Lots of trouble with Google iCal import – mostly recurring events

[Kate]

Hi, I installed 4.0 pro and 4.0 iCal importer for the first time yesterday. Using Divi 2.5 and latest WP.

I am trying to sync it with 6 google calendars, starting from August 1, 2015.

It’s hard to tell where to start. While many events are recurring, none of them show as recurring in the event admin column. (just a dash). the even larger issue, is that if they are recurring, they do not carry over the end date year, which makes them display very erratically.

For example, Christmas Break carried the start date of 12/22/15, but the end date of January 1,2016 is showing on the front end as 2014, so it is displaying as christmas break all year long. no events imported from dates previous to today display the year in admin column, and do not display correctly on the calendar. dates are correct on the event edit page

a separate but related issue, i have a recurring 3 day, all day event. on google it shows 3 days, Jan 19,20,21. it imports as 4 all day events – it may have something to do with the cutoff time. most recurring all-day events are extending a day after.

I have deleted all events, ran the db cleaner and reimported with the same results after making sure the google events were setup correctly. many of them are daily repeats, or repeat on weekdays until such and such a day. After the flush and reimport, I have avoided editing any of the events on WP so you can see the natural state of the import.

next step before submitting this, i deleted the events, the saved recurring imports and reflushed the DB again, and on the third import i got stranger results, with many more duplicate events.

final step before submitting – i switched to 2014 theme and deactivated all other plugins. imported a totally brand new calendar with 3 types of events:

one event that spans 3 days – imported correctly
one event that repeated daily and stopped after 3 occurrences, shows on google as 3 days, imported to 4 separate events
one event that repeated Weekly on weekdays, and stopped after 3 occurrences, shows on google as 3 days, imported to 4 separate events

I didn’t add all the calendars back to the recurring imports because it’s getting overwhelming. Just three calendars, one with 16 singles event (works great) and one with several recurring events (chaos). and the test.

screen shots are at the link in system info. when i search the ics link, the preview results all looked good, with the proper start/end dates and years, except it shows that it will import one extra day. the issue seems to be something in the conversion to the custom post.

When i subscribe to the calendar with my Mac calendar app, everything is the same as it is on google.

After HOURs of troubleshooting right off the bat, I have to say I am disappointed and i wish i could have seen these forums before purchasing. I hope you can find a solution quickly!

thanks,
kate

[Josh]

Hey Kate,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

I apologize for the inconvenience you’ve had with using our plugin. I can definitely understand the frustration however I do appreciate the steps that you’ve taken for debugging so far that are definitely helpful in determining what’s going on with these imports.

As a starting point, I would like to do some tests myself so I can see the feeds and the import firsthand to see if I can determine what’s happening. Could you provide me with the feeds or the ics files in a private reply?

Also, I do want to remind you that we do have a 30 day refund policy which allows you to get a refund for any reason. I would like to still look at the issue to help resolve the problem but still want to let you know that is an option that you do still have as well.

Thanks!

[Kate]

This reply is private.

[Josh]

Hey Kate,

I’m trying to do some test with these files. I was able to import the test file and didn’t notice any strange behavior with those test events. I’m getting a javascript error with the main LCS calendar but will test again shortly after making a couple of adjustments on my side to make sure I’m not running with a conflict there.

I did want to point out that there is a known bug with some events importing with an end date prior than the start date. There hasn’t been one noted as dramatic as you’ve noted here (almost a year behind) however the root issue could be the same with this one. We have that issue logged and should be releasing an update for that issue in the near future.

I’ll continue my tests with the links you’ve provided and will follow up.

Thanks!

[Kate]

Thanks Josh. I have deactivated it for now because the plugin is causing a separate issue. i will post different topic. I would really like to get this working, but will have to move on soon if we cant.

[Josh]

Hey Kate,

I’ve tried several different approaches, however I’ve still not been able to import any of the feeds other than the test feed. The LCS and Admission calendars are triggering errors and are unable to detect any events to import. Are those links still working for you?

Also, we released version 4.0.1 yesterday. Although this release did not yet include the fix for the end date importing before the start date, there were other fixes that sound like they may address some of the issues associated with the 3 days importing as 4.

Have you tried updating to version 4.0.1 and testing the import with the updated version?

Thanks!

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

Posts