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iCal restore from Time Machine

T

tobytoby

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2007
42
0
North-east UK
Dear All,

I've had a little bit of an accident; when trying to correct a problem with syncing with my BlackBerry via Missing Sync I reset sync services per a support article.

This managed to blank my iCal calendar.

No problem thinks I, as I backed up iCal beforehand with "Back up iCal". Problem is that when I restore it's still blank apart from all-day appointments.

No problem thinks I, I have Time Machine! So, after a bit of searching on MacRumors I find that a restore of Library/Calendars should do the trick. Trouble is that it's still blank in iCal. When I open ical I get an "Upgrading iCal calendar" message. Weird.

Again, no problem thinks I, I primarily use Entourage and sync this to iCal. So, I decide to restore Entourage data. This doesn't work and calendar is again blank. To boot, it gives me a 16008 error message whatever that is.

No problem thinks I, the MacRumors folk with all their knowledge will have a suggestion. So I start to write a post here. As I was writing the above I think I'll try Entourage one more time. I open Entourage and it all seems to be back to normal!

Now, I really don't understand all of this, particularly why the iCal restore from a backup file didn't work. I was fretting I would have to ask IT to restore my mailbox from a tape backup (my calendar is on Exchange server at the office). I think before I turn on iCal-Entourage syncing again I'll take a backup from Outlook in the office.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Argh! Just switched to inbox and back to calendar in Entourage and it's all blank again! The (now) blank Exchange cal must be overwriting it... So, any ideas how to successfully restore iCal from Time Machine?

More info: It seems events before today are back in iCal (and all-day events after today are there)... I don't understand :(
 
Same here

In a somewhat similar situation I, like a fool, deleted a calendar in ical only to find out that a program I use to track my billable time on (TimeLog) is somehow linked to ical. I have found the ical files in time machine but I tried to restore them in the same way library -> calendars but all the data is still missing from ical.

I can restore individual events to other calendars but there is a lot of billable time and it would take too long to import each charge individually.

Anyone?
 
Another reason to do back ups. One is, if you have a .mac or .me account, you can export iCal and other setting to it for safe keeping. And, consider either flash drive or CD for a archive copy as well.
 
Re: iCal restore from Time Machine

I just restored iCal via Time Machine this weekend. I just copied the missing *.ics files from /Volumes/TIMEMACHINE/...../<backup>/Users/<me>/Library/Calendar/<long hex string>. There was a "CachedCalendar" file that I had to remove too, before iCal noticed that its *.ics files had changed. Try copying the *.ics files you require (one for each event, it would appear) and then removing the cache file and re-starting iCal. Worked for me.

But yes, it would be nice if iCal had a proper Time Machine interface like Finder/Address Book does.
 
Easy success

Hi again,

I was able to easily restore even more mistakes I made. This does not solve my initial problem but I was trying to sync all my computers and it erased my entire set of calendars in ical.

in time machiene

Macintosh HD -> users -> <your name> -> library -> calendars

hover over the calendars section and hit restore. Restart ical and it worked.
 
"hover over"

On February 5, 2009 gsleitheier gave instructions for restoring iCal from a backup volume.

I think I followed his instructions up to the point where he said to "hover over the calendars sesion and hit restore".

When I moved my mouse over the Calendars directory icon and held it still and nothing happened. Tried right and left clicking on the icon but nothing happened. Tried all the other action items in the top bar of the window without success.

I'm running Snow Leopard.

Some time between yesterday and today, all my events were removed from my calendar for some unknown reason. I do need to get my calendar back in a hurry and would appreciate any and all help.

Thank you for any help you're willing to provide.

Dick
 
Just did get all my iCals back after fresh Snow Leopard install. Here's the list of things you have to restore (I'm assuming you have an up-to-date Time Machine backup available or at least a complete disk image) :

1. <you_user_dir>/Library/Calendars (folder) (do overwrite the folder that is installed by default) ;

2. <your_user_dir>/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.helper.plist and com.apple.iCal.plist ;

3. <your_user_dir>/Application Support/iCal (folder).

ta-daam here you go.
Cheers...
 
Thanks - that worked

Same problem as others - lots of events suddenly disappeared. Seemed to happen when DST kicked in, but not sure. I restored the first two items on guzabi's list, but could not find #3 (application support/iCal folder).

But - it is working now. note to self - use time machine more often and create iCal archives once in a while. Did not lose too much.

Thanks!
 
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