Weekly repeating events show in duplicate on phone

[Michael Graubart]

System: iPhone 3G synced with Mac mini with OS 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion)

I have a number of events that recur weekly. In Calendar on my computer they appear singly, but on my phone they appear twice on each date. On the phone, one of the appearances on a particular date can be edited (and therefore deleted if necessary), but the other has no 'Edit' button at all.

I thought that maybe this had something to do with selecting double alerts, but I checked and found that I had set no alert in most cases, either on the phone or on the Mac. Another curious thing: I made a small alteration on the Mac to a punctuation mark in the name of an event and set it to be applied to all future events; after syncing, this alteration appeared on the phone in the editable entry, but not in the apparently spurious non-editable one, which therefore seems not to have been synced over from the Mac.

I append a screenshot of one of these events as it appears in Calendar on my Mac.

Where have the non-editable duplicate entries come from and how can I get rid of them? Thank you in anticipation of answers.

NB: After posting the above, I made a discovery: I had entered a repeating event and had synced. I then made some changes in it on my Mac, set them to apply to all future events, and synced again. BOTH versions appeared on my phone, the original version no longer editable or removable! This appears to be the cause of my problem. How can I remove the unwanted ones? And how can I prevent this happening in the future?

 

[Michael Graubart]

I have now found a simple solution that has worked for me. This problem seems to depend so much on the combination of various circumstances that it may not work for others, but in case it does, here it is.


My circumstances are that I do not use iCloud (my iPhone 3G is too old anyway to work with iCloud) or MobilMe, etc., but just use iTunes and connect my phone to my Mac with its cable. I do not use invitations, etc., but I do connect to my three e-mail accounts. Most third-party apps. for removing events will not work with my old G3 phone and iOS 4.2.1.


Despite its age, my phone is a recent acquisition and at first I had great problems with syncing. I eventually spent seven hours on my landline phone being talked through a very long series of attempts at various different settings by a very good, patient Apple Advisor who eventually solved my syncing problems.The result was that, both on the phone's and on the Mac's Calendar I had my usual 13 calendars, but also 13 more with the same names but with btinternet (my usual ISP) and Caldav added. They were all selected.


This was my procedure for getting rid of unwanted events on my phone:


1. On the Mac in iTunes, uncheck 'Automatically sync…'.


2. Sync.


3. On the Mac, in Calendar, delete all the unwanted events.


4. On the Mac in iTunes, on the Info page, uncheck 'All calendars' and check 'Selected calendars'.


5. On the Mac, check only the 13 calendars without 'btinternet' (or whatever your ISP is) and 'Caldav'. Make sure that none of the latter is checked.


6. On the Mac, at the foot of the Info page in iTunes, select Advanced/Replace information on this iPhone/Calendars (and Contacts and Bookmarks if desired).


7. Sync.


All the events on the phone that are not also on the Mac should have disappeared and all syncing should work.


I hope this may be of some help to others.