iCal & .mac sync problem on Tiger!

[skp574]

I have upgraded to Tiger on both of my computers.

Originally I had 10.3.9 on my PowerBook which synced using .mac. When I bought a new iMac with Tiger preinstalled, iCal refused to sync with my .mac account (only iCal Events and ToDos).

I have now done an Erase and Install on my PB and I get the same problem. I get an error message saying:

*** -[NSNull timeZone]: selector not recognized [self = 0xa0727218]

and it refuses to get any data from .mac. So at the moment I can't see my calendars, so I don't know what state they are in.

I have searched Apple Support and there is nothing on the above error.

So at the moment I am without my diary. I have tried delete pref and calendars and resyncing but get the same message all the time.

Anyone else have this problem? If anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it, I am lost without it.

 

[jaw04005]

Your not the only one. Check out the .Mac Sync forum at the Apple Support Forums. I have a thread there that continues to evolve. Apparently, most of the errors generated when using .Mac Sync in Tiger are caused by Apple's .Mac servers.

As Apple investigates the numerous problems, below is their suggested troubleshooting ideas for right now.

Dear Joshua,

Thank you for your continued patience in resolving this matter.

We are currently investigating reports of .Mac members encountering various .Mac Sync issues in Mac OS X version 10.4 (v10.4), "Tiger".  Some of these issues include:
  - Failure to register your computers with .Mac Sync
  - Opening the .Mac System Preference pane produces ".Mac login failed" error message
  - Attempting to initiate a sync produces ".Mac is not available" error message
 
If you are experiencing these, or similar issues, please proceed with the following instructions.

First, please make sure your Mac OS X 10.4 operating system is update to the latest version, 10.4.1.  For more information about this update, please see the following article:

Mac OS X Update 10.4.1
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1041.html>

If you are still encountering the issues outlined above, follow the steps below:

1.  Turn off your computer.  If you have a home network with multiple computers using Mac OS X v10.4, turn off those computers as well.
2.  Wait 10 minutes.
3.  Turn on your computer.  If you have turned off multiple computers in step 1, please turn on only one computer.
4.  Try to sync your computer with .Mac syncing.
5.  If you are still unable to sync, turn off your computer again, and wait another 10 minutes.
6.  Turn on your computer and attempt to Sync your computer.

If you are able to sync from one computer, turn on the other computers and sync them one at a time.

If you are still unable to sync your computer, please reply to this message with the exact text of the error message you are receiving when trying to use .Mac Sync.

Sincerely,

Chris
.Mac Technical Support

 

[jaw04005]

Can you believe they suggested waiting 10 minutes to turn on my computer? That is the stupidest suggestion I've ever encountered by an Apple engineer.

The fact is that Apple is having major problems with their .Mac server along with errors generated by both the .Mac system preference and iSync. Until they release another point update and fix their server, us .Mac users are screwed.

 

[skp574]

Backups DO come in handy!

Thank God I did a backup of my PB this morning, just before putting Tiger on my laptop.

I have solved the problem! Phewh!

Here's what I did. I deleted all the calendars from iCal on the machines running Tiger, just leaving the Birthdays which is auto generated.

On one machine I manually imported all my .ics files from my backup. They are now converted into the new iCal 2.0 format I guess. All my appointments and todos are back!

Next, opened .mac preferences and went to the advanced tab; selected Reset Sync Data. Then I selected Calendars and replaced those on .mac. .mac now has my calendars in the new version 2 format?

I went to my other computer and did the same, but replace calendars with those from .mac. It worked.

I have now synced calendars again. I did a final test and created an event to see if it would sync on the other machine, and it did it.

I guess that the different iCal versions give .mac some trouble, i.e. syncing between Tiger and Panther. I am now running all Tiger machines so hopefully the problem has gone away.

But why did Apple get rid of the status option in the new version of iCal. I miss selecting Confirmed, Tentative, etc.

I hope this helps people if they still have a recent backup of their old .ics format calendars.

 

[BWhaler]

Yeah, this is a well documented set of bugs in both .mac and Tiger.

I love Apple and all, but they really need to get their act together. They are lucky the major press has not caught wind of the data corruption issues using .mac & tiger syncing...

 

[jaw04005]

Yeah, this is a well documented set of bugs in both .mac and Tiger.

I love Apple and all, but they really need to get their act together. They are lucky the major press has not caught wind of the data corruption issues using .mac & tiger syncing...

Well, even Rush Limbaugh (of all people) complained on his website about the .Mac sync problems. Hehe. Steve must not use .Mac sync, otherwise I think it would have been fixed by now. I think all .Mac subscribers deserve an extension on our accounts from the time Tiger was released until the time Apple finally fixes the sync problem.

 

[skp574]

Well, I've managed to go 24 hours without a problem. Now that all my machines are running Tiger.

My girlfriend's PB is still running 10.3.9 and had my .mac account registered on it. I think I'm going to disable it for the meantime.

It seems that if all your machines are running Tiger then it's ok. But if you have a mixture of OS versions then things start going pear shaped. I may be wrong of course but at least it's working now for me.

You don't realise how important .mac syncing is until you lose it.

Now I just need to sort out Mail 2.0 which is a bitch with IMAP accounts.