iPhone 4s Calendar Problem When Syncing with Outlook 2007

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242 posts

Master Geek

#744702 14-Jan-2013 18:22

Hi there - thanks for the iCloud suggestion but I am in the exact same situation as Gfaye. My main office computer is also XP (though I do have a Windows 7 laptop). My techie son has been communicating with Apple since he bought his iPhone and has had no resolution yet. I would have thought there would have been a fix by now to an EXTREMELY annoying problem. I also can't stop using all-day events. So we must live in hope.

Sharesies kids

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ashtonaut

614 posts

Ultimate Geek

#744726 14-Jan-2013 18:55

I had a similar (but not identical) problem with calendar event times that turned out to be a daylight savings bug (either in Windows, Outlook, or iCloud - I never worked out which).

To rule a similar issue out in your case, does the issue occur regardless of the time during the year the appointment is set?

gfaye

13 posts

Geek

#744741 14-Jan-2013 19:36

Daylight savings time, or not... doesnt matter.

Apple even got me to try changing my laptop & phone to Fijian time... no better.

Have been dealing with them for 4 years now, always ends the same. They say I'm the only one with the problem & they can help me no further. (Got on to a awesome person in the states last time, who understood my problem & was VERY helpful, but there was only so much their system would allow him to do).

Their response is almost as annoying as the problem.

onetapu

242 posts

Master Geek

#744766 14-Jan-2013 20:49

You are definitely not the only one with the problem, Gfaye, but it's strange to me that all the forums discussing the problem went silent about a year ago. Has everyone just given up? My son has tried EVERYTHING to sort the issue out and Apple made him feel he was alone too. I don't think there is an answer.

DrCheese

382 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#744772 14-Jan-2013 21:09

Ah, the dreaded synchronisation problem with dates. I've had a similar problem for ten years and have never found a solution, even after two-hour phone conversations with Apple Support.

I have birth dates for my family members in my Contacts (Address Book) list and they display the birthdays correctly in Calendar (iCal) when syncing through iCloud, but ONLY for the iPhone and iPad. The birthdays are shifted one day earlier when displaying in Calendar on two Macs running OS 10.7 and OS 10.8.2. The birthdays are all displayed correctly in Contacts on both Macs, the iPhone, and iPad. I only use Apple devices, a mac.com account, and use iCloud to sync.

When shifting the birthday of one family member by one-day increments in Contacts, Calendar displays the birthday incorrectly, then correctly upon reaching a particular date, then reverts back to being one day behind on both Macs (through real-time iCloud syncing) when a second specific date is reached.

After some hair-tearing on the Apple support phone call, we finally figured out that the NZ time zone was the problem. The problem disappeared when selecting an earlier time zone, such as +10 GMT on the east coast of Australia. The problem re-appears when re-selecting the NZ time zone. And yes, the time zones were set the same on all four devices. The Apple support guy in Tasmania could reproduce what I was doing.

I suspect it has something to do with us being in a +13 time zone during summer daylight saving time. The folks at Apple probably don't believe there is a time zone outside of -12 and +12 hours.

David.

gfaye

13 posts

Geek

#744774 14-Jan-2013 21:17

Thanks onetapu & drcheese, misery loves company!

Very interesting that the problem has effected other Apple products for some time.... actually makes me more p**sed of though.

I have always felt they think the problem isnt big enough to warrant spending money to fix... & yes we all seem to get sick of pestering them & give up. I get fired up about once a year & get on their case again (wasting hours of my time), but the outcome is always the same - best I've ever managed was an Apple shop credit from them for my trouble.

Would be interested to see how many people we can get on this forum with the problem, then perhaps we can forward it to the helpful guy I spoke to last... maybe he could get their tech section to acknowledge the fault then?

Needless to say, I havent invested in any other Apple products.

morrisk

364 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#744779 14-Jan-2013 21:25

This is a problem that I have had and like others here have never managed to resolve. I have just given up and don't rely on the calendar birthday function.

gfaye

13 posts

Geek

#744784 14-Jan-2013 21:37

Thanks for adding your voice morrisk

1eStar

1604 posts

Uber Geek

#744825 14-Jan-2013 23:39

Haha. That's a joke about Apple and birthday calendars. I gave up on them about 2 years ago when all my days were completely mucked up. I mean how difficult is it when birthdays don't actually change date from year to year?

