Working around iCal alarm failure.

Although I really like iCal, I gave up using it because alarms don't work if iCal is not turned on.
The other day, I had a minor inspiration! I set iCal to turn on automatically, whenever I logged on. Thus, I get any overdue reminders immediately after I log on.
A charming additional benefit, is that the date shows in the Dock. As I choose to run 24 hour digital time in the menu bar, I'm delighted with having the date in the Dock.

Dayna,
Glad to help.
In your post, you wrote " I can't remember how to turn on the application at start up. " . That's simple. Just click iCal in the Dock. However, that misses my point about turning it on automatically. My way saves 1. remembering to turn it on 2. the action of turning it on.
Here is what you do to turn it on automatically:
Click Apple symbol > click System Preferences > under System click Accounts > select the account > click the Login Items tab > click the plus button below the list of programs. That will cause a list of program names to show. Click the iCal program name, then click Add. All done!

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Work around "cannot copy to disk.....cannot be read from or written to.

While copying large files(movies or large amounts of music)to the iPod touch the error message" disk cannot be read from or written to" appears. Here is a work around for the failure.
1. Run the latest version of iTunes and connect the iPod. Perform the following after the failure (allow one failure to occur and repeat this after each occurence) This is only good for one movie or one large grouping of music files. Eject the iPod and allow 30 seconds after the plug is pulled before reattaching the plug to the iPod. Once the summary window appears you are ready to start.
2. In the movie tab behind the summary remove SYNC Movies check from the box.
In the Music tab remove the SYNC Music check from the box.
3. On the summary tab uncheck "manually manage music" in the options section. It will ask if you are sure, choose OK. Click "Apply" in the bottom right corner. Allow the iPod to try to SYNC... a message will appear explaining that there is not enough disk space, choose "OK".
4. Check "manually manage music" in the options section. Click "Apply" in the bottom right corner.
5. Drag and drop the selection of music or the movie over to the iPod icon on the left side of the screen under "Devices". The transfer should start and the progress graphic will start in the upper status window.
***I have only been able to move/ copy one movie at a time and one large music selection. When attempting the second transfer the error message returns and you have to start the process over. I tryed restoring, updating iTunes, different cables, updating XP, different USB ports, countless system restarts and threatening to smash it if it didn't work. I spoke with APPLE Tech support and they are aware of the problem and should be attempting to correct it. My iPod is @ its default settings. I have had no problems with single music files transfering but I have had it fail on as little as three in a group. Good Luck and I hope this helps.

Here is some more info on this issue. I've been having the same problem - I've tried disconnecting all other USB devices, making sure to plug into the back-side USB 2.0 port, I even went and bought a PCI card 2-port USB hub and tried that, but could never sync movies or multiple songs (usually less than 50 songs). Today, I was able to transfer 2 movies and a TV show and about 100 songs and the one thing that was different was that I was doing a video conversion in the background with FFMPEG (taking up about 90% CPU), so iTunes only had about 10% CPU while doing the sync.
Unfortunately, as I started typing this message, a third movie transfer just failed with the "cannot copy to disk..." read/write error. Oh well, just thought I'd get the info out, as this is an exteremely frustrating issue, and hopefully the more info we have we'll eventually be able to figure it out.

ICal Alarms not working in iPod

Around six months ago iCal alarms stopped working on my iPod.
They do not even show up when I view a To Do or Event on my iPod. This happened all of a sudden and I have never changed any settings other than installing standard updates. I cannot recall if it was around the same time as an update. I use iCal 2.0.5 (1069). I was using a 60G iPod when this occurred. My new 80G has the same problem.
Any ideas? I have searched everywhere(!) to no avail.
I am very keen to get this feature back. Any suggestions most welcome. Thanks in advance!
(This is my first post/question on here. I apologise if I have posted in the wrong place or asked a stupid question.)

Believe me when I saw I have tried everything! I am not technically minded though I have covered all bases. I am just anxious to get this great feature back. It just seems strange that I am the only one with issues. This happened with my 60G then right through to now. I am actually on my second 80G as the first's battery failed after a month.
Is it an issue with my Power Book? I seriously have not change any settings - EVER. Except for the standard updates.
Thanks again for your quick reply Anyone got any ideas?!

When will email alarms work in iCal 3.0 and Leopard?

