Problem syncing iCloud calendar on Thunderbird Lightning

I am having something quite similar happen.

I wouldn't call this a "solution", but if I click on properties, then click (or unclick) the "offline support" box and let it resynch, this generally resolves the problem. At least for a while.

I see you are Windows 7, I have this happening under Mac OS X. My symptoms match very well - no problem at all with Google, always with iCloud.

If I were a magician, I'd fix it on my own computers 🙂

One of my earlier statements was inaccurate, though, I now realise that it does happen sometimes with Google calendars, just not as often. That might be related to the fact that I used Google calendars much less, or it might be some other reason.

If I see one of your posts in the future, I'll answer it 🙂

For what it's worth, this problem seems to have mostly disappeared for me, without my taking any action. Maybe Apple made some changes in the way iCloud works, I don't really know.

This problem has me stumped. I have been trying on and off for three weeks to sync Lightning and ICloud Calendar.

I can create a network calendar in Lightning. When I finish, I get a dialogue that says MMCalDav wants me to login. It accepts my Apple ID and password. But the calendars never sync.

The network address I use when creating the calendar is in the format above:

https://p26-caldav.icloud.com/<user_id>/calendars/<calendar_id>/

Is the correct <user_id> the part of my Apple ID before the @ sign? That is, just the name part of my email address?

Is the correct <calendar_id> the name of the calendar, e.g "Home"?

The p26 comes from fiddling with Firebug in Firefox. When I login to iCloud in the browser, Firebug reports show up with p26, so I figure that is the one I need.

Firebug also shows a UUID or Client ID in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx, but that does not seem to work as a User ID.

BTW, ICloud syncs with the iPhone just fine.

Am I doing something -- or everything -- wrong?

Both the user_id and the calendar_id may be causing you trouble here.

As this is posed in the PC section, I'll assume you don't have easy access to a Mac.

There is a script which will give you the address of the calendars directory, see here:

http://icloud.niftyside.com

My experience was, it worked fine for my initial two calendars, because the calendar_id for each of these calendars matched the name I gave them when I created them through the iCloud web interface.

Much more recently, I created a new calendar through the iCloud web interface, and the calendar_id did not match what I called it - it was a complicated random-looking series of numbers/letters.

I was able to find out the calendar_id by configuring the Mac OS X calendar application (which somehow discovers all the calendars), and then going into a terminal window, searching for Info.plist files, and viewing them in a text editor (I used vi). When I found the right Info.plist file, I could see the calendar_id in it.

So I would try the script, and use the "user friendly" name of the calendar, like "Home". If that doesn't work, and you have access to a Mac, I would configure the calendar app, fire it up, and then go hunting for the calendar_id in the configuration files as described above. If you don't want to use the calendar.app, you can just ignore it once you're finished, or remove the calendars from it later.

If you don't have easy access to a Mac, then I don't have an answer for you - anyone else?

I should add - if you have a Mac, you don't need to run the script, you could configure the Calendar app and then go hunting for the configuration file - you can find both of the missing pieces that way.

I have no access to a Mac. I'm running Win 7 on a PC. I did previously download that script, but it doesn't do anything. Maybe it needs some programming environment installed to run it. Not sure.

So the user ID is not my Apple ID name?

Is there any way to find the calendar info by looking at something on the iPhone 5s?

There are two versions of the script, one of them needs some flavour of Java, the other is a different kind of script. I was able to get it to work (on a PC), but it took a few tries.

The user_id doesn't seem to have any obvious relation to the Apple ID - mine is a nine digit number.

Short of having a friend create a temporary account on a Mac for you and then configuring the Calendar app, I don't know how to proceed. There may be a way to do it with what you have, but I don't know how - sorry 😟

Thanks for trying.

I did run both versions of the script (GUI and command line), but got the same error. It asks to set the JAVA_HOME variable in my environment. I would try installing the java environment, but there are so many I don't know which to use. A lot of trouble just to run a short script.

Apple should give us a simple way to get this calendar info. It is, after all, my account!

Maybe an Apple Store can access my iCloud calendar on one of their Macs and give me the info. Would they do that?

OK, I installed Java Runtime Enviroment (JRE non-server version). Now I can run the command line script in Win 7. It gives me a series of URLs that include a nine-digit user ID.

hhtps://p01-caldav.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/principal/

hhtps://p01-contacts.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/carddavhome/card/

https://p01-caldav.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/calendars/outbox/

https://p01-caldav.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/calendars/

https://p01-caldav.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/calendars/inbox/

https://p01-caldav.icloud.com/xxxxxxxxx/calendars/notification/

I added the name of my calendar to the end of #4 above, but so far there is no sync. I'll have to try different server numbers.

Note that when I add the calendar name to the end of the URL, the calendar remains unchecked in Thunderbird. If I add nothing to the URL, it stays checked in Thunderbird, but shows a yellow warning symbol until I right click and tell it to sync calendars.

But still no joy with iCloud sync.

Victory!!!

The script from http://icloud.niftyside.com running in the JRE environment in Win 7 gave me the user ID, but not the calendar ID.

I had to install the Firebug addon in Firefox and look through the reports after logging into iCloud. The calendar ID in the format xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx was difficult to find, as there are multiple numbers in that format throughout the various Firebug reports. The correct ID was in the Post tab under a POST report and appeared in multiple places. There is a line in the middle of a long paragraph of data that reads:

"publishedUrl":null,"objectType":"personal","title":"Home"

...where "Home" is the name of my calendar. The calendar ID appeared just before that part.

So it took the NiftySide script to get the nine-digit User ID, and Firebug to find the calendar ID.

I hope this helps other people who are searching for this solution.

Well -- after working for a couple of months, my sync is now broken. Lightning keeps asking for my ID and password, but can't connect.

I ran the niftyside script to see if anything changed, but now the script gives errors.

Has Apple changed the way the iCloud calendar works or how it is accessed?

Looks like Apple's problem is fixed as of today. Lightning is now syncing without any changes on my part.