Workaround to fix calendar sync problems

[aebrown]

Thanks aebrown - that would be because nothing had asked liddicott.com for your calendar, neither you nor google. I'll cover that case now!

Actually, I had previously used your site to request my calendar. I'm not sure why you have no record of that. Of course, you don't know my ID, so I'm not sure how you would know for sure.

[samliddicott]

Until today I wasn't keeping a log of useful information relating to each request. So now I log responses from the lds server, the user-agent of the requester and the requested url. I don't log the calendar data or the requester IP.

The logs will get cleared whenever I reboot or whenever I feel-like-it.

[Chrisrpeterson]

I am not sure if I am having the same problem or not, so here goes. I get the URL from LDS.org, copy it in to Google calendar as a new calendar, it shows up under "other calendars", but never loads any events. It says importing calendar from URL for quite some time. (not sure how long it should take). The interesting thing is that I can use the link for outlook and add the calendar into outlook 2010 (however android can't sync multiple outlook calendars through exchange). So I am stuck, any way to get the events to load? (Still says importing from URL- it's been over 5 min)

[aebrown]

I am not sure if I am having the same problem or not, so here goes. I get the URL from LDS.org, copy it in to Google calendar as a new calendar, it shows up under "other calendars", but never loads any events. It says importing calendar from URL for quite some time. (not sure how long it should take). The interesting thing is that I can use the link for outlook and add the calendar into outlook 2010 (however android can't sync multiple outlook calendars through exchange). So I am stuck, any way to get the events to load? (Still says importing from URL- it's been over 5 min)

That does sound like the same issue. I'd start by just inserting "www." before "lds.org" in the URL you copy. If that works, great. If not, try the approach explained on the first post of this thread.

[chrissv]

Another piece of information related to the workaround: I enabled Google to inform me of additions/deletions of calendar entries made on the "workaround" calendar. I am getting inundated with announcements of events being canceled, and then the same event shows up as new. It sounds like the workaround sometimes doesn't report events (causing Google to say they were canceled), and then later the events show back up (and Google says they are new).

I do not know of this is caused by the LDS calendar having them missing then reappearing, or the workaround script. I'm pretty sure nobody is physically removing and re-adding 400 events in the past couple of hours!

-- Steven

[samliddicott]

The script just passes the request on to the lds server and then passes the response back with no other processing.

I suspect what you see is based on how that type of external URL calendar works in google; when they fetch the URL again I think they delete all events and then add the UCAL as a load of new events. Have you seen anything to suggest that this is not what happens?

If you don't continue to get these notifications then perhaps we can say that the problem occurred a few days ago when some aspects of the LDS site were unavailable for a while, maybe?

[awev]

I am using Linux (Ubuntu/Kubuntu flavor), and the Claw email client. I have not been able to import new.lds.org or the lds.org calendars in the past, into Claw or Google. Using www.lds.org I was able to load the calendar into Claw instantly, while Google is thinking about it. I'll find out how well Google is doing (it is http://www.lds.org/church-calendar/serv ... scribe/<12 digit customer id #>). I looks as if Google is going to choke on it, so I'll try the lddicott proxy later tonight, and post a follow-up.

Quick follow-up: In Claw I can see repeating events listed as far ahead as Jan 15, 2013 (almost 2 years ahead). Google is still thinking about it, and yet I started it first

Update: 2 1/2 hours later (after diner date) Google reports it did not work. I'll try the Liddicott proxy now.

Another update: Three hours later Google is still importing the Liddicott proxy, yet within a couple minutes of starting it had already displayed some items. Lets see if it sticks.

Latest update: Google did import the info using the proxy, and this morning Google though it was still importing the info. Hitting Refresh took care of the Importing from the URL message. Thank you Sam for your site, and work..

[durtjim]

I just tried syncing to gmail using https: and it did not work. It created calendar but no data. I'll next try the wrapper.

Just used wrapper and everything imported. Is it supposed to import all calendars subscribed to or just the ones checked?

[russellhltn]

I'm not sure if it's still working or not. I've noticed that updates to the stake calendar have not made it to my phone - even after a few days.

[aebrown]

I just tried syncing to gmail using https: and it did not work. It created calendar but no data. I'll next try the wrapper.

Just used wrapper and everything imported.

I'm glad the wrapper worked for you. Did you happen to try inserting "www." before "lds.org" in the URL from the calendar Sync page (without the wrapper)? That has been working for some people, and is a simpler approach than the wrapper.

Is it supposed to import all calendars subscribed to or just the ones checked?

It imports all subscribed calendars. From the calendar help for Syncing with Third-Party Calendars:

The one-way sync includes all of your subscribed calendars. You cannot select to sync only a selection of subscribed calendars.