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Calendar - Exchange sync issue

I'm having a problem with Calendar and Exchange syncing (my company uses Exchange 2010), with the following error:


"Calendar canā€™t save the event ā€œItem titleā€ to the Exchange server.


The account "Exchange" currently canā€™t be modified. To discard your changes and continue using the version of your calendars thatā€™s on the server, click Revert to Server."


The options on the dialog box are:


Revert to Server

Try Again

Ignore


Syncing in general is working, i.e., items added in either system show up as they should. And, I'm not actually changing anything on the items on my MBA. The error pops up apparently randomly--so far, at least, I haven't been able to identify a pattern. I've checked credentials, which seem to be correct, and I've verified that time zone settings are turned on as I think they're supposed to be.


Any ideas?

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 3, 2012 12:42 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 10, 2012 12:28 AM

I also experianced this problem after an upgrade to Mountain Lion.


I think it has to do with the fact that in Lion the account settings were managed from iCal, and now they are managed by the OS?


Anyway I finally solved it by:

  • Open Calendar (formerly iCal).
  • Go to the Calendar menu and select Preferences.
  • Select the Accounts tab.
  • Remove the Exchange server account which is giving you the error messages. This calendar will be removed from the Calendar app.
  • Go to System Preferences and click on the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" pane, find your Exchange server account, and check the "Calendars & Reminders" option to re-enable your calendar.
  • Your Calendar should now sync properly.

I had to do this for all of the accounts I had set up in Calander, and haven't had any problems since.

145 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 10, 2012 12:28 AM in response to mcoppock

I also experianced this problem after an upgrade to Mountain Lion.


I think it has to do with the fact that in Lion the account settings were managed from iCal, and now they are managed by the OS?


Anyway I finally solved it by:

  • Open Calendar (formerly iCal).
  • Go to the Calendar menu and select Preferences.
  • Select the Accounts tab.
  • Remove the Exchange server account which is giving you the error messages. This calendar will be removed from the Calendar app.
  • Go to System Preferences and click on the "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" pane, find your Exchange server account, and check the "Calendars & Reminders" option to re-enable your calendar.
  • Your Calendar should now sync properly.

I had to do this for all of the accounts I had set up in Calander, and haven't had any problems since.

Aug 11, 2012 8:47 AM in response to furyg3

Okay, well, this didn't actually completely solve the problem. The original error is gone, but now I receive an error about improper invites on the MBA (don't have one in front of me at the moment). When I check the calendar item in Outlook, I see that it's now been set up for invitations but the invite line is blank. What I'm doing now is deleting invites in Outlook.


This error kicks off with each new calendar item, as it comes due (i.e., for an 11:00am appointment, the error kicks off precisely at 11:00am). I'm going to check next week to see if perhaps it was old appointments set before the "fix" that have the error.


Bottom line, I think Apple has some work to do still on syncing with Exchange.

Jan 24, 2014 4:17 PM in response to vicko.arocha

I stumbled across this thread after encountering this problem again and looking for a better solution. (I don't know if this solution has already. I didn't read all 9 pages of the thread.)


I believe the problem is related to Apple Calendar being out of sync from the Exchange server. I think this happened when I deleted an invited Google calendar appointment in Apple Calendar. I think the appointment was orphaned since it no longer existed in the Google calendar prior to deleting in Apple Calendar. The problem described in the thread happens to me from time to time. I think it is unavoidable with using Exchange with Apple Calendar.


In the past, I've gone through a multistep process to fix. I just went through a quick method and it appears to work. I believe there is no harm in trying this but I'm not 100%. I've done something similar before based the Apple solution here:


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2481


  1. Close Apple Calendar (click retry and quickly quit)
  2. Hold the Option key while clicking the Go menu in the Finder in order to select the Library folder.
  3. Open the Calendars folder.
  4. Calendar Cache files, including any that also display a -1 (or -2, -3, and so forth) directly after their filename.
  5. Open Calendar
  6. Calendar -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Exchange -> Enable Exchange Calendar
  7. Wait for about 5 minutes for it to resync


I didn't disable the sync services (set the Apple solution) prior to the change so it is possible you could lose something if it happens during this change.


If that fails then go through the full solution procedure.


Good luck.

Jan 8, 2013 4:03 PM in response to mcoppock

If we want Apple to pay attention and fix this, then let's all go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html and file a bug report. And once you submit it, pass along the URL to all your friends who are also experiencing it. If enough of us do it, perhaps they will fix it sooner rather than later.


I, for one, am extremely tired of it. I have been having the same error messages pop up since upgraded my mid-2007 iMac to Mountain Lion from Lion ("Calendar can't save the event ----- to the Exchange server."). If I remove the Calendar / Reminders portion of the account and then add it back, the problem seems to go away for a day or two. Then it inevitably returns. Furthermore, when the Calendar issues crop up, any Reminders I add will not sync up to the Exchange server either (which means they do not show up in my Tasks in Microsoft Outlook).


Removing and re-adding the Calendar portion of my Exchange account should not be a long term solution to the problem.


I was so fed up that I recently erased my main hard drive and installed an unadulterated (as in non-upgraded) version of Mountain Lion, hoping that this would somehow solve the problem. It didn't. After perhaps three days, the silly error message began popping up again whenever I opened Calendar and it tried to sync an event I recently created to the Exchange server.