I have been trying to follow the Apple discussions of some of the problems in iCal 3.0 under Leopard. Fortunately, I haven't experienced some of them. The one that is bothering me is the inability to send email alarms. This is a feature I used a lot in Tiger and want to use again. My iBook and iMac are syncing pretty well, and my calendars are, too. However, if I create a new iCal event on either computer and then try to set an email alarm, I get this response: "You must add your own card and email address in Address Book in order to be able to use mail alarms" with a link to open Address Book. When I open Address Book, there is no conceivable way to follow the above instruction. Either I am missing something very simple, or Apple has not fixed this bug in iCal 3.0 and Leopard, despite having stated in a knowledge base document on November 15, 2007, (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306907) that as a result of the 10.5.1 update "iCal alarms are now more reliably delivered via email." Has anyone figured a go-around for this problem?

Well, here I am answering my own question. I went into Address Book preferences on my iBook, which was upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, and found that my own card in Address Book was no longer indicated as being "me". I checked the box to indicate that, and then--voilà!--my email alarms worked in iCal. I guess I should have realized that the upgrade to Leopard didn't necessarily create all the preferences that had previously existed in Tiger. Once I check the iMac, which came with Leopard, to ascertain that this fix works on the iMac, too, I will mark this question as answered.

No Alarms Work/ical alarms not firing. I have a solution that worked for me

If anyone has had a look at this thread and still not found a solution...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1215043&start=30&tstart=0
try this (busycal)...
http://www.busymac.com/index.html
I was having serious problems with my iCal alarms. They just weren't firing reliably, and I tried so many things to get it fixed. Nothing worked until I installed busycal. it's perfect! It's been totally rock solid for 20 or so days and I just purchased a full licence. Has very neat features like LAN sharing and google cal syncing. Even if it didn't need these features, I'd still use it because I rely on alarms firing, and busycal does it without issues. Support is also excellent (they email quickly, with accurate/helpful replies, and they've even made suggestions to me about settings I can change to make everything run more smoothly. amazing!) the quality of support, frequent updates and reliable alarms is worth the small registration price along!
and no, i don't work for them, i'm just a very happy user and hopefully it will help some other frustrated ical users out there!
alex =)

try busycal support. they really are excellent and i'm sure they can help u work towards a solution. click "email support" in the busycal help menu.
alex

MY iCal alarms do NOT work...

MY iCal alarms do NOT work since January 2009! Not during Leopard and not now in Snow Leopard. I have tried desperately to get my sounds back and checked ALL preferences for iCal. Anyone else have this problem and WHAT can I do about it? What is the "fix" for this stupid glitch???? 911...

+*MY iCal "Update" to those who might experience the same i-s-s-u-e of no alarms popping up and no sound either.+*
I did go to my Apple Sore and traipsed up to the Genius Bar with my 24" iMac... AFTER I made a reservation online of course. I do have that great little AppleCare Protection card.
The good news is that Brad, my genius, at the Apple Store Genius Bar fixed my problem! My iCal now pops up my alarms which I "hear" clearly and on time! *Problem fixed in 5 minutes. WOWZER!* He also told me the iCal problem wasn't my fault, there were some files he needed to delete in my library and cache folders and that the problem seemed to be just a glitch that shouldn't happen again. He didn't know why the files where there... they just were. Thank you, Geniuses at my Apple Store in the Millenia Mall, Orlando, Florida.
Problem in iCal solved. *So this is my story and I'm sticking to it. ;-)*

Delaying iCal Alarm doesn't work

Say you put something on the calendar for June 24th and set a '1 day before' alarm. The alarm pops up the day before as you would expect and you snooze it to 2 hours before the appointment. Well, the second alarm never pops up.
Has anyone else seen this?

iCal Alarm re-scheduling feature behave the same way on my Mac.
In fact, when you ask an alarm reminder at, say, 1 hour before the appointment, the alarm is re-scheduled, but 1 hour BEFORE the CURRENT TIME (in the past!!!!) instead of 1 hour before the appointment.
iMac G4 17" / 800 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

ICal alarm causes application to close

When I try to open iCal I immediately have an iCal alarm pop up and the program closes.
Why is this happening? And more importantly, how can I fix it?
(I sync iCal with my Moto Q using Mark/Spaces The Missing Sync)

