I don't know how many hours I put in over the last few weeks trying to get the same calendar events on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad, but it seemed one set back after another. The latest was that iTunes gave a message that "the sync server failed to sync" a device.
I scoured the Apple discussion groups and other forums. I finally got my final clues from one discussion and now have all my calendars with the same events (well almost, the iPhone has some extra, but that's another story).
My post when I got it working is:
I posted the following to "iTunes could not sync calendars to the iPhone "xx" because the sync server failed to sync the iPhone. What does this mean??" at
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15820680#15820680
I haven't seen it mentioned but the secret [in iTunes] is to
Sync only selected calendars
Select "Remove Calendars" from the popup window
(This is ambigous: from where are the calendars removed? From the device being synced to)
Click apply.
Oops! My memory is already gone stale. I think I left no calendars selected, then clicked apply. Then I selected the calendars that I wanted, then clicked apply.
In any case, I had a blank calendar on my iPad and then I had all the updated events that I wanted on my iPad.
Thanks to all who provided some of the essential clues to resolving this problem.
Showing posts with label iCal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iCal. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Monday, June 20, 2011
Misdirected ire about buggy software
In "Quote of the day - Ease of use"
I berated Steve Jobs and Apple about his quote "Everything syncs without us having to think about it" because calendars in Microsoft Outlook, Apple's iCal, and my iPod were not synching properly.
Well, the problem was far worse than a few duplicated events. I had dozens and dozens that were duplicated over 100 times and one possibly over 500 times. That's a lot of shift-clicks followed by a delete. I've spent over a week now cleaning up at least three months a day.
Why delete duplicates from nine years ago? Because each item takes up space. For every three months cleaned up, I would back up the calendar. For 2004 it could take well over five minutes to backup. When I cleaned up into 2010, it started backing up in a minute. When I cleaned up into 2011, it backed up in less than a minute.
I also spent lots and lots of time looking at Microsoft's support pages. Hoo, boy! There ain't much praise there! Message after message complains about this and similar problems. The only posted responses are from MVPs (whatever that stands for), volunteers who try to direct users to relevant support pages.
Microsoft put out an update last week that I downloaded and installed. However, despite people complaining about sync problems since April 6, there was no mention of them in the notes for the update.
I wonder how much Microsoft is even screening any of these comments. I posted two comments on June 13, and they are still marked "Your comment is awaiting moderation."
This whole situation has the earmarks of upper management declaring something should be done by such and such date, middle management trying to figure out how to assign the work to too few people, and the programmers trying valiantly to put round pegs in square holes.
Shades of Dilbert!
Shades of the bad old days of mainframes! We felt lucky to get out a new system that crashed a few minutes less frequently than the previous version.
I berated Steve Jobs and Apple about his quote "Everything syncs without us having to think about it" because calendars in Microsoft Outlook, Apple's iCal, and my iPod were not synching properly.
Well, the problem was far worse than a few duplicated events. I had dozens and dozens that were duplicated over 100 times and one possibly over 500 times. That's a lot of shift-clicks followed by a delete. I've spent over a week now cleaning up at least three months a day.
Why delete duplicates from nine years ago? Because each item takes up space. For every three months cleaned up, I would back up the calendar. For 2004 it could take well over five minutes to backup. When I cleaned up into 2010, it started backing up in a minute. When I cleaned up into 2011, it backed up in less than a minute.
I also spent lots and lots of time looking at Microsoft's support pages. Hoo, boy! There ain't much praise there! Message after message complains about this and similar problems. The only posted responses are from MVPs (whatever that stands for), volunteers who try to direct users to relevant support pages.
Microsoft put out an update last week that I downloaded and installed. However, despite people complaining about sync problems since April 6, there was no mention of them in the notes for the update.
I wonder how much Microsoft is even screening any of these comments. I posted two comments on June 13, and they are still marked "Your comment is awaiting moderation."
This whole situation has the earmarks of upper management declaring something should be done by such and such date, middle management trying to figure out how to assign the work to too few people, and the programmers trying valiantly to put round pegs in square holes.
Shades of Dilbert!
Shades of the bad old days of mainframes! We felt lucky to get out a new system that crashed a few minutes less frequently than the previous version.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
More foibles of free enterprise
I write these little diatribes against "free enterprise" not because I oppose "free enterprise" but because I get tired of those who believe "free enterprise" should be free to do what it damn well pleases and that government can do nothing right.
"Free enterprise" and government are both human creations and, as such, can do wonderful things and can really screw up. The latest free enterprise screw up screwed up my day recently.
