IPod, iTunes, & Outlook Calendar

I recently updated to iTunes v5.0 and was excited to find that I could sync my Outlook Calendar and Contacts. I enabled the setting to automatically update my calendar and contacts.
When I update, the transfer of my contacts is fine. However, when iTunes tries to sync my calendar, I get an error message. After allowing iTunes access to my Outlook calendar, I get the following message: "The iPod 'IPOD NAME' cannot be updated. An unknown error occurred (-50)"
I am running Microsoft Outlook 2003 on Windows XP. I have the updated iPod software (3.1) for my 20GB iPod (non-photo).
If anyone else is having similar issues or if anyone has found a workaround, please post. It would me very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

I got the same effect, except that the contact list doesn't even download. I tried calling Apple, but (after being on hold for 20 minutes) they said that without a service agreement they couldn't help me. I said that makes no sense since this is there software...

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IPod and Outlook Calendar

I have an iPod video with a 30G drive, and the latest version of iTunes.
I have followed the directions and cannot get my iPod to import my Outlook Calendar. It gives no errors, there just isn't anything there. Their work-around, manually exporting each appointment and saving them as files on the iPod, is just plain silly. Who has that kind of time?
Has anyone else had similar problems and a resolution?

"Outlook 2003 or later is required for calendar syncing"
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302269
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302270
Their work-around, manually exporting each appointment and saving them as files on the iPod, is just plain silly.
It's silly because?
If you do not have Outlook 2003 and this method is silly, then you don't get the appt on your iPod.
Who has that kind of time?
Someone who does not have Outlook 2003 and needs the info on their iPod.
If their time is that important, they would upgrade to Outlook 2003.

