iCalendar file not valid for Apple iCal 1.5

[quinn@…]

I have an installation of Trac 0.8.1 and have just attempted to import the iCalendar for the roadmap into iCal and received the following error:

"33 of the events in this calendar file were unreadable. Events that were readable have been added to your iCal calendar."

The only events that were imported were my milestones, but none of the todos.

Any ideas?

[quinn@…]

The roadmap iCalendar file that could not be read.

[Christopher Lenz]

My guess is that the error is due to empty DESCRIPTION fields in ICS file. Do you know how many events were successfully imported from that file? Five?

[Christopher Lenz]

Ah, re-reading the description I see that you say all the milestones were imported, of which there are five. None of the tickets have a description.

[quinn@…]

Nope, that's not it. I added text to tall the description fields of the roadmap.ics file and it returned the same error. Yes, you're right it's just the VTODOs that are a problem VEVENTs import fine.

For comparison, here is a problem VTODO from trac, and followed by one exported from iCal so you can see the formatting difference.

From trac…

BEGIN:VTODO
RELATED-TO:</projects/dcf/milestone/developer preview 0.5@www.strangecode.c
 om/projects/dcf>
DUE;VALUE=DATE:20050501
SUMMARY:Ticket #6: Datalog entries module
URL:http://www.strangecode.com/projects/dcf/ticket/6
DESCRIPTION:No description
PRIORITY:5
STATUS:NEEDS-ACTION
END:VTODO

From iCal…

BEGIN:VTODO
PRIORITY:5
DTSTAMP:20050126T220905Z
UID:F4F46702-B0BF-11D9-9BE3-000A95AB9460
SEQUENCE:9
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Athens:20040804T000000
SUMMARY:Strangecode Support System
DESCRIPTION:user login accounts\nticketing\nhelp/documentation/faq\nnews
DUE;VALUE=DATE:20050131
END:VTODO

I can't work it out. Anybody have any ideas?

[Christopher Lenz]

This works for me. I just subscribed to the ICS file you attached with iCal 2.0.1; all the tasks are showing up, and there's no error message. I've also yet to see an error message from any Trac install I use, being an iCal user myself.

[mathieu]

I reopen the bug. Doesn't work on iCal 1.5 (unless you tell me how to put iCal 2 on Panther).

[mathieu]

sorry if i did something wrong :( The problem for me is : tasks do not show up on ical1.5.5 . they appear in the ical file of course, but iCal does not show them. Tried with Sunbird, works ok. Perhaps something wrong in iCal interpretation of the format ? don't know…

[Emmanuel Blot]

I guess that the first step is to understand which syntax makes iCal 1.5x sick. You are probably on your own to find this kind of trouble, as many people are using iCal 2.x now.

[anonymous]

The iCal has problems with the "NEEDS-ACTION" value. Drop it and it will work. I just tracked a similiar problem down.

[Christopher Lenz]

So, I don't see how we can fix this without removing the NEEDS-ACTION value even for clients that understand it. As doing so would arguably reduce the value of the exported data, I don't think that's acceptable.