Outlook/exchange calendar not syncing with iOS8

I began having the calendar sync issue after updating to 8.2 from 7 - and getting long since deleted appt reminders. After trying many things posted here I looked at the suggestion from ericali (Mar 4, 12:54pm). When I looked at my Default Calendar setting it listed two items, both called "Calendar". I went and added appts from my phone choosing one for each calendar. Only one showed up in Outlook on my pc. So I looked closer through my Mailbox in Outlook - I had another calendar as a subcalendar that was also called "Calendar". There appeared the old appts I was getting reminders for and the appts I had entered on my phone. I deleted the subcalendar (had to re-enter the appts I did need to keep in my normal calendar) and now when I look at the settings for default calendar on my phone it doesn't even show the option (since there's only one).

I'm guessing that somewhere along the upgrade/sync/restore process it didn't know what to do with this rogue calendar so just added it as a subcalendar, unbeknownst to me. Regardless, that solved the problem for me. Haven't had any issues with mail messages thus far.

Looks like iOS 8.3 might have some fixes in it to address this...as well as the fact that you could only set one out of office message:

Enterprise fixes

– Improves reliability of installing and updating enterprise apps

– Corrects the time zone of Calendar events created in IBM Notes

– Fixes a problem that could cause web clip icons to become generic after restarting

– Improves reliability of saving the password for a web proxy

– Exchange out-of-office message can now be edited separately for external replies

– Improves recovery of Exchange accounts from temporary connection problems

– Improves compatibility of VPN and web proxy solutions

– Allows use of physical keyboards to log into Safari web sheets, such as for joining a public Wi-Fi network

– Fixes an issue that caused Exchange meetings with long notes to be truncated

Source: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2015/04/ios-8-3-release-notes-change-log.html

Have just updated my iphone, restarted the phone several times, deleted and re-added my Outlook calendar from the phone, synced the phone with Outlook via iTunes, all to no avail - this new update has made no difference to the calendar sync issues.

This is so weird. I just updated to iOS 8.3 and my work Calendar appears again on my iPhone 5 native calendar! Now, hopefully it stays on for longer than the 3 weeks before disappearing like last time. Fingers crossed...

Yes -- I also updated to 8.3 and the problem persists. I have two IOS devices and a win7 pc running outlook 2013. Tested my outlook.com calendar by creating/editing a variety of calendar events on the various devices over the weekend. They would sync for a while on the two IOS devices, then the sync would fail intermittently on both. I was making changes pretty rapidly on purpose to see if I could make it fail, and I did. May not be a fair representation of real life, but if it's that easy to screw the system up, this problem is clearly not fixed. Outlook 2013 naturally syncs flawlessly with the outlook.com calendar.

Beyond the sync failure, I also experienced a very strange thing. I sent myself a series of meeting requests created in an unrelated outlook account. After I had accepted the first meeting on one IOS device, it did sync and show up as normal calendar item on all of the others. But when I accepted the next one, the previously accepted meeting(s) on that device only would immediately get modified and show as if they had not been accepted. And if I re-accepted the earlier one, it caused that later one to look like it had not been accepted. I think they call this an infinite loop in computer speak.... All the while, the previously accepted events on outlook.com and Outlook 2013 were still showing as accepted. It's as if the action of accepting a meeting through an IOS device throws a switch on that device to undo previous actions.

The EAS functions for outlook.com email and contacts are working just fine. So I'm using icloud for my calendar as the syncing across my various devices works perfectly. The icloud for windows add-in works flawlessly in my experience and keeps the outlook 2013 icloud fully synced. It's not a perfect solution though -- in Outlook 2013 I have to keep two accounts running and meeting requests that I receive are automatically placed in my (not working) outlook.com calendar which is the default account in Outlook. I then have to manually cut and paste the item into the icloud calendar.

OK, it seems I figured out a way of getting calendar syncing to run again 🙂

My setting:

- Laptop with Windows 7, 64 bit

- Outlook 2007 SP3 MSO

Synchronization of my iPad 2 and iPhone 5s worked via iTunes perfectly until an update (end of March) to iOS 8.3 and the latest iTunes version (sorry can't remember which version number).