Itunes/Outlook Calendar Syncing Issue - UTF-8 Flavor

I have had the usual and much discussed issue of outlook calendar does not sync with iTunes. The recommendations have been to remove iTunes and re-install, even blow away all the configuration files as well, and it even worked for me once. But not this time.
I was running Windows XP, and all of a sudden the Outlook 2007 calendar just stopped syncing. I upgraded from XP to 8.1, and that was not fun, but inevitable, and still didn’t correct the problem. Now, if you never upgraded from XP to 8.1 – you can’t – at least it is not a direct flight. First, you have to upgrade from XP to 8.0, then from 8.0 to 8.1, and there is no upgrade in place from XP to 8.0. So what does an upgrade in place mean? Your applications and profiles are not carried over. Just your data (if you ask nicely) is carried over – but all applications have to be re-installed from scratch, and reactivated if there was license activation.
So, forget about re-install of iTunes, I changed OS, reinstalled iTunes and Office 2007 from scratch. And still had the syncing problem. So, I wasn’t getting off easy.
In searching, I found some debugging stuff which I tried, as follows to turn on logging:
So, I ran the following:
cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Apple Application Support\
defaults write com.apple.Outlook.client.exe ShouldLog YES
defaults write -globalDomain SyncServicesLogEverything YES
defaults write -globalDomain SyncServicesLogPersonalInfo YES
And this turned on a lot of tracing. The tracing helped me understand what was going on under the covers, But I am not sure I was getting enough of the information that I needed to really zero in on the bad record.
Now, I will pause and provide some observation of my specific Sync.
An iTunes Sync on a Windows machine when using Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer is selected on the INFO tab of the page for the device.
Selections include Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks and Notes.
One of the programs involved with Outlook Synchronization is: com.apple.Outlook.client.exe
The program is called when Outlook data needs to be accessed, and is used for contacts, calendar and notes when those items are paired between the iDevice and Outlook. Bookmarks are usually paired with the browser, for example IE.
During the sync operation, each of these are sync’d separately, that is why if you follow the sync actions, iTunes will reflecting what is being synced at the moment, for example “syncing contacts”.
When syncing the calendar, and iTunes is running a slow sync, it reads the Outlook calendar using the com.apple.Outlook.client.exe and does processing of the recursion and time zone information.
For example, for recurrence:
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:30:59 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] Setting recurrence data <04300430 0d200200 000000ae 06000c00 00000000 00000400 00002120 0000e703 00000000 00000000 00000000 0000a0e7 980cc016 d10c0630 00000830 00000000 0000a005 00000000 00000000 00000000>
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:30:59 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] 0 recurrence exceptions
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:30:59 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] Reading the Extended Exception Info (i.e. Unicode data)
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:30:59 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] Done making compatible recurrence
For example, for timezone:
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:30:43 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] Could not create a time zone from outlook name, tried using name (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Then the calendar entries are pushed, for example:
ca965dbc4717d9488fafc9266f1f829304082700 =     {
        "all
day" = 1;
        calendar
=         (
            ca965dbc4717d9488fafc9266f1f829382800000
"com.apple.outlook.freebusy" = Free;
"com.apple.syncservices.RecordEntityName" = "com.apple.calendars.Event";
        "end date" = "2020-05-11 12:00:00 +0000";
        location = "United States";
        "start date" = "2020-05-10 12:00:00 +0000";
        summary = "Mother's Day";
So, my SYNC fails, and I crash and burn with:
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:41:22 2014] [_ISDVLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] SyncServices assertion failure (nil != strUTF8) in [(null) (null)], SDLogging.m:641 could not obtain UTF-8 flavor of formatted string
[5484 @ Tue Jul 01 10:41:23 2014] [YSLog com.apple.Outlook.client.exe] objcMain caught an exception:
name
NSInternalInconsistencyException
reason     : [(null)
(null)]: could not obtain UTF-8 flavor of formatted string
user info : (null)
call stack : (
Now I’m back. So, during the extract and push of the outlook calendar entries, iTunes is building formatted strings. Now, Unicode is usually 16 bit (2 characters) Unicode, sometimes called double byte code. UTF-8 is single byte, so realize you can’t squeeze 16 bits into a 8 bit byte. However, you could if the Unicode string only contained characters that were valid for the UTF-8 character set. My interpretation of the error message above was that somewhere a formatted character string contained a “non-UTF-8” character and raised the assertion. Now, my issue with the excessive detailing from the logs was that – at least with the logging parameters I had turned on – I couldn’t figure out which calendar entry caused the exception to be thrown.
First instinct was that the last calendar entry in the trace was the culprit, so I deleted that calendar entry, ran again, the sync went up to the previous entry, and threw the exception. This gives me two theories: Either the sync was processing the next entry – which wasn’t printed in the trace yet – and failed, or the sync was going back to previous records – like reviewing the buffer. In either case, the trace wasn’t helping and it was all theories.
Now what? What has everyone been saying? Issues with recurrence. And in the trace, as you see above as an example, “0 recurrence exceptions”, “reading the extended exception info (i.e. Unicode data)”.
Now, I have no clue what that means. My initial guess was that recurrence exceptions (I had non-zeros on some) was an error. But further research I realized what it could mean was that these were situations where there were recurrence exceptions. What is a recurrence exception? Suppose I want to schedule a meeting on the 4th day of the month, for every month of the year. Well, except maybe July 4th, because it is a holiday and the office is closed. I would send the meeting invite, and then a cancellation for the July 4th. (I hear there is no simple way to do this). I now have an exception because I broke the recurrence chain. Other forms of exceptions is if I keep changing the location, or the body of the invite – e.g. every month I update the agenda, but only for one recurrence, not the entire series.
So, keep in mind, that if the issue is conversion to a UTF-8 character, and it is failing, then uninstall/reinstall of anything is not going to help if the real issue at hand is the data in Outlook and is not a coding or configuration issue. Now, sometimes it is an issue, but you need to see why the syncserver tasks are failing, and may fail due to other reasons including other data issues.
So, what did I do? Well IO have 15K calendar entries, which, was taking an hour or two to slow sync (I call it a slow dance) and I was,spending days (maybe a couple of weeks) trying to fix this – and frustration was on the high end.
I removed some of my older recurrences, and changed others from never expire to like 25 maximum occurrences. No idea which one worked, or even if it was a coincidence. However, the UTF-8 error went away, and then I moved to the next issue.
Now, before we get there, with outlook 2007 finding recurrences is not difficult. Go into the calendar, and select appointment or list view (Outlook 2013 list view works ok). You can then sort on the recurrence column and see which (if any) items gave a recurrence pattern. Now maybe someone can figure out specific BAD calendar items that are throwing the exception to give us a better idea of what to look for and then report it so we can do further research.
Now, once we can get the issue out of the way, stop iTunes from throwing an exception, we are not 100% done yet. By this time what is in Outlook and on the iDevice is out of sync. We need to get that message to popup asking us if we want to merge the data between the iDevice and Outlook. This can be important if you don’t want to lose data. My issue is that with iTunes 11.2.2 for some reason won’t do it, i.e. when I select “reset sync history” it doesn’t work. At that point I was forced to rename my iTunesprefs, the syncserver folder, and a few other folders. In this case, for Windows 7 and later, the folders in “Apple Computer” of both the local and roaming paths, and I had to cancel running tasks that had those folders open. One way or another, you want the iTunes message asking if you want to merge the folders.
What can you do to help?
Report success or failures using the information above
Report if you are getting the same UTF-8 message, or if you are seeing other exceptions
Report specific cases of calendar entries that you find that you have isolated to be throwing an exception
Report any other logging/tracing parameters that you may find. It looks like you can turn on “ShouldLog” using the defaults.exe command for other tasks that iTunes runs.
This syncing issue has been going on for years, under different iTunes versions, there has to be something going on and an easier way to troubleshoot this problem. I wish I had the time, but right now I fixed the problem I had and was able to resync my Outlook with my two iPads and iPhone.
The only issue I have left at the moment is the message “the ipad xxx cannot be synced. An unknown error occurred (-54). – despite this error message, I am syncing, but the message is distracting and annoying.

