iCal 4.0.4 Default alarm times are wacky - 338 hours before

I have the same problem. My default alert times are all wacky values that make no sense. 1070 hours before, 21 days after, etc. none of these make the slightest bit of sense and the normal ones I use every day don't show up (like 5 minutes before or one day before etc.). Perhaps nobody knows the answer since this was reported months ago and nobody replied?

I have reported it to Apple too, more than once. My only possible answer is either the programmers who wrote the original script for the alarm times had a warped sense of humor and added the wacky times, or it's really just bizarre randomness, since every discussion thread I've read here about this issue has different wacky times listed.

iCal does learn some options by putting them in repeatedly, but they don't always seem to stay on my list, and I can't get rid of one that is truely a terrible one: 15 minutes after.

Why didn't Apple ever fix this scripting problem?

Why wasn't there an update to the application so we could set all our own alarm preferences, not just one?

The only solution I was able to figure out is that you can (if you know what you are doing) get your plist editor and do surgery on the plist file containing the fruity defaults. Unfortunately, seemingly randomly, iCal starts replacing those values with obscure alternatives and eventually you need to just go in there and change them again. It's REALLY annoying!

Yep. I did that too and found the same thing happened. They reverted to the stupid defaults again.

Yesterday, I got another random one I've never seen: 21585 minutes before. Where do these come from 😕

I'm getting default alarms that are all in the 1000+ minute range. Huh? Any response from Apple?

Nope. They are mute, as they are on so many other things.

I have come to realize that Apple, as with all the other computer makers and application companies, don't bother to support their older equipment, OSXs, and older apps/programs, once they have put out something new. It's a very bad mentality IMHO.

Nothing from Apple. This has been a problem for years and a constant annoyance to me since the behavior is completely erratic and I still have yet to figure out how there's any rhyme or reason about how it replaces my nice normal defaults with whatever loopy ones it comes up with. The only solution I have come up with is to use a plist editor to tweak the bogus values in the plist file. That will keep it sane for a while but eventually I know I will have to do it again because my nice normal defaults like "5 minutes before" or "1 day before" turn into 2153 minutes after" or "12 days before".

By the way, I heard an interesting analysis of some of the quirks of iCal which is that in all likelihood, Steve didn't actually enter calendarr entries himself and his secretary did that. Thus the usability of iCal is not bad once it is loaded up with events it's pretty easy to use for the most part, but adding and editing? What a mess!

Are you listening Apple???

😟ly They aren't listening. 😠

I've never seen anyone from Apple answer any of the iCal problems posed here.

Same issues here... This is incredibly annoying!!! I've tried practically evertthing and even turning off the option to "add a default alert to all..." doesn't work!!!! COME ON APPLE!! DO SOMETHING!!!!

I'm using iCal 5 and still have this problem. How hard it is to subtract 15 minutes properly? I get stuff like 1030 minutes and 1470 minutes. If I make an event for today it usually works, but if I use month view and make an event in next few days it doesn't work.

Hi,

Quit iCal. Open your Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal) enter the following as a single line and press return.

defaults delete com.apple.ical PersistentMenu-lastUsedAlarms

Restart iCal and test.

This is a user to user forum. By posting here you are not guaranteed someone from Apple will read it. If you'd like Apple to know about this I suggest you send them feedback.

Best wishes

John M

"don't bother to support their older equipment"

That would be a rational if disappointing explanation -- except that I'm running iCal 5.0.2 on a brand new MacBook Air.

And yes, I reported it as a bug as well as reporting it here.

Thanks John for the feedback link. Now if all the people complaining about the problem here would send it notice too, we might get a fix?

Hi schoodle,

That is what I would recommend everyone who experiences this issue do. The more the better.

I agree that it appears that it should be a pretty simple fix, just that it has not been escalated to the right people.

Best wishes

John M