I figured out that the latest version of iTunes does no longer install SyncServer.exe. This was confirmed by other postings in the internet as well. By chance I still had an old iTunes version 12.0.1.26 in my download folder. Deinstalled all Apple components on the laptop and reinstalled the old iTunes version. Anyway calendar still did not sync.

So I inspected the files under C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer

In the most recent logfile in

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Logs

I found

[7072 @ Wed Apr 15 11:28:17 2015] [_ISDVLog AppleMobileSync.exe] Sync Server is disabled.

Looking further around I found the binary file

C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Preferences\com.apple.syncserver.plist

which contains the string

RunCompletelyDisabledSYES

Using an editor I exchanged YES by NO (be careful not to insert other chars), triggert a sync with the iPhone and voila all changes of the Outlook calendar appeared on the phone. Since the plist file is binary I would recomment to use a hex editor or an editor which can be used to edit binary files. Since I'm from the generation emacs, I used this all-purpose-weapon, since it can edit and write binary files.

This solution worked for the iPad, too, and it works also the other way round (new entries on the apple devices will be sync'ed to Outlook

Note:

- in iTunes you probably have to check under info the calendar synchronization (I also checked the complete substitution of the calendar at the bottom of the info page).

- during the sync iTunes probably warns you that the calendar was synced with a different account and whether you like to continue. I excepted it (I had nothing to loose)

- of course, I give no guarantees whether this solution works in your case or that it doesn't cause any other harm

- and of course, I cannot ensure whether it will be stable (further diagnostics needed here)

Since this is the second time that iOS updates caused troubles and hours of wasted time, I'll will never ever again update the iOS or iTunes. And I hope that Apple gets alerted about the wasted time they cause with updates breaking running solutions.

Hope this helps you a bit resolving your sync'ing issues or finding your own way.

Hi All,

I too had similar issue with the Outlook app. Deleting and re-creating the account in Outlook still failed until I tried something new.

When I removed the account - this time I selected "From Device & Remote Data"

I added the account back in and then I was able to specify my incoming and outgoing servers (I use Outlook to connect to my own business email which is a hosted solution)

This time the account synced correctly and is continuing to do so. Hope this helps

cheers

This fixed my problem. Hopefully it stays fixed.

This is so weird. I just updated to iOS 8.3 and my work Calendar appears again on my iPhone 5 native calendar! Now, hopefully it stays on for longer than the 3 weeks before disappearing like

And of course, as of yesterday (4/30/15), my work calendar appointments stopped appearing on my phone. Jeez Apple, what gives?

For me and one of my users, going into the Outlook Web Mail and going under Options > Phone, and removing all devices listed there solved the syncing problem. Try it.

Ok, just so you know, I don't have a Doctorate in computers. When you say go into Outlook Web Mail, do you mean on my work computer or on my phone?

Do it on the computer, with the phone turned off - that's how I've done it.

AmishCake wrote:

For me and one of my users, going into the Outlook Web Mail and going under Options > Phone, and removing all devices listed there solved the syncing problem. Try it.

You mean Outlook Web Access? I had no idea it had that option. In mine (Exchange 2007), it's in Options under "Mobile Devices", and there are several devices listed there (each several times).

I get three options:

- Remove device from list

- Wipe all data from device

- Display recovery password

If I choose the first one, what is that supposed to do? I would guess it might prevent any syncing at all, but maybe it will reappear again when it tries to sync. Is that what happened for you?

I first noticed this syncing problem when I saw that several appointments I'd rescheduled were on different days on my iPad and my iPhone. I *think* I've fixed it by turning off all other calendars in Settings (gmail, icloud, outlook.com, office365.com). But it seems to be syncing much more slowly than I remember. Changes on one don't appear on the other for several minutes.

It might be that they aren't syncing till I close and reopen the Calendar app. I'm not sure because the devices lock after 5 minutes, so it might be locking and unlocking that triggers the syncing.

I'm sure that when I first got these devices (iOS 6 days) they synced very quickly, within seconds.