Yes - both have time zone support and are set to London/GMT
The most recent of these aberrations was not even crossing a DST change - just a simple recurring event (which I've manually changed to single events by copy/paste).
I just tried a new one which goes back 1 hr 27 Oct - when UK clocks go back. As it's a dummy apt I'll leave it and see if if goes back to the correct time on 27 Oct! In the meantime, I can't afford for my appts to get screwed up so will continue to do them manually!
Thanks for your input.

Problem synching iPod and Outlook calendars

When I sync my iPod (Gen5 60GB) and Outlook calendars, I get a time discrepancy starting October 29, 2006 (the day DST ends). All appointments on my iPod calendar display 1 hour later than in Outlook.
Has anyone else had/solved this problem?
HP Pavilion Windows XP Pro

Yes I am having the same issue. I wish I had not upgraded to 7 because not only I am not able to synch contact (all of them and calendar) I also lost all playlists, movies, original contacts, etc. I cannot reach anyone in phone support and the "genuises" in the store don't have a clue except that they know there are bugs! Why release the **** thing if there are significant problems?
I hope someone has a solution!!

Ipod and Outlook Calendar (help needed)

Does anybody know how could I add the location field (from calendar event's details) in the syncronising data going to Ipod ?
Many thanx.

The iPod calendar doesn't display the location field although it is sync'd. You need to put your location information into the description field.
I wrote a Perl script that can be used to edit the calendar files on the iPod and move the location into description automatically, and it is available on my website <http://its.usc.edu/~bbellina/downloads>, however you would need to have Perl installed on your Windows PC to use it. It should be compatible with Outlook vcs files. You would use it after you sync your calendars.
Regards,
Brendan Bellina

Major sync issues between iphone and itunes + outlook

I have an iphone 5, mistakenly pushed the button to update to ios7, got a new window pc with win8 and office13, and mistakenly again got updated itunes 11.1.3...after many years of pretty seamless itunes/outlook calendar/contacts/podcasts/ etc etc syncing experiences, now itunes doesn't sync playlists with my phone, constantly wipes out my podcasts even though i chose "no sync with podcast", doesn't sync into outlook calendar/contacts/etc at all. i tried to roll back to itunes 10.7 (used the tips from this forum), but it says my phone won't work with versions older than itunes 11. it's like nobody's able to talk to anyone any more. what's going on????

Hi pws442,
It sounds like you’re running into an iCloud syncing issue with your MacBook Pro and your iPhone. If you haven’t already, take a look at the articles linked below which provide a lot of great information and troubleshooting tips.
iCloud: Troubleshooting iCloud Calendar - Apple Support
Get help using iCloud Contacts - Apple Support
Ciao,
-Jason

Sync Outlook Calendar with iPod doesn't work with iTunes 7?

Ever since I've upgraded to iTunes 7, when I try to sync my Outlook Calendar with my iPod - either Outlook crashes or it says it's doing it, but the calendar on my iPod is now blank even when I have things scheduled on my calendar.
Is there any fix or work around for this? Is anyone aware of this problem?

