iCal not accepting windows ".ics" invitations since enabling iCloud..

Hi Peter,

I can reproduce this behavior if I send myself a "local" iCal invitation (non-server based) and then attempt to add that event to an iCloud calendar (so you aren't alone). Based on the error message it seems that the iCloud server will not allow you to write non-server based events (ICS files from non-iCloud server calendars) into it's calendars.

I haven't found any documentation so far that says you can't do this (http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/calendar/) but also nothing saying you can.

I'm going to do a bit more testing and see if I can figure out what is going on there. I'll report back when I have more info. (Perhaps someone else will chime in here in the meantime if they have any thoughts to a resolution).

Suggestions for now:

1. Add a local calendar and add your invites to it (File > New Calendar > On My Mac) -- FYI, events added here will not sync to iCloud (but at least you'll have them on your computer).
2. Let Apple know of this behavior http://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html

Cheers.

but I don't think it would bring the calendar entries over to my iPhone, which was my objective.

You would have to turn off iCloud syncing for calendars on your iPhone (Settings > General > iCloud > Calendars > Off) and then sync your calendars by plugging the phone into the computer, opening iTunes and enable calendar syncing (iTunes > iOS device > Info > Sync Calendars).

I would agree that if these invites are only an occasional occurence, manually creating them for now is a much cleaner solution unless you plug your phone into your computer on a regular basis anyways.

Introducing iCloud really created a mess for me, and I using way too much time on moving and/or re-entering entries in my calendar.

First I was using Outlook for Mac 2011 for my calendar-entries, which worked fine. It synced perfectly to iCal and from there to my iPhone and iPad using iTunes.

Then the Lion arrived and with that the option to use iCloud. I like the idea of having all my mail and calendar entries in the cloud, as I'm travelling a lot... so I signed up. All of a sudden Outlook entries were no longer synchronised to iCal. I found out a logical reason for this: iCal using the data store in the cloud and Outlook can't synchronise with this data store. Something I think Microsoft and Apple should work out ASAP.

I decided then to use iCal only. I'll miss some nice features from Outlook, like much better Task functionality and the possibility to have different categories attahed to mails, calendars and tasks, but at least I can see my calendar whereever I am... I thought. Well, unfortunatly this worked out very differently.

First of all, suddenly, iCal wasn't syncing with iCloud (no idea why, it showed entries in iCal, but they never appeared in iCloud and thereby not on my iPhone)... unchecking iCloud and then enabling it again helped, but with the loss of all my iCal-entries since the day it stopped working.

Then the other thing mentioned here: I can't open .ics invitations no longer... meaning that I now have to open .ics-invitations in Outlook (which I started to use again, just to be able to accept .ics-invitations). I'm affraid to use the "Calendar on my Mac"-proposal as mentioned earlier, as I'm almost sure this made my iCloud-sync stoped working.

When I have accepted the invitation in Outlook, I can then, without any problem funny enough, drag the invitation to iCal and it's then synced to iCloud....

Maybe I should go back to good old iTunes calendar syncing until iCloud is a little bit more mature and well integrated in Mac OS.

Still haven't been able to get it to work.

My best solution has been to use google calendars instead!

Come on Apple isn't there a simpler and more effective solution?

I found a solution now:

If I receive a calendar invitation on my iPhone and accept it there, it's synchronised to iCloud! And in this way I can see it in iCal later.

Crappy solution, I know, but it works... still hoping for Apple to solve this issue

Here's what worked for me:

When accepting events from Mail by clicking on the invite, the item was being added to my work calendar which was "Only on this Mac" and not synced with my iCloud devices. I deleted the local (Only on this Mac) calendars from my Mac and now clicking on the invite places it on one of my cloud calendars and syncs.

When accepting events, it was continually showing the "Accept", "Decline" or "Maybe" buttons and never sending the reply email. This was resolved by setting "My Card" in the Mac Address book.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much for posting that--answering ics invites on my phone works great!

I don't know when, but Apple has also fixed this now, also on the Mac.

Can be it was solved in Mountain Lion, or a patch in Leopard (I normally don't read the release notes), but now it's working on my Mac.

Hi;

we seem to have a similar issue, but it is as follows:

We have a iCloud account shared, and somebody from Outlook 2010 sends an invitation. I accect tha tin iCal in 10.8.1 OSX and it starts to update, and then reverts back to dotted line (un accepted). I cannot find an accept button on the iPhone for the invitation at all. It appears as an attachment to the email, vs a normal invitation that shows up in th ecalendar on the iPhone.

The fix or work around was to move it to a iCloud account that is not shared, accetp it there. Then switch the calendar on the accepted event back to the shared one.

Seems iCloud needs a little more work to integrate to Outlook and work out some of the kinks with sharing.

I followed along with this thread but none of these fixed my problem. I cannot add any Exchange invites via email on my MacBook Pro, my iPad or my iPhone. On my iPhone, clicking on the .ics file in the email (which used to automatically add the invite to iCal/iCloud) does nothing. Nothing happens. Same on the iPad. Nothing. On my MacBook Pro in Mac Mail, the header shows the typical "Maybe/Decline/Accept" options. If I click on a recurring event to "Accept" the email disappears as if I have taken care of the response. However, the event does not show up in my calendar. Interestingly, on my MacBook Pro in Mac Mail if I click on a non-recurring event to "Accept", nothing happens at all. The email does not disappear and the event does not show up in my calendar. This seemed to have started within the last month or so. Not sure what had changed. Prior to that I had no problems accepting invites from Windows Exchange calendars. Anyone have an explanation or solution?

I too am having an issue where accepting ical requests is saving to my local calendar OnMyMac (MLion). I too can accept the ical request on my iphone5 and it syncs to my exchange calendar on my mac. There seems to be a bug such that accepting an ical request on MLion is not accepting to the default (exchange) calendar. Instead it accepts to the calendar "OnMyMac" which does not sync w/ exchange of course. Also... I tried deleting my calendar "OnMYMac" but when I try to accept the ics request, it simply does not go anywhere (ie; does not go onto my exchange calendar - which is now my only calendar since i deleted the calendar "OnMyMac". a Bug?

Hi all!

I had the same problem .... then I found the solution. This website explains all:

http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-the-iCal-Cache

You may also need to visit this website if you are using Lion or newer:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1161156/view_library_folder_in_lion.html

I hope this helps...........

Thanks,

Kris

Hey everyone,

I think I might have stumbled into the reason why this problem seem to pop up for all of us:

Poor programming from developers who haven't done their homework.

Whenever you have symbols or characters other than the common letters in the English alphabet, in the location name, I get this problem. Regardless of I get the invite through iCloud or Google Cal.

Example: If I get an invite with a "$" sign in it or an "é" in the location (like café).

I think the newbie who wrote the code simply forgot to add this check to the code, so all unfamiliar characters generate an error.

I have tried now with a bunch of different combinations, and this indeed seem to be the problem. So try removing any event in your calendar that have these characters and see if the problem goes away