Now let's submit those bug reports and plead with Apple developers to do something about it!

Feb 22, 2013 3:48 PM in response to vicko.arocha

vicko.arocha



I found a workaround that works fine for me (the procedure in the other answers didn't worked):


- go to Calendar Preferences and delete de Exchange Account.

- close (Calendar->Quit Calendar) Calendar

- go to Terminal and delete "rm -rf *" all the files inside username/Library/Calendars/

- open Calendar

- go to Calendar->Preferences->Advanced and Turn on time support (if it is already enabled, disable it, close calendar and then re-enabled it)

- in the upper-right-corner of calendar, select your Timezone (very important to select your timezone before adding the Exchange account)

- close (Calendar->Quit Calendar) Calendar

- open Calendar

- go to Calendar->Preferences->Accounts

- add the Exchange Account


Problem solved.




Thank you, the solution works for me.


OSX 10.8.2 - Exchange Server 2010

Oct 30, 2013 4:35 PM in response to SmartPenwin

As stated by dagod, this is an issue since Lion, I remember working in my old white MB w/ Snow Leopard without a single problem within Mail, Address Book and iCal (back then) well, actually the only bug I remember was Mail saving a new version of a note at each update I typed so ending up with 30/40 notes of the same, yet it was easily workarounded by texting anywhere else (stickies, textedit, etc) and just pasting the text in Mail note.


Real problem with this "cannot save to the server" issue is that makes Calendar practically useless when you sync to your enterprise Exchange server. Like Randall Blank I find Calendar great when working too, the new interface is much cleaner, data driven and simple, easy to use (this last is mainly why I have not got back to Outlook even because of this) that is why it is very sad we have to look around for alternatives.


So, as posted before I tried with DAVMail which works very good but has the problem of integration (ex. it has its own forms to send emails replying to invites) and also it can get very slow when using combined with Mail.app. BusyCal looks like a very good way to go, but it has a cost (not much fortuntately) but both are quite annoying when they cannot connect to the Exchange server (ex. when out of the VPN)


So, I am filling out the bug fix form on the support at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html in an effort to raise the flag, I invite you all to do it again too.


Regards!

Nov 1, 2013 1:03 PM in response to SmartPenwin

I too have this problem.


Prior to Maverick, Mail, Calendar and Reminders worked fine with Exchange.


Upgraded to Maverick and Mail works fine, but Calendars and Reminders do not post new entries, yet my IOS devices continue to be fine with Mail, Calendar and Reminders.


Also I tried another Mac running ML (and wasn't setup for my exchange acount). I added my exchange account to ML, and Mail, Calendar and Reminders work fine - - so it's not the exchange account info that I'm entering and not my exhange having a problem with the old way it worked.


Something happened when Maverick loaded on my Mac Air that caused Calendar and Reminders not to sync with exchange.


I sent a bug report to http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Jun 29, 2015 11:32 PM in response to ahmaduhhs

i tried the cache, changing timezones, etc. (im in mexico, and this issue occurs with mexico central standard time zones) i still have the problem.


the only workaround i have is: if i choose a central standard time zone near the US (border cities) it works.


but the directors doesnt want a workaround, so if anyone made a "custom" timezone or edited a timezone in exchange please let me know.


by the way, this post worked for exchange 2010, but i have 2013 and the same solution cant be applied to the two versions.

Ical canĀ“t save the event "event name" to the exchange server

Nov 28, 2012 5:18 AM in response to hootjr

hootjr:


  1. My calendar issues occur both with recurring events and single events, so I don't think it is a recurrence issue. I have many calendar items in one Exchange account and I get sync issues almost daily. The only solution has been to delete the account and re-create it. (That is until I moved all my calendar entries to Gmail.)
  2. I don't think CalendarAgent consuming even 1 GB is normal. It should be well under 100mb. I have experienced CalendarAgent eating memory a couple of times, but if it stays in the 1GB range for you that is probably not right.


I also experience many weird issues with Mail and Exchange, including failure to sync new messages, failure to move messages, Mail hanging for extended periods of time, etc.


I agree that Apple likely doesn't troll these forums. We either have to live with the pain, switch email systems, or switch email clients. Or we could orangize the 100 Person March on Cupertino...

Jan 21, 2013 10:47 PM in response to Randall Blank

Randall Blank wrote:


Oh, and I'm sure Microsoft would love to help us with our Apple software when they could be selling us a copy of Outlook instead.


Microsoft would surely prefer us to use Windows + Outlook instead; but rest assured that they also make plenty of money with OS X clients, because :


  • Apple licenced the ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft, and certainly not for free.
  • Microsoft sells additional CALs (Client Access Licences) to companies making their Exchange Servers open to non-Microsoft clients.


By the way, did anyone in this forum actually contact Microsoft or browse their forums for help ?

Sep 4, 2012 1:39 PM in response to mcoppock

I've been struggling with this for a while. šŸ˜Ÿ


In my case it predates Mountain Lion ā€” started when we moved to Rackspace in June.


Only certain events trigger the error message. One in particular is a weekly repeating event, so I'm scrutinizing it for clues.


So far all I can see is that it was marked "Free" instead of "Busy." I'll change that and see what happens (or doesn't as the case may be).


For what it's worth, I've tried adding the Exchange calendar directly and indirectly (using delegation through another account). Doesn't seem to make a difference.

Calendar - Exchange sync issue

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