iCalendar Import Won’t Stop

[Ken Partain]

I just purchased The Events Calendar Pro, Community Events and Event Aggregator yesterday, installed them on our site and I’m having an issue with the import using Event Aggregator. I am trying to get all of the events out of our existing calendar, which is Timely All-in-One Event Calendar.

The aggregator seemed to be the best option but when I add the link to import events it just keeps running and importing the same events over and over. It’s been running for about 18 hours now.

We had several recurring events in the old calendar but the import is creating hundreds of duplicates that were definitely not there.

How can I stop the import? I’ve deactivated all of the Event Calendar plugins and re-activated them. It appears that the import started over and imported a few events and is now creating duplicates of a few of the events again.

I’ve deactivated all of the Timely plugins so there’s no conflict there. I also went through the process of testing for conflicts by deactivating all other plugins and reverting to the Twenty Sixteen theme.

I just need the import to stop. I’d rather manually enter the events than continue to deal with this. There needs to be some sort of button to click to stop the import.

Please advise.

[Hunter]

Hello,

Thank you for your purchase and I’m sorry to hear things are going as planned. Can you try removing your Events Aggregator license from Events > Settings > Licenses? Doing so should stop the import.

Let me know if that does the trick and we’ll continue investigating. Again, I apologize the transfer is giving you a headache and rest assured I’ll do everything possible to help get you transitioned over to our plugins. Thanks again and have a great evening. Cheers!

[Ken Partain]

Hi Hunter – thanks for your response. I actually thought of that and tested it. I removed the license key, saved the page and then went to the Imports page to see if I still had access to the additional import methods but I was shown only the default option and the large ad asking me to purchase the plugin.

I went back in and replaced the license key, saved the page and then went back to the Imports page. The import is still running and it’s making hundreds of duplicates of just two events. So, it appears that it’s stuck in some kind of loop.

Is this a cron job and is it something that I could request our host to stop in some way?

[Hunter]

Ken,

Welcome back. If you install and activate WP Crontrol, you should be able to delete the cron that is creating the events. Give it a shot and let me know how things work out. We are currently working on an easier way to avoid these issues in the future. I imagine you’ve already tried deleting the schedule import under Events > Import > Scheduled Imports, but if not, be sure to try that out.

Thanks for your patience and please keep me updated on the status of your issue. Cheers!

[Ken Partain]

I did as you suggested and installed the WP Crontrol plugin. Once activated I can see about 4 jobs that are related to tribe events. However, when I click the delete button for the aggregator jobs nothing happens. The jobs move to the top of the list but the install is still running and we now have almost 1,700 duplicates of just two events.

Ken

[Ken Partain]

One more thing…I don’t see the Scheduled Imports you refer to. When I go to Events > Imports I only see two tabs, one for New Import and one for History. See attached screenshot. The iCalendar import was not scheduled, it was just a one-time import.

[Hunter]

Ken,

Thank you for the updates, they were actually very helpful. Can you review the following screencast to see if you experience the same behavior?

http://screencast.com/t/x1qJlJaT

Let me know and we’ll go from there. I’m determined to figure out exactly what is going on as soon as possible so you can move past this issue and get to importing and managing your events!

Thank you so much for your patience on all this and please keep me updated. Cheers!

[Ken Partain]

I watched the screencast but I am not experiencing the same thing. I can click back and forth between the New Import and History tabs but I don’t ever see a Scheduled Import tab.

[Hunter]

Ken,

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response; your thread somehow got mixed up in the incorrect queue, so I was unaware you had replied.

Can you try creating a new Scheduled Import to see if the ‘Scheduled Imports’ tab will appear? I’ve also attached a plugin you can temporarily install which will appear under your WordPress Admin > Tools section to help clean up the duplicate events. Follow the link below to download the plugin.

tribe-extension-recurring-cleanup

Sorry again about the mishap and let me know how things work out. Cheers!

[Ken Partain]

I set up a schedule import as you suggested and I do see the Schedule Import tab. However, the iCalendar import is not showing on that tab so there’s no way to stop it.

I’m attaching two screenshots. One is the History Tab and the other is the Schedule Imports tab.

I installed the plugin you suggested to clean up the recurring events but it looks like its only for recurrences that are published. All of the imported events from the original iCalendar import are pending so they don’t show as options to delete in bulk.

And the import is still running, which was the original issue. There are now over 3,800 instances of just two events that are pending. See third screenshot. Do you have any other suggestions for stopping the ongoing imports?

By the way, if it is pertinent, I have already updated The Events Calendar and The Events Calendar PRO to 4.3.2.

[Ken Partain]

Just wanted to let you know that I have resolved this issue. If there are others with this issue here are the steps I took.

1. Backup site and database
2. Deactivate all Tribe plugins
3. Delete all Tribe plugins
4. Reinstall The Events Calendar plugin

Once I did this it was apparent that all of the event data was still in the database because all published events are showing up on the calendar.

Also at this point I went into the Import screen and the iCalendar import started running again and successfully imported 841 events, which is the exact number that were in the old calendar. No more duplicates!

There are still over 3900 pending events from the initial import but I can work to clean those up over time.

5. Reinstall The Events Calendar PRO plugin
6. Reinstall The Community Events plugin

Thanks for your assistance with this.

[Hunter]

Ken,

Thank you so much for sending over the instructions to stop the import! We truly apologize it was such a tedious process and I’ve updated the logged bug report so my fellow support team members can share it with other users experiencing the same behaviors. As mentioned, please keep an eye on your WordPress dashboard and our Release Notes for maintenance release info.

If it gets to the point where you need help deleting the duplicate events, feel free to open a new thread and we’d be happy to help. Thanks again for your patience and professionalism while investigating the issue and have a great rest of your week 🙂

[Nico]

Hi there!

Just wanted to share with you that maintenance release 4.4.5 of our plugins is out, which includes a fix for this issue 🙂

If you remove the license for Events Aggregator the imports should stop running. And there’s also an option to do so in ‘Events > Settings > Imports > Event Aggregator Control’.

Find out more about the release → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-events-calendar-4-4-5-event-tickets-4-4-5-premium-add-ons/

Best,
Nico

[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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