644511 - DTSTART line missing in ICS files written by Sunbird

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Calendar :: General, defect)

Description

[Stefan Hinz]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; de; rv:1.9.2.15) Gecko/20110303 SUSE/3.6.15-1.1 Firefox/3.6.15
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20100111 Sunbird/1.0b1

This bug surfaced when connecting with KOrganizer to remote calendars previously managed by Sunbird, so it was filed as KDE bug: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=244582 ... But it's not, because the problem is caused by Sunbird failing to write out the DTSTART line for recurrent events.

Here are recurrent items from two different calendars that don't display in KOrganizer because the DTSTART line is missing:

25-BEGIN:VEVENT
26-CREATED:20110105T185213Z
27-LAST-MODIFIED:20110315T091135Z
28-DTSTAMP:20110315T091135Z
29-UID:6f147c1a-2097-4a2d-95b3-27160a599331
30-SUMMARY:Russisch lernen (Русский язык)
31-RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY
32:EXDATE:20111228T191500Z
33:EXDATE:20110420T181500Z
34:EXDATE:20110223T191500Z
35:EXDATE:20110209T191500Z
36:EXDATE:20110302T191500Z
37---
38-TRANSP:OPAQUE
39-X-MOZ-GENERATION:20
40-SEQUENCE:5
41-BEGIN:VALARM
42-ACTION:DISPLAY
43-TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-PT1H
44-DESCRIPTION:Mozilla Alarm: Russisch lernen (Русский язык)
45-END:VALARM
46-END:VEVENT

120-BEGIN:VEVENT
121-CREATED:20090227T111942Z
122-LAST-MODIFIED:20110317T180005Z
123-DTSTAMP:20110317T180005Z
124-UID:9642638c-2bdf-4d0f-89ea-a8c9ac52687b
125-SUMMARY:Pilates
126-RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY
127:EXDATE:20090319T183000Z
128:EXDATE:20090521T173000Z
129:EXDATE:20090702T173000Z
130:EXDATE:20091008T173000Z
131:EXDATE:20091029T183000Z
132---
133-DTEND;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20090305T213000
134-X-MOZ-GENERATION:189
135-SEQUENCE:3
136-BEGIN:VALARM
137-ACTION:DISPLAY
138-TRIGGER;VALUE=DURATION:-PT30M
139-DESCRIPTION:Mozilla Alarm: Pilates
140-END:VALARM
141-END:VEVENT

To make debugging more complicated, this doesn't happen for all recurrent events created by Sunbird, but rather only for a subset. I can only guess about that subject at this point: It looks like the DSTART line is inadvertently removed for recurrent events where "some" individual events have been deleted or moved out,

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. In Sunbird, create a recurrent event.
2. Remove a couple of individual dates from that event.
3. Look at ICS file and see if the DTSTART line is missing.
Actual Results:  
DTSTART line missing.

Expected Results:  
The DTSTART line should be present in every calendar event, something like this:

2194:DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Berlin:20110407T163000

Comment 1

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

Could you retest this with Lightning 1.0b2 or preferably Lightning 1.0b4pre with Thunderbird 3.3a* ? Sunbird is unfortunately no longer under active development.

Can you isolate this to a certain type of recurring event (i.e daily vs weekly) ?

Comment 2

[Stefan Hinz]

I wish I could, but Lightning isn't available for 64-bit computers, and the 32-bit version won't install here. (I've actually filed a bug about this ages ago, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=455683.) I've installed the contributed 1.0b2 version available on http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/releases/1.0b2/contrib/linux-x86_64/ but it completely messes up my Thunderbird 3.1.8; that is, both Thunderbird and Lightning are/become unavailable. (Wish me luck getting rid of this. ;-))

Comment 3

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/calendar/lightning/nightly/latest-comm-central/linux64-xpi/ contains a linux64 build of Lightning 1.0b4pre.

Comment 4

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

Did you post the complete VEVENT? Did someone manually edited the file? It looks like parts have been deleted and replaced by ---. Maybe you could attach a complete example as exported from Sunbird?

Comment 5

[Stefan Hinz]

@Philipp: In fact, that link contains a version of lightning.xpi. I've tried it, but it doesn't even install, because it's not compatible with Thunderbird 3.1.8. This is getting kind of silly ...

Comment 6

[Stefan Hinz]

@Stefan: Sorry, I didn't keep a copy of the .ics file around that contained the error. That file resides on a remote machine, and it's now been modified by KOrganizer, so there'd be no point in uploading it here.

What I can exclude, though, is someone fiddling with those .ics files manually. Some of the events were written by Lightning (versions 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, after which I gave up because there was no working 64-bit .xpi available), but most of them were handled through Sunbird (including pre-1.0 versions, but don't ask me which ones).

Sorry if I can't be any more helpful. :-(

Comment 7

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

(In reply to comment #5)
> @Philipp: In fact, that link contains a version of lightning.xpi. I've tried
> it, but it doesn't even install, because it's not compatible with Thunderbird
> 3.1.8. This is getting kind of silly ...
I'm sorry, I didn't make this clear. Lightning nightlys are indeed not available 64 bit, mainly because this is also not the case for Thunderbird 3.1.x *nightly* builds.

You'll need to use a Thunderbird 3.3 Alpha build or nightly, from http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/early_releases/ (use Miramar)

Unfortunate that you don't have the original event that failed. Maybe you can try recreating this behavior by modifying an event with both korganizer and Lightning multiple times.

Comment 8

[u597032]

Sunbird is no longer supported