Dupe events created when importing recurring events with customized entries

[Jacob Perl]

We are using iCal Sync to import events from a 3rd party service called Church Community Builder (CCB). Sometimes we have recurring events, where individual events need to be broken out and customized on the CCB side. CCB also provides the .ics file. The problem is that when importing these via iCal Sync, duplicate events are created on the WP side: the new custom event, as well as the original event in the recurring series that should be excluded. Here is a URL showing an example this: http://shorelinechurch.org/category/connect/women/

The event(s) in question is the WOMEN’S BOOK CLUB – MEETING on March 19.

Examining the .ics file reveals on line 256

EXDATE;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150319T190000

Are date exclusions ignored by Event Organiser? Or is there anything wrong with the syntax? I can provide the full .ics file if you like (did not see a way to attach a file to this post).

[Stephen Harris]

Hi Jacob,

Just to clarify you have (for example) a recurring event with dates: 11th March, 18th March and 25th March imported into WordPress. In CCB you then “break” the date 18th March into its own event. And then when the iCal feed imports again you end update with two events with dates 11th March, 18th March and 25th March and 18th March (whereas the first one should now only have dates 11th March and 25th March).

The iCal extension supports any event schedules that the base version supports (so, in particular the ability to exclude specific date(s)). If you can provide the feed link I’ll test it on a local install.

What version of EO (base plug-in) are you using?

[Jacob Perl]

Yes, you’ve described the issue accurately. I’m using EO 2.12.2. Here is the feed link:

webcal://shoreline.ccbchurch.com/group_calendar.ics?id=788&tk=GQ6TTM5JQEMCX3DE2CPXCBMSBXQU392X

[Stephen Harris]

Hi Jacob,

Thanks, this is a bug in the base version. The ‘exclude date’ part of the API became more strict in 2.12.0 (requiring a matching datetime rather than just a matching date part) – the iCal parser hadn’t been updated to reflect this.

There’ll be 2.12.3 update in the next few days which should fix this. Once updated, the problem should correct itself on the next sync.

[Jacob Perl]

Thanks Stephen, I look forward to the update.

[Jacob Perl]

Thank you for the update…great service! That seems to have fixed the duplication issue. However now I’m seeing another issue come up with some (not all) of my feeds with this error:

[Line 2580] Invalid datetime “20150327”. Date expected in YYYYMMDDTHHiissZ or YYYYMMDDTHHiiss format.

Unlike with some of the other errors and warnings I’ve been seeing, this feed is not properly updating our events when fetched.

Here is one of the feeds I’m seeing this error with:

http://shoreline.ccbchurch.com/group_calendar.ics?id=37&tk=B65A8646EF0B102CA8580019B9B51440

[Stephen Harris]

An update has just been made, please let me know if the problem persists.

[Stephen Harris]

Sorry Jacob, that previous message had been sitting in my browser before your posted your previous message :).

Regarding the issue you describe – it is unfortunately an error with the iCal feed (and it would seem an increasingly common one). It is not stating that the value is a date (rather than a date-time), so a date-time should be provided.

I have thusfar resisted making the iCal parser ‘less strict’ in it’s adherence to the iCal specifications, but given that this is the third time in a month such a problem has been reported I think I might revisit this.

The good news is that there is an extension which “fixes” this, so it’s a matter of rolling into core. (I’ll be in touch with that extension so that you can use it in the mean time).

[Jacob Perl]

Thanks, Stephen, that would be great! I’ve just noticed a couple of these feeds have not updated since February due to this issue. I’m also going to follow this up with CCB, but in the meantime any fix you have would be appreciated.

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