wuselmouse
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: How can I remove duplicate birthdays from iCloud?

My birthdays show up twice on icloud but I managed to remove the double entries from my iMac calendar, following some advice in the discussion board. I can't remove them from icloud though. Strangely, the only birthday that is not displayed twice in my icloud calendar does not exist at all as a birthday field in my contact, neither on icloud nor on my mac. Any ideas what to do?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Feb 19, 2014 7:58 AM

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wuselmouse

Q: How can I remove duplicate birthdays from iCloud?

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  • by rkaufmann87,

    rkaufmann87 rkaufmann87 Feb 19, 2014 7:51 AM in response to wuselmouse
    Level 9 (58,704 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Feb 19, 2014 7:51 AM in response to wuselmouse

    Please carefully read and follow Apple's instructions in the following article:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4337

  • by wuselmouse,

    wuselmouse wuselmouse Feb 19, 2014 8:59 AM in response to rkaufmann87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 19, 2014 8:59 AM in response to rkaufmann87

    I tried this but it resulted in all my birthdays now gone from my calendar on my imac. I also switched off sync from my Outlook contacts on my laptop. xThat should have removed the extra birthdays, but it didn't. No data in Outlook on my new imac, so the problem cannot come from Outlook. I then opened contacts on my imac again and entered that one birthday that only showed up once because it was missing from my birthdays - but I gave it a different date to see which one was the dummy entry in icloud. This birthday now also shows up twice, once with the old date and once with the new date. I still have no idea where the dummy birthdays may come from.

  • by rkaufmann87,

    rkaufmann87 rkaufmann87 Feb 19, 2014 9:34 AM in response to wuselmouse
    Level 9 (58,704 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Feb 19, 2014 9:34 AM in response to wuselmouse

    You did not follow the directions closely, please re-read and if necessary restore from your backup.

  • by wuselmouse,

    wuselmouse wuselmouse Feb 19, 2014 10:41 AM in response to rkaufmann87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 19, 2014 10:41 AM in response to rkaufmann87

    ok thanks, I'll try it all over again when I get the time. I had deleted all calenders and all contacts on both imac and laptop and restored the lot from backup. Meanwhile, all birthdays are showing up again and only as single items on all my macs. It is only icloud where there are still duplicates, so that is not so bad.

  • by Dave Ings,Helpful

    Dave Ings Dave Ings Apr 9, 2014 8:03 PM in response to wuselmouse
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apr 9, 2014 8:03 PM in response to wuselmouse

    I have the same problem - only my birthdays appear in triplicate and quadruplicate! (But only in the Web based iCloud view, not in a native app on an Apple device).

     

    I've spent a fair amount of time looking into this. I am fairly sure this is a server side database corruption error, and I seem to be able to reproduce it at will. The posted Web "solutions" (including the URL above) seem to be addressing a different (but superficially similar) error.

     

    When I have some time I plan to schedule a call with Apple support so they can escalate it to their operations people to fix. If I'm successful I'll post back here.

  • by wuselmouse,

    wuselmouse wuselmouse Apr 10, 2014 9:36 AM in response to Dave Ings
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 10, 2014 9:36 AM in response to Dave Ings

    I agree with you. Excellent idea!

  • by Dave Ings,

    Dave Ings Dave Ings Jun 6, 2014 11:26 AM in response to wuselmouse
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 6, 2014 11:26 AM in response to wuselmouse

    I finally got around to calling Apple Support today to work this problem.

     

    As I expected, they first had me try a couple of the standard workarounds they've documented in support notes. Also I expected, neither of them worked. So I'm working up the support food chain (next callback in a couple of hours) until I get to someone who actually has the skills to fix the problem.

     

    I will post back when there is solid news.

  • by Dave Ings,

    Dave Ings Dave Ings Jun 9, 2014 10:17 AM in response to Dave Ings
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 9, 2014 10:17 AM in response to Dave Ings

    Apple fixed my quadruplicate birthday event problem.

     

    After the standard workarounds failed, Apple Support sent the problem to Engineering and someone in Operations deleted my birthday calendar in its entirety, then recreated it, following which it automatically repopulated itself from my contacts, one birthday per contact!

     

    I was surprised and pleased at how quickly Apple fixed this. I first spoke to Support Friday morning, after a second phone call it was sent to Engineering on Friday afternoon and by Monday morning it was fixed.

     

    Kudos to Apple for being so fast.

     

    Dave Ings