TwoSeven

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#745272 15-Jan-2013 19:00

Hopefully this post might be of use to understanding the issue of all-day-events being a day early. Unfortunately I have no fix for it either.

The repro that I use is fairly simple, create an all-day event in Outlook for a particular date, lets say 26th, and then sync with ITunes to an IPhone. In the IPhone calendar, the event will show up on the 25th. Normal events work fine.

Last year I registered this as a defect with both Microsoft and Apple. I tried Outlook 2003,2007 and 2010, the last couple of versions of ITunes and the IPhone 3G and 4S and got the issue.

Microsoft were able to repro the issue and informed me that it was likely issue with the Translator software (which I understand is ITunes) and that Apple needed to fix it - they were very helpful and put in a great deal of effort and time in helping to understand and diagnose the issue. Apple also were able to repro the issue and their support people were also very helpful, however, I have not been able to get any response from them regarding if the issue will be fixed (I know it has been logged).

I believe it is possible to sync via the cloud using the ICalendar format, but I am not keen on using the Cloud so this was not an option for me. Neither do I see why I should have to use this work-around considering that it should be reasonable to expect the feature in ITunes to work (be fit for purpose).

After some of my own testing, my feeling is that the issue is caused by reading the calendar entry as UTC time rather than Zulu time which would put the event a day earlier. From reading other forums the issue occurs for people in different time zones so it appears not to be a local NZ issue.

Software Engineer
(the practice of real science, engineering and management)

Gender Neutral
(a person who believes in equality and who does not believe in/use stereotypes. Examples such as gender, binary, nonbinary, male/female etc.)

...they/their/them...

onetapu

242 posts

Master Geek

#745278 15-Jan-2013 19:25

Thank you, TwoSeven, for your comments. What do you mean by UTC time? I guess it's comforting to know that this is not just a NZ issue. But why hasn't Apple fixed this before now???

shariba

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#749328 23-Jan-2013 09:31

I am also suffering the same problem and have for years. Had iphone 4 now 4s using windows xp and office 10 (same problem previous version of office).

my connection is imap rather than pop. I have checked the settings of as many time zones I cvan find in the phone and computer.

Just loaded holidays into outlook on computer (showing correctly) and they have all sync'd to the phone one day out. I have started going through the computer changing them to appointments. I have just done one as I write this and re sync'd my phone and it has changed from a full day in the wrong place to an appointment in the right place.

Time zone sounds like the right idea but something is missing

Benjip

941 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#749339 23-Jan-2013 09:43

Just adding my name to the "I have this problem too" list. I use iCloud for all my calendars etc. and birthdays are always showing up a day early on iCal, even though the correct date is set for each contact (on the phone and in iCloud).

TwoSeven

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#749827 23-Jan-2013 20:52

onetapu: Thank you, TwoSeven, for your comments. What do you mean by UTC time? I guess it's comforting to know that this is not just a NZ issue. But why hasn't Apple fixed this before now???

UTC is universal time, it is very similar to GMT. We are currently UTC+13, so writing the date out in iCal format it would be shown as 230122013T2025 which says this is a local time. In UTC it would be 23012013T2025Z which says it is UTC time.

The difference is that 8:25pm NZ time is 7:25 am UTC time. Or since all day events start at 00:00 (midnight local time), go back 13 hours and one ends up with 11am the day before. So an all day event set for today, would show up as yesterday.

Software Engineer
(the practice of real science, engineering and management)

Gender Neutral
(a person who believes in equality and who does not believe in/use stereotypes. Examples such as gender, binary, nonbinary, male/female etc.)

...they/their/them...

scuwp

3879 posts

Uber Geek

#749840 23-Jan-2013 21:04

I have only had a quick read of this thread, but why not use Gmails calendar function? It can sync with your Outlook calendar then set the phone to sync with the Gmail account. All our apple devices are set up this way no problems at all and everything works OTA automatically. I know it's not the solution you are looking for but IMAP is the way to go these days IMO with multiple devices.

...just my 2 cents

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

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