This is meant with a bit of humor in the first part of my response to illustrate why polls asking for people not having a problem can be inaccurate here. Then I will get into some suggestions that are more techical in nature.
If you walk to the waiting room at your local hospital's emergency room, and ask is there anybody here who is waiting to see the Doctors who is not sick or injured, please speak up. If everything was working, would you be here to post?
If you turn off Outlook Syncing, and turn it back on, do you get the Windows security screen? It might pop up under the iTunes 7 window. There is a screenshot of the window I am referring to here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302268

Outlook calendar no longer syncs after IOS 7 / iTunes update

Running Outlook 2003 on Win XP. Yes that's what IT allows....
Updated IOS7 (now at 7.0.3), tried to sync on the next day at work. Itunes forced me to update (11.1.2.31).
Updated iTunes.
Notes sync.
Calendar does not.
iTunes says:
Sync Calendars
Your calendars are being synced with your iPhone over the air
Over-the-air sync settings cane be changed on your iPhone
I've disabled OTA calendar sync I know of (Google, iCloud) with no effect. There are still some iCal feeds that I left on.
Suggestions appreciated, but I'm stuck with my work environment for now. Really would like to get back where I was before "updating". :-)

Still struggling with this. I did discover a diagnostic in iTunes, but it says all is well. I suspect that is because it thinks the iPhone is syncing the Outlook calendar over the air:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
INTEL_ DX38BT__
iTunes 11.1.3.8
QuickTime 7.7.4
FairPlay 2.5.16
Apple Application Support 2.3.6
iPod Updater Library 11.1f5
CD Driver 2.2.3.0
CD Driver DLL 2.1.3.1
Apple Mobile Device 7.0.0.117
Apple Mobile Device Driver 1.64.0.0
Bonjour 3.0.0.10 (333.10)
Gracenote SDK 1.9.6.502
Gracenote MusicID 1.9.6.115
Gracenote Submit 1.9.6.143
Gracenote DSP 1.9.6.45
iTunes Serial Number 0013BB300E265908
Current user is an administrator.
The current local date and time is 2013-11-08 18:09:43.
iTunes is not running in safe mode.
WebKit accelerated compositing is enabled.
HDCP is not supported.
Core Media is supported.
Video Display Information
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500
**** External Plug-ins Information ****
No external plug-ins installed.
**** Device Connectivity Tests ****
iPodService 11.1.3.8 is currently running.
iTunesHelper 11.1.3.8 is currently running.
Apple Mobile Device service 3.3.0.0 is currently running.
Universal Serial Bus Controllers:
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2935. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2936. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2937. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2938. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2939. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293A. Device is working properly.
Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 293C. Device is working properly.
FireWire (IEEE 1394) Host Controllers:
Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller. Device is working properly.
Connected Device Information:
----- iPhone, iPhone 5 (CDMA) running firmware version 7.0.3
Serial Number: --------------　
**** Device Sync Tests ****
Sync tests completed successfully.

Why do Outlook calendar invites appear on my iPod touch calendar but not my icloud calendar

Why do Outlook calendar invites appear on my iPod touch calendar but not my iCloud calendar? I use Outlook at work and if I want to add events to the calendar on my iPod Touch which I use as a PDA I simply create the event in outlook select my gmail email address and invite myself. The event appears on my iPod Touch...all well and good...now with the advent of iCloud I would like to see all events on my iPod calendar on the iCloud calendar that I view on my PC. At the moment only events that I have added directly onto the iPod calendar appear on the iCloud calendar.
I have messed around abit syncing and unsyncing, Turning the Calendar on and off in the iCloud setting on the device but nothing is really working. Any easy to follow suggestions or is it a trip to the geniuses in order?

Not sure why you'd want to alter an artist name anyway but...
In iTunes, right-click selected track and click "Get Info" then edit the artist field and possibly the album artist too (edit as in... make sure they have a value (the correct artist name)). Delete the faulty track on your iPod and then re-upload the new one.
Another thing is that if you left the music player open on your iPod when you add the new track, sometimes I find that it doesnt find any of the new songs you add until you close and then re-open the app on the iPod.

I have 2 IPOD touches and now an IPAD2;I use outlook calendar and contacts, and now my devices are not syncing all the information in the calendar. Help?

