iCal not saving appointments

Some iCal users have experienced a problems in which iCal does not save events. Users add events to the calendar and after a while, the events disappear. For most users, this happens either after a few hours or after a few days, but for some users it happens sooner.

Apple Discussions poster Auctoria writes:

"I can watch the events disappear! I create a new event, wait about 20 seconds, and poof--it vanishes right before my eyes. I cannot add any events at all. They simply disappear right after I enter them."

The fix for this problem may lie with the sync services database, and resetting it seems to have helped for some users. In addition, ensuring permissions are correct on the drive and resetting the iCal preferences file may also help. In addition to fixing the problem with disappearing events, resetting the sync services may also help other problematic calendar issues as well, such as the appearance of "Ghost calendars", where calendars that have been deleted reappear after iCal is quit and reopened.

Fixes

Reset the sync services database Open the iSync application in the Applications folder and go to the application preferences. In the preferences click the "Reset Sync History" button to reset the SyncServices folder. This can also be done by running a script in the command line. Open the Terminal and enter the following command (copy and paste is recommended):

• /System/Library/Frameworks/SyncServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/resetsync.pl full

Apple suggests users do NOT manually remove or delete components in the SyncServices folder that resides in the ~/Library/Application Support/ folder. However, if users are not concerned about losing any data then they can attempt removing this folder.

Remove the iCal preferences and run permissions fixes on the drive Locate the iCal preference file, called "com.apple.iCal.plist" and located in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder, and remove it. Then restart the iCal application and see if the problem is resolved. In addition, use Disk Utility to run a permissions fix on the main hard drive. This may also potentially help the situation.

Restore from Backup If this problem has just recently started, users may attempt to restore to a recent backup (Time Machine or otherwise) of the ~/Library/Calendars/ folder to hopefully resolve any problems. Ensure iCal is closed before restoring any of the contents of the Calendars folder.

Resources