264280 - Compatibility with Apple iCal application

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 259956

(Calendar :: General, defect)

Description

[Aaron Wells]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/125.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9
Build Identifier: 

A Sunbird calendar on a remote server that has last been touched by the Mac version of Sunbird will 
open fine in iCal, but if it has last been touched by the Windows version of Sunbird, it will open but 
show no events in iCal. The remote location is a WebDAV directory on a Mac OS X Server machine.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a new calendar in either the Apple or Windows version if iCal. Save it to your local hard drive.
2. Do "Publish Entire Calendar" for the calendar, and save it to the WebDAV directory.
3. Delete the original calendar record.
4. Create a new calendar. Specify the remote file as its location. Check the box to publish changes 
automatically.
5. Repeat step 4 for both Windows and Mac.
6. Edit the calendar using the Mac version of Sunbird.
7. Subscribe to the calendar using Apple's iCal. The events should show up.
8. Edit the calendar using the Windows version of Sunbird.
9. Do "Refresh all" in iCal. Notice that the events in the calendar disappear.
10. Edit the calendar once again using the Mac version of Sunbird.
11. "Refresh all" in iCal again. The events in the calendar reappear.
Actual Results:  
The version of the calendar last touched by Windows and the version last touched by Mac look identical 
in a text editor (except for the "last edited" date, and any changes made). The Windows version is 
always slightly larger (around 100 bytes larger for a calendar with half a dozen entries).

When the calendar had last been edited by Windows Sunbird, iCal could not read it. When it had last 
been edited by Mac Sunbird, iCal could read it. Both the Mac and Windows versions of Sunbird could 
always read the calendar regardless of which version had last edited it.

Expected Results:  
Since Sunbird saves to the ICS format, iCal should have been able to read the files saved by the 
Windows version of Sunbird.

As mentioned above, the calendar is being saved to a WebDAV directory on a machine running Mac OS 
X Server. The line breaks on the calendar file seem to be DOS-style whether it was last edited by the 
Mac or Windows version of Sunbird.

Comment 1

[gekacheka]

1. What version(s) of Sunbird (and iCal) are you using?

For sunbird, use Help | About Sunbird, look for something like

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20041001 Mozilla
Sunbird/0.2a

2. Please attach two files file produced by Mac and windows Sunbird that exhibit
the difference, and explain how they were created (new calendar or publish
calendar or export or ...?).

The .ics files should have CRLF (\r\n) line endings, as specified by RFC2445 sec
4.1.

Comment 2

[shgaki]

I had the same experience.  I created a calendar with Sunbird and put it on a
WebDAV server.  I subscribed it with iCal, but no event were shown.  I attached
the ics files.

The version of Sunbird running on Windows is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT
5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20040907 Mozilla Sunbird/0.2a, that running on Mac
OS X is Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8a4)
Gecko/20040907 Firefox/0.9.1+ (although this is not the calendar extention of
firefax but a standalone sunbird application).  The version of iCal is 1.5.2
(v637).  Sunbird is running on Windows 2000 and iCal on Mac OS X 10.3.5.  The
WebDAV server I used was http://www.sharemation.com/.

Comment 3

[shgaki]

Attachment: ics file created by win sunbird

Comment 4

[shgaki]

Attachment: ics file created by mac sunbird

Comment 5

[shgaki]

> 2. Please attach two files file produced by Mac and windows Sunbird that exhibit
> the difference, and explain how they were created (new calendar or publish
> calendar or export or ...?).

I published the calendars onto the WebDAV server and retrieved them by mounting
the WebDAV directory on Mac OS X's Finder.

> The .ics files should have CRLF (\r\n) line endings, as specified by RFC2445 sec
> 4.1.

We can see double CR and LF (\r\r\n) at the end of each line in the ics file
created by Win version of Sunbird.

Comment 6

[Aaron Wells]

Attachment: ICS file last edited by Windows Sunbird

Comment 7

[Aaron Wells]

(In reply to comment #1)
Sorry about the slow response. I guess I missed the e-mail when this comment was originally made.

I just noticed I made a major typo in my bug description. In step 1, it should say "Create a new calendar 
in either the Apple or Windows version of Sunbird", not iCal. Obviously, there is no Windows version of 
iCal.

> 1. What version(s) of Sunbird (and iCal) are you using?

The version string for the Windows version of Sunbird I was using is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows 
NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20040907 Mozilla Sunbird/0.2a

The version string for the Mac version of Sunbird is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; 
en-US; rv:1.8a4) Gecko/20040907 Firefox/0.9.1+

(It's the Sunbird standalone app, even though it says "Firefox" in the version string.)

The version of iCal is: 1.5.2 (v637)

> 2. Please attach two files file produced by Mac and windows Sunbird that exhibit
> the difference, and explain how they were created (new calendar or publish
> calendar or export or ...?).

I created the files by doing "New calendar" in Sunbird, and creating a local calendar file. Then I did 
"Publish Entire Calendar" in Sunbird to copy the calendar to the WebDAV server. Then I deleted the 
original calendar record in Sunbird using "Delete Calendar", in order to disconnect the remote version 
from any local files. When the "Delete Calendar" pop-up came up, I clicked "Delete Calendar" rather 
than "Delete Calendar and File".

Finally, in both the Windows and Mac version of Sunbird, I did "New calendar" in Sunbird again, and 
typed in the location of the remote file in the lower Location box (under the line "The following fields 
are optional, and are used for publishing the calendar to a remote location."). Then I checked the 
"Publish changes automatically?" checkbox, and hit OK.

After these steps, I had a calendar on the remote server, which could be viewed and updated by the 
copy of Sunbird on Windows and the copy on the Mac. When I subscribed iCal to the calendar, it would 
show the calendar as blank if the Windows copy of Sunbird had been the last to update it. It would show 
all the events in the calendar if the Mac copy of Sunbird had been the last to update it.

I'll attach the two calendar files, as requested.

Comment 8

[Aaron Wells]

Attachment: ICS file last edited by Mac Sunbird

Comment 9

[gekacheka]

Thanks for your reports.

This sounds like Bug 259956, particularly the \r\r\n problem.  A fix was checked
in for that bug on sept 17, after the 20040907 version.

(If you're cautious, there's a newer 20041001 test nightly which you can try to
see if this problem is fixed, but be warned that the 20041001 version seems to
crash the machine when reading old profiles.  It may be possible to try it by
first moving/renaming the old 'profile' directory, so a new profile must be
created when sunbird starts.)

Comment 10

[Aaron Wells]

I just tried out the 20041001 build. It now works fine with iCal and with the
Mac version of Sunbird. Thanks!

Comment 11

[gekacheka]

Resolving as duplicate of bug 259956

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 259956 ***

Comment 12

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

The bugspam monkeys have been set free and are feeding on Calendar :: General. Be afraid for your sanity!