Calendars disappeared- meetings visible by clicking a view-can't add new

Question

Hi All- Any help appreciated! Here are the symptoms:
1. When I open iCal the calendar is blank- no calendars on the left and no meetings on the day/week/month views
2. If I click on one of the views all of my meetings show up but the calendars on the left are still gone
3. I can type an event and pull down one of my calendars but when I hit enter the entry is not visible.
4. Clicking in the blank space where the calendars are supposed to be has no effect.
The only thing I can point to in terms of a possible cause is installing the latest version of MarkSpace Missing Sync 5.0.2 after which this happened.
Since the only recent backup of my calendar was on my Palm TX, I synced to a different Mac (my iMac G5) and backed up to .Mac. When I try to get my calendar back via DotMac I have the same problems outlined above no matter which computer (G5 Dual or iMac G5) I use.
I even erased the whole disk on my iMac and reinstalled Tiger and apps and after syncing to DotMac my calendar is still messed up. I've also tried throwing out all events and related files bringing iCal back to the default with blank "work" and "personal" calendars like when you first install. After syncing with either DotMac or Palm TX the calendar looks fine until I try to click on a calendar or make an entry and then I'm back to the same problems.
I should note a couple things. First the calendar on my Palm TX seems to work fine on the Palm and I have since uninstalled Missing Sync 5.0.2 and gone back to the previous version I know to be reliable but if I sync the Palm calendar I still have the same problem.
If anyone knows a way to save my calendar I'd be grateful!
PowerMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.3)  

Answer 1

I was on the phone with Apple Support for over 4 hours on this issue with two different techs. The case number is #55863808. It is still wide open with no resolution. I am convinced it is a combination of Apple's published API's for third partiy programs to interact with iCal combined with Mark-Space's implementation of those APII's. Once whatever is being corrupted in your user library gets corrupted, there is NO FIX, at least so far. Hopefully, if others are experiencing this problem, they will report it here. Rest assured Apple is reading this thread.
We know the following:
1) If you create a new user account, and log in under the new account and launch iCal, it works fine. So, it's apparently something that gets corrupted in the user library AFTER a Mark-Space Sync.
2) Doing an archive and re-install of the OS does NOT solve the problem.
3) iCal continues to work normally "beneath" the problem. For example, you can add a calendar and then go highlight an event and assign it to the new calendar you just created. (Of course, since you can't actually SEE the new calender you can't delete it nor can you re-name it.)
4) When you delete an event, it does in fact delete it, but the display does not update. You need to change the view (i.e. move forward/backward a day/week/month and then come back and you'll note the your deleted event is no longer being displayed
5) Likewise, the display doesn't update when you try to restore a calendar or subscribe to a calendar, yet both actions actually work. You'll think the software is locked up becuase the dialog boxes don't go away, but the action has taken place and finished already. The menus don't work, but if you go to the dock, you'll note that the program does NOT indicate that it is not responding and you can simply quit and relaunch.
Let's hope Apple does what they've promised and forwarded the case to a senior levelengineer who has access to the program developers. This is quite clearly a major bug that needs to be acknowledged and addressed by both companies.
Norm