three months of iCal data missing

February 15, 2008 7:56 PM

iCal disaster. All records before a certain date are gone. This is true -- and the date in question is the same in each case -- for all my daily iCal backups over the last 30 days. I urgently need to recover these records if possible.

I started using iCal on the 15th of September 07. As of some point more than 30 days ago, all my iCal data for the dates 15 sep 07 through 25 dec 07 was deleted. My iCal records now start as of 26 dec 07, and appear to be complete from that point on.

I sync iCal with my BlackBerry using Missing Sync (MS 1.0.1 / iCal 2.0.5 / Mac OS 10.4.10 / BlackBerry OS 4.2). I've been doing this daily since mid-September.

My Blackberry has over 22MB of free memory and is currently at its fullest point ever, so I doubt this has to do with a free-space issue. (More evidence for this: the other categories I sync this way [Memos and Address Book] appear to have all their records intact, including many I haven't touched since before 26 dec.) I've checked the bb in case it did have pre-26-dec cal records, but it has exactly what iCal has.

I only have my last 30 days of daily iCal backups (since mid-jan). When I revert to any of these backups, the data has the same issue (records start on 26 dec). I can't imagine what is significant about the 26th of December (no Christmas-related travel, new devices, changes in syncing/routine, or manual software updates [and nothing is set to auto-update on my computer). I know the sep-through-dec records all existed in mid-December, because that's the last time I went back through my records.


I urgently need to get those three months of iCal records back if there's any way. I'd pay money if the erased data could be recovered from my HD (however, my HD is usually at around 90% capacity, with large files that change often, so it's not likely that any deleted info survives for long). I don't do any syncing over a network or with a third party, and I'm BIS not BES so there's no corporate backup of my BB data.

I've clearly learned "in the future, keep backups much longer." Right now, please help me work with what I have and think of any way to recover the deleted records.

posted by lorimer to computers & internet (12 comments total)

You almost certainly have "Delete events XX days after they have passed" checked in your preferences. Try unchecking that box and re-importing your backups.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:30 PM on February 15, 2008

Thanks but I've never had that box checked -- and I see the default value for that box is 30 days, which wouldn't make sense with the facts I've observed.

I've used the same copy of iCal since 15 sep, with no modifications to that preference and no software updates.
posted by lorimer at 8:47 PM on February 15, 2008

(Specifically: I have a full month of daily backups, created from 17 jan through 15 feb, and EACH of them includes full iCal records starting on 26 dec and nothing 25 dec or earlier -- and each of them is otherwise a correct/complete record of my iCal data as of the date it was made, according to the spot checks I've done.)
posted by lorimer at 9:06 PM on February 15, 2008

Did you install the 10.5.2 update recently? I haven't yet, but there is apparently a known bug that causes loss of calendars. I have read that the fix is to delete the "Calendar cache" file in ~/Library/Calendars, then to reopen iCal. That rebuilds the cache. Don't know if this is your problem, but good luck.
posted by procrastination at 7:14 AM on February 16, 2008

Thanks for the idea -- I'm not running 10.5, I'm running 10.4.10 and there's no "Calendars" directory in either my system-level or user Library.

(I also looked in the "Caches" directories in both libraries; didn't see anything related to calendars or iCal.)
posted by lorimer at 8:40 AM on February 16, 2008

Try looking in ~/Library/Application Support/iCal/Sources/ There should be subfolders containing ics files. Pop those open in a text editor and see if they contain your old events.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:50 AM on February 16, 2008

I found six subfolders there, each with one ics file. When opened in TextEdit and searched (using the search term "2007"), none of them has any of the missing events EXCEPT a few repeating events whose original dates were in the sep-dec period in question. Those seem to all be preserved, and in the iCal app, I see that their instances before 26 dec don't display, but their future repetitions (monthly or annually) do.

Is that a good sign??

(Another thing I should mention is that when I now create an iCal record on 25 dec or any earlier date, it's preserved normally even after restarting iCal & restarting the Mac.)
posted by lorimer at 10:39 AM on February 16, 2008

Well first I'd backup that folder somewhere. Then try importing those ics files back into iCal. You might --- might --- just get lucky.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:05 PM on February 16, 2008

Nope, sorry if I wasn't clear but those ics files contain nothing more than what's currently displaying in iCal. (They contain no records earlier than 26 dec EXCEPT about six records that repeat by month or year).

The important thing your suggestion helped me see is this:

There's some evidence it's a display issue rather than lost records, because those six records' pre-26-dec occurrences don't display in iCal but all their post-26-dec occurrences do.
posted by lorimer at 12:24 PM on February 16, 2008

Hrm... I'm stumped then. If it looks like the data is still in the file, you might try importing it into Sunbird.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:27 PM on February 16, 2008

I really appreciate your help. I might be not understanding you, but to me it doesn't look like the data is still in any file.

I'm hoping the situation is: that data still exists somewhere, but I'm not seeing it in iCal because something is telling iCal "don't display anything occurring before 26 dec." I'm hoping that because that would explain those monthly recurring records that only appear in iCal after 26 dec, and are the only records left in the ics files that have pre-26-dec dates.
posted by lorimer at 2:53 PM on February 16, 2008

curious, did you ever figure this out?
posted by randomdeanna at 5:08 PM on April 7, 2008