Duplicated Ical events

[venture cafe]

Please help! How do I delete them in bulk?

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PLEASE LEAVE FOR SUPPORT
Reporting the same issue as: https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/duplicated-ical-events/

[Cliff]

Hi, Kevin.

The issue here is that your iCal file does not adhere to the Unique Identifier (UID) property from the iCalendar specification.

Here are the logistics of the issue:

• Let’s say you have “Event A” in the .ics file that your iCal URL downloads.
• The first time I download the .ics file, “Event A” might have the UID of 54822a76.
• Then, if I immediately re-download the .ics file a second time, “Event A” no longer has that same 54822a76 UID. Instead, it has a completely different one.
• Because Event Aggregator stores each imported event’s UID (specifically for the purpose of detecting event updates and avoiding duplicate events), it does not (and cannot) know that the 2nd dowload of “Event A” is the same “Event A” from the 1st download of this iCal URL.

This issue isn’t common, but we do see it from time-to-time. It’s usually an issue with iCal feeds from custom software, but it’s not an issue with major calendar providers like Google Calendar.

Therefore, the only resolution for this would be to discuss the situation with the source/author of that iCal URL and ask them to follow the iCalendar spec, specifically for the UID property.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions on this topic.

[venture cafe]

Hi Cliff,

This is a iCal feed from Google we have been using for years.

(https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/c2forsq4stipos27pm5m09carc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics)
I am not sure what changed besides us updating the plugin.

Your help here would be great!

Thanks!
Andrew

[Cliff]

Are you experiencing issues with all events from the Google Calendar, only multi-day events (e.g. Aug 1 – Aug 3), or only recurring events?

[venture cafe]

Hi Cliff,

Thanks for the clarifying questions. It was all events.

I believe I found the issue. “The Events Calendar” was updating correctly but something was not letting “The Events Calendar PRO” plugin update. I deleted the “The Events Calendar PRO” plugin and reinstalled from scratch. Now it works fine.

Best,
Andrew

[venture cafe]

Hi Cliff,

A correction on the previous post. The issue is still happening and I was mistaken that it was fixed. The update of the plugin broke the Google Calendar iCal pull. I reset it and it was pulling in all future events each time the pull happened.

For example, we have 11 events this Thursday. After 3 hourly pulls, we ended up with 33 events listed with the triplicates. I used the bulk delete to pull down all the events and then reimported them all.

Is there a way to find out why this is happening between Google and the plugin?

Thanks!
Andrew

[Cliff]

We’ve heard of this happening with iCal feeds from Office 365. That fix should be released soon. I’d suggest we wait for that fix and if it doesn’t help, then we’ll address this from a fresh perspective.

I’ll mark this ticket as Pending Fix, which means this thread should receive a reply once the applicable fix has been released. I cannot guarantee when it will be fixed as it’s in the development team’s hands, but it’s already scheduled so it shouldn’t be long (maybe next week at the earliest).

I apologize for this issue and appreciate your understanding and patience.

[Victor]

Hello Kevin!

Just wanted to share with you that a new maintenance release (for the Week of 7 August 2017) is out, along with some Event Aggregator server improvements and fixes that solves this issue.

Find out more about this release → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-week-7-august-2017/

Please update the plugins and let us know if the fix works for your site.

Best,
Victor

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

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