Duplicate birthdays in Calendar after iOS 6

I'm in the same situation as Kinkie_Pie - I've been completely unable to resolve this problem despite trying everything discussed in this thread.

I'm not even sure the birthdays are actually coming from the google calendar - they seem to be associated with random calendars and survived a deletion and re-sync of every calendar I have.

Unfortunately, there is no solution currently, other than not using the Birthday calendar and other delegated calendars at all. If you are missing the birthdays then, you should use the iPhone's internal birthday calendar created from your contacts' birthdays (as does Google from its contacts). If your contacts don't have their birthday date set (although the same contacts in Google Contacts have a birthday date set), then you are apparently using Exchange Active Sync EAS to sync your contacts (and probably your e-mails).

You may either keep e-mails with EAS and only switch off contact syncing there or don't use EAS altogether and set up your account as GMail account.

Either way, for contact syncing use Other Account / CardDAV, because CardDAV also syncs the birthday date (and in general a lot more information than EAS).

And to clean up your device, you should reset it (and subsequently NOT restore it from a backup because that backup includes all the stray birthdays) or follow the rather complicated instructions somewhere above in this thread.

Huh? I've never turned birthdays on, AFAIK, and I wouldn't even know how to turn on EAS. I'm using caldav.

EDIT: Wow. Apparently Vaiofan is a jerk who likes to delete his posts.

Oh, so you don't use contact syncing, and you have set up your Gmail account as exactly that, a GMail account (rather than as Microsoft Exchange / Active Sync account)? Then apologies for my apparently wrong assumption. If you start syncing your contacts however (using CardDAV), you will have the birthdays stored along with your contacts in your iPhone Contacts, and then these birthdays show in the iPhone Birthdays calendar.

I don't even know what CardDAV or Active Sync *is.* I don't use any special programs or anything - just Google.

Right but, again, the birthdays calendar is turned off but these entries are still visible - and they've even survived removing all calendar accounts, deleting the local calendar, and restoring the calendar accounts.

And, no, I don't have 18 entries for myself and my friends in Contacts. (The # of birthday events for me is up to 18.)

Apologies for the crack in my previous post - a reply I made to you on my phone appears to have shown as a reply to a completely different message, which is why I thought you deleted your comment.

Are you using the standard iOS apps Mail, Calendar and Contacts? Or are you using the GMail web interface or the GMail app? If either of the latter, the following does not apply:

It's just a different account type. When you have set up your iPhone to sync your GMail mails, you selected Settings / Mail/Contacts/Calendar / Add Account and then chose GMail as account type. Just above GMail you will find Microsoft Exchange, and at the bottom Other, with CardDAV on the next page then appearing.

GMail can be synced using either an MS Exchange type account or - obviously - a GMail type account. For strange reasons, MS Exchange will sync mail, calendars and contacts but no notes, GMail will sync mail, calendar and notes, but no contacts. Only if you have set up your account as MS Exchange account, you get push mail (i.e. instant mail delivery), otherwise mail will only be pulled by your iPhone every 15 minutes (or even less frequently).

If you are using a GMail type account AND want to sync your contacts, you will have to set up a separate CardDAV-type account for your GMail account.

porkchop_d_clown wrote:

Right but, again, the birthdays calendar is turned off but these entries are still visible - and they've even survived removing all calendar accounts, deleting the local calendar, and restoring the calendar accounts.

That's what I said. You can't delete these stry calendar entries any more other than (a) restore your device to factory defauls and NOT restore a backup, or (b) use the rather complicated instructions by Dave TBar further above in the thread (which I haven't tried myself, so I can't confirm they actually do the trick).

In my case, the # of times birthdays were showing went up to several hundreds and eventually ate up the remaining 2 gigabytes (!!!) of memory, rendering the device inoperable and requiring a hard restore using iTunes.

porkchop_d_clown wrote:

Huh? I've never turned birthdays on, AFAIK, and I wouldn't even know how to turn on EAS. I'm using caldav.

EDIT: Wow. Apparently Vaiofan is a jerk who likes to delete his posts.

??

I have no clue what you are talking about. I haven't deleted any of my posts, and my post just above yours which I quoted above was my first post today in this thread. And apparently you are referring to some Exchange Active Sync comment I made, and that's exactly what my post above yours is about (inter alia).

I posted four times today in this thread (EXcluding this one), and I can read all of those posts on this page 3 of this very thread.

EDIT: It appears that you can't even edit posts (let alone delete them) once they have been replied to. At least I cannot edit one of my posts above to correct the spelling from "stry" to "stray", but I still CAN edit this post.

EDIT2: Sorry, didn't read your later message that your statement on my apparent deletion was an oversight by you.

Message was edited by: Vaiofan

I am having issues with contacts.

If I turn on the facebook integration for contacts, I have double entries one which I have saved and the other solely for their birthdays and facebook id. Any way to combine the 2?

Hey y'all,

I don't know why, and I don't know how, but I don't really care - following the step-by-step instructions at this link fixed everything. http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/5/3732364/best-way-gmail-google-calendar-iphone- how-to

I don't understand why/how it works, but, it works. My contacts' birthdays are only listed once, and my Google calendar is syncing on my PC, phone, and iPad.

Finally!!

EDIT: Deleted post as it was based on incorrect reading of kinkie_pie's previous post.

Thanks!