Help Google calendar disappeared

[alan_s]

Aparrently there have been changes to the Google Calender website. Events created here can now be assigned a colour. This has presumably changed the underlying file structure which may be what has upset certain phones!

 

[doogald]

Aparrently there have been changes to the Google Calender website. Events created here can now be assigned a colour. This has presumably changed the underlying file structure which may be what has upset certain phones!

Ok, last night I saw this for the first time.

My solution? I'm going to create a new calendar and move all of my events there.

It's actually quite simple to do.

In Google calendar, go to settings. There is a link under "My Calendars", after the list of all of the non-subscribed calendars, called "export calendars". This will create a zip file to save on your PC. If you unzip that file, you will see an .ics file for each of the calendars you have listed under "My Calendars".

Back to Google Calendar, Create a new calendar, give it a name. Now click on "import calendar", choose the .ics file that corresponds with your main Google calendar that you unzipped before, and import it into the new Google Calendar that you created. (You may have to refresh the Google Calendar page to see it in the list.)

Then, when you are sure that you have the events in that calendar all set, there is a "delete" link next to your primary calendar - you can click that to mass-delete all of the now duplicated events in your calendar.

You amy also want to go into the settings for that calendar to change notifications, etc.

Inelegant, but this works for me.

 

[KingoftheJust]

This is crazy. The only way I seem to be able to view my calendar events is by making them private so I appreciate that tip. Anyone have any new info on this maddening problem?

 

[doogald]

Just one other note that if you follow my procedure from two posts above it may take your phone a few sync cycles to see that new calendar and realize that you have deleted all of the events off of your main calendar...

I'll also note that I do not see this problem in the Gingerbread ROMs that I try (I am rooted, if that was not already noted), but this will work with them just fine. The only think I do not know about is if you use something like Outlook sync. I have a Mac and iCal now (I was a long-time Windows user who hated Outlook with a passion and eventually switched to Google Calendar to get away from that thing as soon as I could with my old Windows Mobile phone), and it works elegantly with that if you want to sync calendars to iCal.

 

[KingoftheJust]

Then, when you are sure that you have the events in that calendar all set, there is a "delete" link next to your primary calendar - you can click that to mass-delete all of the now duplicated events in your calendar.

Hmm. This doesn't appear to be working for me. The calendar that was giving me problems will not go away. Now the calendar on my Eris is showing duplicate events. My frustration level with something that Google should do very well, but somehow managed to disable, is reaching a boiling point.

 

[doogald]

Hmm. This doesn't appear to be working for me. The calendar that was giving me problems will not go away. Now the calendar on my Eris is showing duplicate events. My frustration level with something that Google should do very well, but somehow managed to disable, is reaching a boiling point.

As I said, it may take a couple of sync events for your phone to see the changes. Also, you can go into settings->more->calendars and choose to turn off your old primary calendar.

I also now have a subscribed calendar with some duplicate events (it gets the weather forecast and updates daily for the next five days, so I am seeing two events for each day, some with the forecast the same, some with different forecasts. The Google Cals are all single.) But that's a minor thing right now. For me, I'd rather have duplicates like that than have stuff missing, as I had yesterday (including a non-reminded event - that's what clued me into the problem on my phone, and it definitely started yesterday.)

 

[scary alien]

doogald and co.:

I apparently can sticky threads, lol. So, at doogald's request, I have stickied this one.

doogald, if you want or need to start a different thread that you'd like sticked re. this or if this one is sufficient, let me know.

Thanks!

 

[alan_s]

Hey! Guess what? I've got my calendar back! I was doing one silly thing! I was clearing data from calendar not calendar storage. I never even saw the latter! Now I have cleared the correct one and forced a synch, everything seems to have returned! I am so pleased! Thanks for everybody's help!

 

[doogald]

Hey! Guess what? I've got my calendar back! I was doing one silly thing! I was clearing data from calendar not calendar storage. I never even saw the latter! Now I have cleared the correct one and forced a synch, everything seems to have returned! I am so pleased! Thanks for everybody's help!

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I changed my post #2 to make that a litle more clear.

 

[bberryhill0]

Hey! Guess what? I've got my calendar back! I was doing one silly thing! I was clearing data from calendar not calendar storage. I never even saw the latter! Now I have cleared the correct one and forced a synch, everything seems to have returned! I am so pleased! Thanks for everybody's help!

I was pretty sure I cleared the data for Calendar Storage but I went back and did it again and everything came back! I didn't have to do a manual sync, it just happened. Thanks to all here who help keep our amazing little machines running.

 

[(G)]

Well, the "clear Calendar storage" thing refused to work on my wife's Eris, so I used doogald's "make a new calendar/import the old one" technique outlined above. That worked.

I took it one step further, though, exported the new calendar again, deleted the old calendar, then imported the "new" calendar into the "old" gmail calendar (so the calendar name wouldn't get my wife all confused) and that worked fine..

 

[SporkLover]

I have an Evo and this is a re-occurring issue for me. Pops up every other month.

The fix for me has been to clear calendar storage.

 

[tnelson48]

Hello - please direct me to a different thread. My problem is the opposite: the calendar info are disappearing from the internet view and I have done all kinds of things to get the data back. I use an HTC Incredible with Verizon and NookColor, Windows 7 on the home computer.

 

[scary alien]

Hello - please direct me to a different thread. My problem is the opposite: the calendar info are disappearing from the internet view and I have done all kinds of things to get the data back. I use an HTC Incredible with Verizon and NookColor, Windows 7 on the home computer.

tnelson,

Welcome to AndroidForums. Sorry you are having calendar-related problems.

