Google Calendar sync stops from time to time

[NME42]

Hi,

I am using Google Calendar as a sync source for my various devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac) since years.

Since about iOS 13 (not sure), my sync stops from time to time. Sometimes it happens after a few days, sometimes after weeks.
Searched the internet and found no other solution than to remove the Google Account and put it back in, select my calendars, etc. and then wait for about 30 mins until all calendar entries are back on my mobile devices.

When it happens, it happens both on iPhone and iPad. MacOS is not affected, new or modified calendar events reliably sync there. But nothing happens on iPhone/iPad. Strangely, when I add new events on iPhone/iPad they do sync to Google Calendar, just the other way is halted.

This is very annoying, as I sometime only notice late, that the sync process is halted and do miss modified/new events.

Does anyone else experience this strange behavior also? No idea if the problem is at Google or Apple, suspect the latter.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I use Google calendars with the iOS Calendar app and have not noticed any events missing from my iPhone. Syncing is sometimes delayed…and I can't say I know the longest delay…but it doesn't "stop" syncing.

What is the longest amount of time you have waited for the syncing to re-occur?

As a test, have you tried the Google Calendar app, or any other calendar app that can sync to Google, to see if it is having the same issue?

 

[NME42]

Thanks for your reply. Hard to say what was the longest time I have waited since the stop began. Simply, because I do not know, what causes the stop and when it happened. I just notice it, when I see discrepancies between my work calendar and my iPhone calendar.
The longest period I waited between noticing that something is wrong/missing and a remove/re-add of my Google account was one night. Nothing happened in between.

Yes, I tried Google Calendar app and also always have a look into my Google Calendar via web interface to be sure that syncing of my work calendar -> Google did not fail. Events are always there in native Google Calendar.

 

[BrianBaughn]

You are saying that you can't remember when you added the events that are missing on the iPhone?

 

[NME42]

Yes, simple case. Say I get an invite in my work calendar (Lotus Notes) for next week. I accept that and it gets synced to my Google Calendar. This happened yesterday. Today I get a reschedule in my work calendar moving an event from 2pm to 3pm. Work calendar is synced again to Google calendar.

What does my iPhone calendar show? No event next week and my event today is still at 2pm. Luckily, I get an alarm at 2pm from my iPhone, I then typically open my work calendar to get the address of the meeting and see, "huh? it is at 3pm". This is when I notice the discrepancy. So it is really hard to tell if my iPhone calendar is up-to-date or not.

(A little bit a constructed case as I have a look at my work calendar in the mornings to see my schedule, but hope this points out the issue a little bit clearer). Would love to have an option to force a sync without removing/re-adding my Google account to be 100% sure everything is there.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'm unfamiliar with Lotus Notes in conjunction with Google Calendar. Are you saying that there's a separate calendar in your Google account that is a subscription to a calendar that's in Lotus Notes?

 

[NME42]

No subscription. I have a simple replication program running that copies all events from Lotus Notes to Google Calendar (one way sync). This is working reliably and whenever the sync between Google Calendar and iPhone stops, I check the Google Calendar if the event is there. So Lotus Notes->Google never was an issue, it seems to be a problem of iOS/iPadOS as all the events are there on my Mac.

 

[BrianBaughn]

OK. I asked that because at Google you can subscribe to other calendars and those are notoriously slow to refresh…but in that case I guess you wouldn't see the events anywhere.

Years ago I saw syncing issues with particular Google accounts that didn't occur on the same machine with a different Google account. You could set up a test account to see if it works better than your current one.

I suppose DNS is a possible culprit. Seems like I've heard of various issues with some carriers' DNS. For your WiFi connection you can set custom DNS servers to see if that has any effect.