did you reply to offer a solution? I still have this issue (probably one of those users who doesn't really know how to use the iPad :-) so all the help is welcome

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Answer 12

adrest4

Level 1

4 points

Sep 26, 2012 2:08 PM in response to George Franco1

In an attempt to be helpful - as I don't see a solution arriving anytime soon, I use a Mac App Store app: 'Calendar Cleaner' periodically to clean up the worst excesses of the duplicates.

I would like to see a more joined-up Calendar Sync experience for my MacBook, iPhone and iPad and either I don't understand it (possible) or it isn't quite there yet.

That there are apps to address these issues speas volumes.

Particulary the duplicate alerts - I would love to know if there is something I could do (or not do) to resolve or prevent that issue.

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Answer 13

macnpchz

Level 1

5 points

Jan 23, 2014 6:24 PM in response to George Franco1

I'm not sure if this will help you but it helped me with the same problems as most of you.

Quit iCal, go to System Preferences and navigate to iCloud. Uncheck Calendars, confirm and then check Calendars again. Confirm again if needed and launch iCal. You should only see a list of iCloud calendars and no duplicates!

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