After playing with this more I’ve found a workaround but it still seems like a bug.
To reproduce:
1. add events for next month not the current month (eg. its october, add events for november)
2. use shortcode in template: <?php echo do_shortcode(‘[tribe_events view=”month”]’) ?>
3. load the page with the calendar, no events appear as expected (because its october)
4. click on next month from nav, events appear as expected
5. reload the page, the url should have /?tribe-bar-date=2017-11 at the end, notice that no events appear even though it should be loading a month with events
The workaround is to add a default date to the shortcode:
<?php echo do_shortcode(‘[tribe_events view=”month” date=”2017-11″]’) ?>
This shouldn’t be necessary.