ics import successful, but empty calendar

[RandolphCarter]

When I try to import an ics file (from google calendar) in owncloud 4 on my own server, the dialog reports that the import was successful.
However, when I then navigate to the calendar, it is empty; and the apache error log shows a few of the following errors:

Code: Select all

[...] PHP Notice:  Undefined offset: 1 in owncloud/3rdparty/when/When.php on line 154, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP Stack trace:, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP   1. {main}() owncloud/index.php:0, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP   2. OC::loadfile() owncloud/index.php:65, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP   3. require_once() owncloud/lib/base.php:304, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP   4. OC_Calendar_App::generateEventOutput() owncloud/apps/calendar/ajax/events.php:33, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar
[...] PHP   5. When->rrule() owncloud/apps/calendar/lib/app.php:411, referer: https://<myurl>/owncloud/?app=calendar


Anybody got an idea what is going wrong here? I previously had an older owncloud version (I think 3.0.3) installed, and with that the import worked just fine.

Environment: HomeServer (running Ubuntu Server 11.04)
Server: Apache 2.2.17
Database: mysql 5.1.62
Client: Firefox 12
OC-Version: 4.0
PHP-Version: 5.3.5

[RandolphCarter]

This problem was introduced in owncloud version 4. Importing the same file with owncloud 3.0.3 doesn't show this problem, and when copying the table contents over to a 4 installation, there is also no problem! I will continue looking into that when I have time; for now I will work with the migrated data from the 3.0.3 installation (although that seems to have the problem mentioned here, that the umlauts are wrong).

[jrock2004]

I am curious on how you even imported the ics cause in my version there is no way to import that.

[marty]

I'd like to test your issue to confirm it but I can't even use a freshly installed OC4, let alone an upgraded version...

[RandolphCarter]

I am curious on how you even imported the ics cause in my version there is no way to import that.

I tried importing by simply clicking on the .ics file in File view. I'm pretty sure I also did a fresh install (more or less, I copied data and config directory over to oc4 directory).

I'd like to test your issue to confirm it but I can't even use a freshly installed OC4, let alone an upgraded version...

There's version 4.0.1 available now, maybe it works with that, I'll retry my test.

In the meantime I tried importing the file in oc 3.0.3, and copying the DB table contents to oc 4. Had some umlaut problems with that approach (basically because the ics file is in utf-8 format but oc seems to only expect latin-1 (aka iso8859-1) encoding)... Converted the ics file via a text editor, and that worked then... Until I ran into the problem of spaces in the caldav url which don't seem to be supported by my client, which I had to correct manually (by renaming "Default calendar" to "Default"). As I today saw, this resulted in another "Default calendar" being created, and only that being shown on startup of calendar app.

So to me, the calendar app seems nice, but with a lot of teething troubles at the moment . Haven't checked with 4.0.1 yet, could be that some are already fixed there.

[sarah]

I do have the same problem here. Installed the latest stable release (4.0.2) today and tried to import my calendars as .ical. Imported them to owncroud by uploading and then clicking on the .ics in "Files", too, into two different new calendars, with the same name as the source files.
Do have a comparable serversetting here as Randolph does.

Made one important observation, which could perhaps help to solve this problem:

For my testings, I used two different .ics files previously exported from Sunbird (1.0b1, the latest one):

• A relatively small one (~ 24kB) whith only a small number of events inside, and mostly also without any repeatings, and
• a quite large one (~400kB) with thousands of events and many repeatings (partly with manually edited single happenings of repeating events) inside.

In both cases, the dialog reports that the import was successful.

Results:

• the large one gets NOT displayed in the cloud-calendar at all, even not weeks with only few single oneday-events without repeatings, though the calendar is activated.
• but: the small one gets displayed COMPLETELY CORRECT.

=> Perhaps a php-server-timeout happens?
=> or, if definitely not: could an incompatability concerning the repeatings cause this?

Anybody out there, who could test this? Or could give me a hint to test this myself?

Thanks a lot!

[sarah]

Moved on with my trials.

The .ics filesize doesnt seem to be the reason. Imported another, even bigger ical file, even with many repeatings, but only very few of them edited manually afterwards. Displayed completely correct.

Additionally, i edited my php.ini and added there those 2 new lines:

Code: Select all

max_input_time=300
max_execution_time =300

I think, 300seconds for a timeout should definitely be enough for transfers of files with ~ 600kB.

Already also tried to import my calendars with the help from Sunbird - same results:

First creating an empty calendar in owncloud. Then creating a new CalDAV calendar with identic name within Sunbird, linking to the new owncloud-calendar. Then export one of my source-calendars as .ics, then reimport it into Sunbird's new CalCAV calendar.

Results:

• When using one of my big calendars with many manually edited single happenings of repeated events, it gets displayed correctly within Sunbird, but NOTHING is displayed within owncloud (even not after logout and login).
• Another big source-calender, whose import via upload as .ics into owncloud worked fine, was displayed correctly there, too, when importing using this sunbird-method.

=> In consequence, I think, the problem seems (in my case) to be caused by many manually edited single happenings of repeated events. Cause the import of every other .ics, just without this manual overwrites, works out of the box completely fine.

Finding a workaround for this is highly important for me - cause it concerns my most important calendars...

Any hints what to try now? (instead of copying thousands of events manually, one after another...)

[RandolphCarter]

As a workaround, you could try what I did: Import the file in an oc 3.0.3 instance, and then copy the DB table contents (oc_calendar_objects) to oc 4. That seems to have worked for me, see my post above.

[neumaz]

Hi!
I am an new owncloud user (4.0.3) an have the same problem. Ich want to import 3 diferent Google-Calenders. Two of them have a filesize under 100KB and one has 2.5MB.
The import of the smaller calenders work fine, but with the bigger one i had no chance to import it.
My owncloud installation is a new installation with a mysql database.

edit in the afternoon...

Now i tried to open the ics file in Outlook 2007 and delete all appoinments bevore 2012.01.01 - so the ics-file has only 160kB. But the import also fails So maybe ther ist something wrong in one field that i can't import the ics-file..

neumaz

[sarah]

Hi @all and thanks a lot for your replies! (and please don't mind about these many mistakes in my written English, it's not my native language)

In the meantime I found out what to do to get my two problem-calendar-ics-files imported, without using owncloud 3:

An event's title and location must'nt be longer than 100 characters. And - very important: its title mustn't be empty! The latter normaly can't happen when creating just a single, non-repeating event.
But if you modify single occurrences of a repeated event in Mozilla Sunbird or Lightning, both of them then create tacitly new events without any title.

After verifying these three items, the import of both of the before problematic calendars directly into owncloud 4 worked just perfectly. None of them had a filesize > 1MB, neither before nor after the described adjustments.

[Before having found this solution, I also tested several other groupware software, i.a. egroupware and group-office. But its much much easier and faster to get a permanent calendar- and contact-sync working between onecloud and Thunderbird/lightning than between any other groupware-server-software and Thunderbird/Lightning I tried yet.
Btw: To get the adressbook-sync working, just use the Thunderbird-extensions "Inverse SOGo Connector" and "Inverse SOGo Integrator". They permit you to bind your ownCloud addressbooks as new remote adressbooks through pasting its CardDav links into the new-remote-addressbook-wizard.
Besides that, SOGo also allows one to define different categories, which then get handled as contact-groups by ownCloud.]

Hope this post is a little bit useful for anyone...