Merge two iCal databases?

[alangore]

I have two MacBook Pros, running 10.5 and 10.8 . The new one running 10.8 contains an iCal that, after having been started off fresh, now contains several months of calendar items. Now I need to merge in the iCal database exported from my old 10.5 machine.

I have backed up iCal on both machines, producing an .icbu database export file for each, plus .ics files for each individual calendar in both databases. If I import the old .icbu file into the new machine, it replaces all of my calendars and history with the old. Now if I try to import any of the .ics files I just exported from the new database, I get "Calendar can't read this calendar" from the same installation of iCal that just produced them! Apparently I'm stuck with either the old database or the new database, with no ability to combine the two.

I can't believe that Apple left out such a critical capability - what am I doing wrong?

[Weaselboy]

As you discovered the icbu won't work, but I have done it with the ics files and it works. When you go to the Calendar File/Import menu and select the ics file you want you should get a popup asking what calendar you want to import it to. Are you not seeing that at all?

Make sure the file you are importing is not the same name as the calendar you are importing to.

[alangore]

[QUOTE=Weaselboy;16857442]When you go to the Calendar File/Import menu and select the ics file you want you should get a popup asking what calendar you want to import it to. Are you not seeing that at all?

In my new machine,I started out by exporting the calendars I wanted to merge with the old data, as a set of separate .ics files. I then loaded the .icbu from my old machine. When I tried re-importing the saved new calendars, it errored out out with "Calendar can't read this calendar. No events were imported." on every single one. And yes, I made sure that the imported calendars all had names that were not present on the old database.

In particular, I wanted to merge the Home and Work calendars with the old data, so before exporting them I renamed them Home New and Work New so there would be no conflict.

[Weaselboy]

[QUOTE=alangore;16858071]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

When you go to the Calendar File/Import menu and select the ics file you want you should get a popup asking what calendar you want to import it to. Are you not seeing that at all?

In my new machine,I started out by exporting the calendars I wanted to merge with the old data, as a set of separate .ics files. I then loaded the .icbu from my old machine. When I tried re-importing the saved new calendars, it errored out out with "Calendar can't read this calendar. No events were imported." on every single one. And yes, I made sure that the imported calendars all had names that were not present on the old database.

In particular, I wanted to merge the Home and Work calendars with the old data, so before exporting them I renamed them Home New and Work New so there would be no conflict.

I am at a loss.

It sounds like you are doing exactly what I did when I went through this.

[alangore]

So it should work the way I did it, then? Export a database from the old iCal 3 and save calendars from my new iCal 6 as .ics files, and then be able to restore the iCal 3 database into the new iCal , followed by re-importing the exported .ics files?

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by alangore

So it should work the way I did it, then? Export a database from the old iCal 3 and save calendars from my new iCal 6 as .ics files, and then be able to restore the iCal 3 database into the new iCal , followed by re-importing the exported .ics files?

From your description is sounds like you are having trouble importing an iCal 3 ICBU into Calendar 6? Maybe ICBU is not compatible across those versions?

I would try to get everything from both calendars into ICS format then only work with those. You still have the 10.5 machine? Can you go to that machine and export each calendar from there to ICS, then work with importing merging those files on the new machine.

[alangore]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

From your description is sounds like you are having trouble importing an iCal 3 ICBU into Calendar 6?

No, this is what I did:

1. In iCal 6, I renamed the Work and Home calendars as Work New and Home New, and exported them in .ics form. On the machine running iCal 3, I exported the whole database as an .icbu .

2. I imported the iCal 3 .icbu into iCal 6. This worked, replacing the entire set of calendars and events with the content from the iCal 3 database.

3. I then tried to re-import the two exported .ics files into iCal 6. This is where my failure occurred, even though iCal 6 had just exported them before replacement of the database.

I have also just tried using TextEdit to remove extra carriage returns from the .ics files, following some online commentary I have found about this being the problem. That did not work, and I also found that my two exports produced .ics files that had no events, just an entry identifying the calendar itself:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:PUBLISH
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:WorkNew
PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//Mac OS X 10.8.2//EN
X-APPLE-CALENDAR-COLOR:#44A703
X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Phoenix
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
END:VCALENDAR

This is my Work New.ics in its entirety, which I changed to WorkNew.ics in response to some other commentary. When I export a calendar, how do I get all the events on that calendar to be exported with it?

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by alangore

I have also just tried using TextEdit to remove extra carriage returns from the .ics files, following some online commentary I have found about this being the problem. That did not work, and I also found that my two exports produced .ics files that had no events, just an entry identifying the calendar itself:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
METHOD:PUBLISH
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:WorkNew
PRODID:-//Apple Inc.//Mac OS X 10.8.2//EN
X-APPLE-CALENDAR-COLOR:#44A703
X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Phoenix
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
END:VCALENDAR

This is my Work New.ics in its entirety, which I changed to WorkNew.ics in response to some other commentary. When I export a calendar, how do I get all the events on that calendar to be exported with it?

Okay.... sounds like the problem is your exported ICS files are empty for some reason.

Let's do a test. I just made a new calendar called "test" and made one appointment today called "Mac rumors test".... I exported the calendar as an ICS file and if I look in Text Edit I can see the test appointment. I can also import the test.ics into my main calendar and the test appointment gets imported.

I just PM'd you a link to download my test ICS file. Save my test.ics to your desktop. Then select your main calendar in Calendar and go to File menu/Import/Import... and click that. Now select test.ics from the desktop and select your main calendar at the target. That should give you a new "Mac rumors test" appointment on the calendar for today. Does that work??

==

Just to confirm when you are exporting these ICS files, you are selecting the calendar you want to export then going to File menu/Export/Export... ?? That should bring up a window with the calendar name (file name) already populated. Just click save to save that ICS to the desktop.

[alangore]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

Okay.... sounds like the problem is your exported ICS files are empty for some reason.

Let's do a test. I just made a new calendar...

Could you resend the PM? This is the first time I have received one of these, and I seem to have accidentally skipped over it the first time, with no way to get back to it.

Yes, it does appear that my problem may be on export, getting empty calendars.

Thanks!

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by alangore

Could you resend the PM? This is the first time I have received one of these, and I seem to have accidentally skipped over it the first time, with no way to get back to it.

Yes, it does appear that my problem may be on export, getting empty calendars.

Thanks!

No problem... just resent.

[alangore]

Thanks for the test and - confirmed! My problem is getting empty calendars on export, not with the import.

[Weaselboy]

Originally Posted by alangore

Thanks for the test and - confirmed! My problem is getting empty calendars on export, not with the import.

Hmm... okay then. So just to confirm you have a working and populated calendar and to export you are selecting that in the left column, then going to File menu/Export/Export... ? Does that bring up the save as box with the calendar name already filled in that box?

If you are doing that, I don't understand what is going wrong.