Hi Fred,
As we noted in your other post the issue is CR 8.5 is not side by side compatible with any other version of CR. As of Cr 9 we now are, UFL's can be copied into the respective install folders and they'll work together.
CR UFL's are COM UFL's meaning they get registered. Because they use the standard UFL naming convention Any version of CR will load them, we do this for compatibility so developers don't have to re-write/version their UFL's each time.
The only way is to NOT install any other version of CR on that 8.5 PC. Or if you can ask the makers of the UFL's convert them to non-COM ( using C++ ) u2l names then simply moving them into their app.exe folder should allow their software to continue working as long as their software is not in the PATH statement.
The other issue is possibly they did not make the UFL Appartment Model ( thread safe ) but I doubt it would make any difference.
CR 8.5 simple won't work with another version on the same PC.
As a final hack work around, create a batch file that will register the UFL and then one that will unregister the UFL when you want to use your software or their software. Also, try moving \windows\crystal into their folders app path but I don't recall if this will work, it's been a long time since we've had to deal with side by side issues of legacy applications like this.
Good luck
Don

ICal - Alarm issues

Hello,
I would appreciate some help on the following issue I have:
When I create a new appointment within iCal on my mac (Alarm set to "off"), a few seconds later the appointment appears on my iPhone via iCloud.
Problem: Alarm is set to "on", to go off when the appointment starts.
Both iCal and Calenders on my iPhone have the default settings for the alarm set to "off" correctly.
I have removed and restarted iCloud Calenders on both Mac and iPhone.
The problem persists.
What can I do?
Thanks

I've managed to work around this by either
a) only add events in the iCloud.com calendar
or, if you have to add an event in Mountain Lion's Calendar app:
1) go to icloud.com afterwards, edit the event, add an alert for whenever (doesn't really matter), click "OK" to save.
2) edit the event again, remove the alert you just saved.
If you just have one iOS device it might be easier to post-edit the event there.
Here's to hoping they fix the bug in the next Mountain Lion or iOS update.

ICal alarms, a deteriorating problem?

This problem of iCal's failure to send alarms when an event comes due, has been reported in previous threads and in other forums. But now I think that this situation grows worse over time. Here is my experience.
In Tiger, and the iCal version I was using then, I could set up an event in iCal and have it send me an email when the event was coming due. This email got sent even if iCal and Mail applications were not left running.
I upgraded to Leopard (10.5) and email alarms would not get sent under these conditions (iCal and Mail not running) but a message could be sent to the desktop.
I then updated to 10.5.1 and the email alarms seemed to be working for a while. Then at some later date, the email alarms stopped getting sent again, but the alarms to the desktop still kept working.
I worried that something else I installed was interfering.
Now, however, I find that neither email alarms or alarms sent to the desktop will happen if both iCal and Mail are shut down. (My computer never is off and never sleeps, only the screen is set to blank with inactivity.) I haven't tested thoroughly but it seems that when iCal is started running next time, there is a flurry of activity as it tries to catch up. I really haven't installed anything new in the period that this latest failure mode has developed.
I have sent feedback to Apple and would have expected a fix after so much time (10.5.1 has been with us for quite some time) but now wonder how widespread this problem is, since discussion seems to have fallen off.

daniellight,
Try downloading and installing the Mac OS X v10.6.5 Update (Combo).

ICal alarm, "hours before" limited to 15?

It seems that if I want to add an alarm to an event in iCal, and I select "hours before", the max value I can enter is "15". This is a really annoying bug. I have a recurring event where I need an alert 23 hours prior, and it seems silly to enter two events.
Any way to work around it?
Thanks.

Gah. I'm using Snow leopard, not 10.4.9. I need to change my profile.

ICal Alarms Fail Repeatedly

Since upgrading to Leopard (currently 10.5.7), iCal alarms have failed to appear several times. That is, they work for a while, then stop working. This didn't happen at first. But when it was clear iCal alarms were not working (I ran several tests) I called Apple. The expert had me delete a number of files (Cache folder and several plists) and restart the computer. Problem solved.
Or maybe not. About a week later alarms failed again. I called Apple again, and talked to two experts. The first had me restart the computer. An alarm popped up. Then she had me delete several things and try another test--no alarm. I restarted the computer again and an alarm popped up. A test in a new user account worked, so apparently the software is OK.
Next she passed me to expert #2. He had me make sure iCal and iCal Helper were in the list of startup items. He was certain this would solve the problem. 2 tests (iCal running, iCal not running) both produced alarms. Problem solved.
Or maybe not. Another week has passed and alarms failed again. Tried a test--failure. I restarted the computer and alarms DO work again. But why is that necessary when for years (in earlier versions) it wasn't?
I'm about to call Apple again. But does any expert not employed by Apple have any ideas?

