why does ical not sync to MobileMe?

Greetings Harry,

Lets test in a new user account to determine if this issue is with iCal in this user only or systemwide:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Users & Groups.
2. Click the lock icon to unlock it, and type an administrator name and password.
3. Click Add "+" below the list of accounts.
4. Enter a full name for the account.
5. Enter the account password in the Password and Verify fields.
6. Click Create User.
7. Go to Apple menu > Log out.
8. Login to the new user and test iCal with your MobileMe account.

If the issue is systemwide:

1. SafeBoot and then test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
2. Backup your data: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1553
3. Restore Lion (which will reinstall iCal): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

If the issue is user specific:

1. Backup your data: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1553

2. Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:

• Home > Library > Caches > com.apple.ical
• Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3, etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache if present)
• Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.ical (There may be more than one of these. Remove them all.)

---NOTE: Removing these files may remove any shared (CalDAV) calendars you may have access to. You will have to re-add those calendars to iCal > Preferences > Accounts.

---NOTE: To get to "Home > Library" in Lion:

Hope that helps.

Hi MadisonP! I have exactly the same problem as described by Harry. The problem is systemwide, safe boot and lion reinstall didn't help. i spent about 4 hours in genious bar without sucess, the issue has been now escalated to a senior mobileme advisor. still waiting for an answer. it's funny that only a couple of us are describing EXACTLY the same issue and there is still no solution in web. I am wondering if it's really a hardware issue... anyway, the hardware test in genious bar showed no problems. Harry, I will keep you posting if i find a solution.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193159?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3210262?start=0&tstart=0

Hi All

The MobileMe senior advisor resolved my problem! Thanks so much Cxxxx!

Here the instructions:

1. Open Terminal and use this command to copy the Calendars folder from ~/Library to your Desktop:

cp -r ~/Library/Calendars ~/Desktop

2. Open Disk Utility and create a new Disk Image from the Calendars folder on your Desktop by selecting File > New > Disk Image from Folder and then choosing the Calendars folder on your Desktop.

3. Save the new Disk Image to your Desktop as well.

4. Double-click the Calendars.dmg to open it.

5. In the new window that appears choose View > Show Toolbar from the Finder View menu.

6. In the Search field on the Toolbar enter "%" (without quotation marks).

7. Select "Filename contains %" when prompted by the Search pop-up.

8. Make sure the Search location is set to Calendars.

9. Then open the ICS files returned in a text editor such as BBEdit or TextEdit.

10. Locate the SUMMARY field (that's the event name).

11. Note the affected event name(s) in a text editor.

12. Lookup the affected events one by one in iCal. Note the date of the events in the same document that has the name(s).

13. Quit iCal when all the event dates are collected.

14. Go to me.com/calendar

15. Delete all iterations of matched events from me.com/Calendar

Once the problematic events have been deleted, you will then be able to sync to your iCal application without issue. Once syncing has been restored, you can then add back any events that you need to.

Hope that helps!

Life is good again 🙂

Unfortunately for me, this does not turn up any filenames containing "%". Although it was not successful for me, thank you for the detailed solution.

Hi paperboats and all,

the instructions paperboats gave make sense to me, as all the corrupt dates I found (by going through the procedure described) originate from the same source. Hopefully my problem will now be resolved - I will test syncing for a few days and then be back for news of success or failure.

Jens

Hi again,

after a few days of syncing up and down it seems that sync is now working perfectly.

And yes, life IS good again!

paperboats - you are my hero !

Thank you so much for sharing this - halleluhjah !

one more thing I wanted to share - the %-calandar events in my case were all downloaded itiniaries from flight bookings via an internet webpage (forgot which).

Hope that helps !

Hi cmo23

I am glad that it worked for you! I really spent more than 2 weeks to try fix it. It was really a blessing that someone in apple store escalated to a senior mobileme advisor. It was also the case with me, 3 corrupt flight booking itiniaries and the other 3 were apple store service appointments 🙂 It is so obvious a bug and I am still wondering that apple haven't fix it yet... or at least inform the genious bars how to do it.. PS: windows 8 is looking very sexy..

Hi Paperboats,

it is a blessing indeed - sorry can't comment on the windows issue. I deleted my snow leopard partition out of joy !

BUT - another issue with OS Lion - it doesn't find stuff ! When I followed your instructions it didn't find files with '%'. Returned zero entries. But I have file find issues since I installed Lion - let me know if you have a fix 🙂

So what I did is I copied the calendar.dmg to my snow leopard installation and followed the instructions. It found 3 entries.

So sorry for being off topic here, but people who habe same problem as me won't find file names or won't find all file names searching in LION - unless they know something I don't !

Hi Paperboats

This solved my problem. I had one calendar entry with "%". Many thanks.

This solved my problem completely! Thank you, Paperboats!

The problem was caused by 2 automatic calender entries by an hotel reservation service (hrs). After deleting these entries, the problem is fixed!

Dont forget to delete the entries on your Mac, at me.com and on all your iPhones, iPads...

Für die deutschsprachigen User: Die Anleitung von Paperboats vom 26.08. hat das Problem endlich gelöst. Schuld waren 2 Einträge, die hrs.de als automatischen Kalendereintrag auf Wusnch setzt. Also einfach diese Einträge löschen und gut ist. Dabei alle Geräte säubern: Mac, iPad und iPhone...

Bei mir waren es auch zwei hrs.de Einträge. Das iPhone und me.com konnten damit umgehen. Aber iCal auf Mac hat es irritiert. Danke für die Hilfe!