Mac OS X 10.5.2 Special Report: iCal calendars disappearing

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 2:24 a.m. PT

3 min read

Some users are reporting that iCal calendars are missing from view under Mac OS X 10.5.2. MacFixIt reader Alan writes:

"I have just updated to 10.5.2 ( the Leopard Graphics package) and see that I have lost access to my various iCal calendars. iCal (v. 3.0.2) opens but has nothing in the calendar list box. I have a backups (thanks to Time Machine) but no idea where these calendars are or how best to restore them."

The symptoms for this issue are usually as follows:

When iCal is launched the calendar is blank -- no calendars on the left and no meetings on the day/week/month views
Clicking on one of the views all of my meetings show up but the calendars on the left are still gone
The user is able to type in an event and select a calendar, but when the event is saved it becomes invisible.
Clicking in the blank space where the calendars are supposed to be has no effect.

One potential workaround for this issue is as follows: Quit iCal, then delete the contents of the folder:

~/Library/Application Support/iCal/Sources/ (~ refers to the current user directory)

After deleting the files from this folder, lock the "Sources" folder. Do this by navigating up one level then selecting the "Sources" folder. Perform a "Get Info" (either through the "File" menu or by pressing Command-I with the "Sources" folder selected) then click the lock icon.

Also, try deleting this file:

~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache

In other cases, dragging the following files to the trash (while iCal is closed) then re-launching the program and restoring calendar data from a backup file or another synchronization source will temporarily resolve the issue:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.AlarmScheduler.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.helper.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist

One reader was able to get iCal's calendars back by simply adding a calendar and then deleting the new calendar.

Another reader, Alessandro Giolitti, writes: "To get your calendars back you just need to double click one of the corestorage.ics files in one of the ~/Library/Application Support/iCal/Sources/xxxx.calendar folders. I did it with iCal open: no idea how it works with the application closed. Maybe it just finds its way home."

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