I now have 2 IPOD touches , 1 8 GB,1 32G plus an IPAD 2 that I've been having syncing issues with.
my Dell D830 Latitude w/windows XP. I use outlook calendar and contacts, and the syncing is not
completely syncing the outlook information. Help?

Yes. Just sync them to the same iTunes library. iTunes will keep track of each so you can put what you want on each. I do this with a 3G and iPad2. Note that each device will have it's own backup.

ITunes doesn't recognise Outlook calendar or contacts

iTunes outlook add-in is present and active but iTunes tells me that no supporting contacts/calendar is available.
Anybody know why this is happening? Just upgraded this laptop to Vista so wondering if anybody has any tips/work around?

My variation on this is that I have 2 calendars and 2 contact lists. For my iPod, they're all visible and I can specify a "selected group" as the source for contacts. For my iPhone, no "selected groups" are visible.
This wasn't originally true for the iPod, but at some point in connecting it, a Vista pop-up appeared asking me if I wanted that "drive" to be scanned by Vista. I said yes and after the scan the iPod had access to all my Outlook options.
I'd scan the iPhone if I could, but it doesn't show up as a drive. Then there'd be the question of where the scanning process came from.

ITunes does not sync my Outlook calendar with my iPhone calendar

Problem: iTunes does not sync my Outlook calendar with my iPhone calendar.
Background: The sync was fine until I got the Lenovo 64 bit with Windows 7. I have tried to follow lots of Q/As.
Dear iTunes / Apple, This must be solved within iTunes, I believe.
- Windows 7 Prof, vers 6.1, SP 1, 64 bit
- iTunes: 11.1.3.8
- iPhone: 3GS, 32GB, iOS 6.1.3
- Computer: Lenovo X301, 64 bit
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2 CPU U9400 @ 1.4 GHz.
Sincerely
Soren

Hi there nocomano!
I have an article here that can help you troubleshoot this issue:
iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Troubleshooting contact and calendar syncing via USB on Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1692
Thanks for coming to the Apple Support Communities!
Regards,
Braden

IPOD 30G. Calendar Synchronization with outlook

When I try to synch my outlook calendar and appointment with my iPOD, it shows that the calendar cant be copied????
I just succesfully synch my contacts from outlook but for some reason it doesnt work for calendar
Does anybody had this problem? Is something else I have to do to solve this.
I have a DELL Latitude with Windows XP Pro. I am using Outlook 2003 SP1

See if anything here helps...
iTunes for Windows: Troubleshooting iPod contact and calendar syncing
btabz

Issue syncing Outlook calendar to iPod Touch

Hi there - I have just synced my iPod Touch with my Outlook calendar using iTunes for the first time since the clocks went back at the weekend. All my single appointments are fine, but all of my recurring ones (of which I have many) are now showing as an hour earlier on my iPod Touch (for example, if an appointment is 8.30-9.30am in Outlook then it is appearing on my iPod as 7.30-8.30am).
On my computer, the Time Zone setting is "(UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London" with a tick for "adjust for daylight saving time".
On my iPod Touch, in the Date & Time settings (found in Settings>General>Date & Time) I have the Time Zone set to "London" and in Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars, I have the Time Zone Support set to "on" with the Time Zone showing as "London" also.
I've tried changing some of these options (e.g. turning Time Zone Support off, setting the iPod time zone to UTC rather than London, unticking the "adjust for daylight saving time" box in Windows) and then re-synching - but none of this has worked.
I've tried searching on several forums, but no-one seems to have a solution except for making sure that all the Time Zone settings are the same - which I think they are.
Please can anyone help?!!
Thanks!

Lady Mosie,
I recently had a similar experience with my iPhone 3GS and Outlook calendar. The calendars suddenly quit syncing although Contacts and Notes continued to sync normally.
After unsuccessfully trying all of Apple's suggested fixes ("Troubleshooting the iPhone and iPod touch contact and calendar syncing via USB on Windows"), I discovered that inadvertently multiple calendars had been set up in Outlook. I removed the superfluous calendars and they began to sync perfectly fine once again.
In my case, I don't think was related in any way to iTunes updates, but rather user error. Now, I have two calendars in Outlook and two on the iPhone and my world seems to be 'in sync' once again.

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