I use my computer and my iPod to keep my calendar. Because I prefer the calendar in Microsoft Outlook, I have to use Apple's iCal on my computer to synchronize the iPod calendar and the Outlook calendar. Normally this works "seamlessly", but a few times it hasn't.
Last week the calendar on my iPod became blank. All the entries had disappeared. Years of past data and months of future data gone without any effort on my part. I checked iCal on my computer; all that data was gone also. I checked the Outlook calendar and the data was all there, whew!
But, could I restore the data to the other two calendars by synching or would the Outlook data be wiped out also?
Off to the wonderland of Apple support. With most large companies, this doesn't mean talking with an "expert" anymore. Instead you have to rely on hundreds or thousands of other customers asking and answering questions. This means sifting through dozens, if not hundreds, of messages that seem to be about a problem similar to yours.
There were many threads about iCal calendars disappearing, going back to 2006 (or was it 2004). I'm using the latest publicly available version of OS X (10.6.7). Come on, Apple, can't you get this problem fixed permanently in five years?
I did find a suitable solution, which involved deleting a certain folder from the Library folder and replacing it with a backup copy from before the error occurred. Well, the certain folder wasn't where the message said it was, but it was close enough for me to find it. Second problem for many people is how often do they even back up their Library folder.
Fortunately, I have installed Apple's Time Machine, which frequently backs up my internal hard drive to an external hard drive. And it backs up multiple copies for up to a month. I selected a copy of the folder from when I knew my calendar had data.
Bingo! The computer iCal was restored and after I synched the iPod, I had both calendars up-to-date, sort of.
But I was not home free. After the Outlook calendar was synched with iCal, I had double entries for many events. I still haven't removed all the duplicates.
A half day shot for the "efficiency" of free enterprise. Those who make the false comparison between free enterprise and government either don't use computers or are blinded by their ideology.
I'm not completely unsympathetic to the problems of software. When I closed my software business fifteen years ago, I had a problem book at least nine pages long. That program was a toy compared to the complexity of most software today. Much of modern software is not the product of one programmer in a home office, but of a vast bureaucracy. The bureaucracy screws up a lot, but boy, we still get lots of great stuff from the bureaucracy, be it corporate or government.
"Free enterprise" and government are both human creations and, as such, can do wonderful things and can really screw up. The latest free enterprise screw up screwed up my day recently.
I use my computer and my iPod to keep my calendar. Because I prefer the calendar in Microsoft Outlook, I have to use Apple's iCal on my computer to synchronize the iPod calendar and the Outlook calendar. Normally this works "seamlessly", but a few times it hasn't.
Last week the calendar on my iPod became blank. All the entries had disappeared. Years of past data and months of future data gone without any effort on my part. I checked iCal on my computer; all that data was gone also. I checked the Outlook calendar and the data was all there, whew!
But, could I restore the data to the other two calendars by synching or would the Outlook data be wiped out also?
Off to the wonderland of Apple support. With most large companies, this doesn't mean talking with an "expert" anymore. Instead you have to rely on hundreds or thousands of other customers asking and answering questions. This means sifting through dozens, if not hundreds, of messages that seem to be about a problem similar to yours.
There were many threads about iCal calendars disappearing, going back to 2006 (or was it 2004). I'm using the latest publicly available version of OS X (10.6.7). Come on, Apple, can't you get this problem fixed permanently in five years?
I did find a suitable solution, which involved deleting a certain folder from the Library folder and replacing it with a backup copy from before the error occurred. Well, the certain folder wasn't where the message said it was, but it was close enough for me to find it. Second problem for many people is how often do they even back up their Library folder.
Fortunately, I have installed Apple's Time Machine, which frequently backs up my internal hard drive to an external hard drive. And it backs up multiple copies for up to a month. I selected a copy of the folder from when I knew my calendar had data.
Bingo! The computer iCal was restored and after I synched the iPod, I had both calendars up-to-date, sort of.
But I was not home free. After the Outlook calendar was synched with iCal, I had double entries for many events. I still haven't removed all the duplicates.
A half day shot for the "efficiency" of free enterprise. Those who make the false comparison between free enterprise and government either don't use computers or are blinded by their ideology.
I'm not completely unsympathetic to the problems of software. When I closed my software business fifteen years ago, I had a problem book at least nine pages long. That program was a toy compared to the complexity of most software today. Much of modern software is not the product of one programmer in a home office, but of a vast bureaucracy. The bureaucracy screws up a lot, but boy, we still get lots of great stuff from the bureaucracy, be it corporate or government.
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