Charles,
Hopefully, Apple will come up with a solution as I'm obviously not the only person having this problem.
I concur, but in order for Apple to be informed of this problem you should also Provide iCal Feedback.
;~)

Is there a work around to the fact that MAC OS no longer supports software using PowerPC?

I can no longer use two interactive Pearson Pelican Plus interactive CD Roms in school because I get an error message saying PowerPC is no longer supported by Mac. My OS is 10.9.5.
Is there a work around?
Ella

ellalps wrote:
I can no longer use two interactive Pearson Pelican Plus interactive CD Roms in school because I get an error message saying PowerPC is no longer supported by Mac. My OS is 10.9.5.
Is there a work around?
Ella
Ella:
It is unclear from your post if your inability to use Pearson CD-ROMs occurred after you purchased a new Mac, or simply upgraded your current one to Mavericks.
If you simply upgraded to Mavericks, your easiest solution and best operating environment would be to use Disk Utility to partition your hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard (with the optional Rosetta) into that partition. You could then use the "dual-boot" process (System Preferences:Startup Disk) to determine with environment is operating on your Mac: Snow Leopard when you want to run the CD-ROM or Mavericks where you need more modern capabilities.
Note that if you must have the concurrent ability to run the CD-ROM and Mavericks, then, the previous information posted by others in this thread is your only solution and there is no point in your taking the extra steps to partition your hard drive and install Snow Leopard.
The previous information provided to you is largely accurate except for one point that is irrelevant to your concerns and will only generate needless irrelevant repetitious responses if I point out what it is.
The great tragedy in today's USA society is the government's failure to properly fund education combined with the high amount and cost of student loans and their inability to be discharged in bankruptcy.
The combination of all of these factors leads educational publisher's such as Pearson no financial incentive to upgrade many of their essential products for the education market, including rewriting their CD-ROMs to work directly on Intel Macs without the addition of Rosetta, which is not longer supplied by OS X after Snow Leopard.
Having seen this problem posted on this forum quite regularly over the last few years, I purchased a demo CD-ROM from Pearson on Amazon and I am able to report that indeed they will run on a Mavericks (or Mt. Lion or Lion) Mac that has Snow Leopard Server ("SLS") installed into a virtualization program (in my case Parallels), as shown here:
[click on image to enlarge]
Previous posts have described the telephone process and part number to obtain SLS from Apple for the now 95% discounted price of $20! Parallels offers a 14-day free trial download of Parallels (do not activate it until you are in possession of SLS):
http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/download/
If you need it, more detailed information on this process is available here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
Good Luck with your education!

Work-around for Exchange server? Let's chat!

Hi -
I have been reading all the questions/frustrations regarding iPhone playing nice with Exchange servers. I am desperate to get my calendar and contacts on my iPhone so how about putting our brains together and thinking about some sort of work-around?
I certainly don't have the answer but I have an idea. (I apologize if this idea has already been posted and I overlooked it.) Here goes ...
How about saving our calendars and contacts as txt files or csv files (or whatever), importing them into iCal/Address Book/Entourage and then syncing that way? Yes, this would mean that every night we would have to save the file, email it home and then sync it up when we got home ... but hey, it's better than nothin' at this point.
I am no tech-wizard-computer-guy by any stretch of the imagination. I have been toying with this method for a couple nights now to no avail. Heck, I can't even get my Entourage set up correctly so I have no idea if my idea is valid at all!
Thoughts? Ideas? Brainstorms? Suggestions?
Chalgy

"...You can set up you Exchange account as an IMAP account in Apple Mail. .."
I have no idea what this means. Sorry for my ignorance.
"...also you can set Entourage to sync Calendar/Contact with iCal and Address Book...
Fantastic. Any ideas on what sort of format I need to save my calendar in to be able to get it into Entourage?
"...Simple workarounds = but I assume you already know these?..."
I don't. That is why I am here. ; )
"...I think we need to be patient..."
But, but, but ... I can't.

Why are iCal alarms coming up with a black rectangle?

Why are iCal alarms coming up with a black rectangle? I'm running 10.3.9 and iCal v. 1.5.2. This started after I did software updates this week.
iMac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I solved it in my case by going to System Preferences>Internet & Network>QuickTime>Advanced, then clicking the checkbox to Enable Flash. I also had to quit and restart iCal.
I think the Quicktime715 update that recently came out had something to do with it.
It seems that the black box is supposed to be a movie of a vibrating alarm clock, and apparently that movie uses Flash.
I hope this fix works for you too.

Working around iCal alarm failure.

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