You might get some additional help from the folks over in the Incredible forum:

Incredible - Support and Troubleshooting - Android Forums

(unless the others above have any suggestions).

Good luck!

 

[doogald]

Hello - please direct me to a different thread. My problem is the opposite: the calendar info are disappearing from the internet view and I have done all kinds of things to get the data back. I use an HTC Incredible with Verizon and NookColor, Windows 7 on the home computer.

tnelson,

Welcome to AndroidForums. Sorry you are having calendar-related problems.

You might get some additional help from the folks over in the Incredible forum:

Incredible - Support and Troubleshooting - Android Forums

(unless the others above have any suggestions).

Good luck!

My questions would be: how are you syncing calendar data to your Windows 7 computer? Are you syncing using HTC sync from the Incredible? Are you syncing directly with Google Calendar? Are you using Outlook for your calendar on Windows 7? Or are you not storing calendar data in Windows at all?

 

[tnelson48]

My questions would be: how are you syncing calendar data to your Windows 7 computer? Are you syncing using HTC sync from the Incredible? Are you syncing directly with Google Calendar? Are you using Outlook for your calendar on Windows 7? Or are you not storing calendar data in Windows at all?

I'm sorry I was not more clear. I do not sync data to Windows -- I simply meant I am using Windows 7 on my computer. Yes, I'm using the HTC sync on the Incredible, auto sync is checked. I have tried unchecking it and syncing, resetting, etc. After copying everything from Outlook Calendar to Google and backing up using BackupGoo, my calendar info were gone from the internet version and from my phone this morning. Attempting to import from the backup file was not successful -- Google seems to think that data are already there.

I have begun using Outlook calendar, syncing with my university's exchange system, and it is showing up on my phone. But I started doing that AFTER my data disappeared.

Meanwhile, clearing data from my phone (one of the suggestions) seems a guaranteed way of deleting from the internet when I sync.

At the same time as this problem started occurring, I noticed that my calendar info were written in colors -- green if from Google and now red if from Outlook/Exchange (using Exchange Active Sync, which is automatic on the HTC). I cannot seem to change those to black text in settings -- they persist. Correlation?

If this gets fixed, is there a persistent way to backup internet data to a file on my hard drive that Google Calendar will actually recognize?

 

[tnelson48]

My questions would be: how are you syncing calendar data to your Windows 7 computer? Are you syncing using HTC sync from the Incredible? Are you syncing directly with Google Calendar? Are you using Outlook for your calendar on Windows 7? Or are you not storing calendar data in Windows at all?

One more question because you seem connected to Google. Does Google keep a backup somewhere of data? Is there a way to retrieve my data? Is this problem being worked on?

 

[doogald]

I'm sorry I was not more clear. I do not sync data to Windows -- I simply meant I am using Windows 7 on my computer. Yes, I'm using the HTC sync on the Incredible, auto sync is checked.

I do not use Windows - I am a Mac user - but what I know of HTC Sync is that you are, in fact, syncing from the phone to Windows if you have HTC Sync set up. It sounds like you have too many things syncing to each other. If you are syncing Windows to Google, then do not use HTC Sync to sync your calendar from your phone to Windows, too - the phone will sync with your Google account.

If there are Windows users out there who know more, perhaps they can add more here.

One more question because you seem connected to Google. Does Google keep a backup somewhere of data? Is there a way to retrieve my data? Is this problem being worked on?

I am not connected to Google.

No, Google does not backup calendars. You can export them to a zip file from calendar settings, but there is no automatic backup.

 

[chmodx]

None of the solutions offered here corrects this issue on my girlfriends phone

 

[172driver]

My solution has been to simply disable (uncheck the box) Calendar Sync under Settings --> Accounts & Sync --> Google.

Also, follow Doogald's steps for clearing data. I cleared both Calendar and Calendar Storage.

The downside of disabling Calendar Sync may be that instead of getting regular syncing throughout the day, my Eris only retrieves calendar data in the morning when I turn the phone on.

After a quick comparison of my Google Calendar online and what I see on my Eris calendar, it 'appears' that they're the same and all of my calendar events are showing up.

Until Google corrects the syncing problem, it cannot be trusted and will remain disabled on my Eris.

--FR

 

[(G)]

It frustrates me that Google is always so busy with "bells and whistles" things like Google Goggles, yet they couldn't get the calendar and contacts -- basic things -- right on their phones.

 

[BobW]

Thanks. This worked for me in correcting a missing weather calendar. The 3rd party calendar, PI, could not come up with a solution after several emails. This correction took less than 5 minutes to fix it!

 

[doogald]

Thanks. This worked for me in correcting a missing weather calendar. The 3rd party calendar, PI, could not come up with a solution after several emails. This correction took less than 5 minutes to fix it!

BobW, welcome to the forums. I always liked Pocket Informant back in my old Windows Mobile days. You may want to let them know what you did to solve your problem so they can help future customers.

 

[tnelson48]

No, Google does not backup calendars. You can export them to a zip file from calendar settings, but there is no automatic backup.

It's amazing to me that a company as large as google does not have backups of the data that go to its calendars.

 

[doogald]

It's amazing to me that a company as large as google does not have backups of the data that go to its calendars.

They do have backups - so, if their servers crash, they can restore them. What they will not do is provide this service to individual users for what is a free service. You are responsible for protecting your calendars from any loss by actions done by you, and that includes bad calendar syncs. If you have lost calendars because of a syncing error, that was not a problem caused by Google.

That said, there are third party services that will back up your calendar data. Backupify is one. I believe that Spanning Backup is another. And, of course, if you sync your calendars with a local app like Outlook, there are tools for your PC that can backup calendar data locally.