Syncing Calendars in Mountain Lion

Update: I’ve figured this out. The problem wasn’t with Apple at all. I was wrong to assume it was at their end, and even more wrong to assume the problem would never be fixed due to the poor state of relations between Apple and Google. I was wrong and I’m sorry.</update>

I’m having trouble with Calendar syncing in Mountain Lion. It works with multiple Google-Apps accounts, so long as they just have a single calendar apiece. Typical version 1.0 Apple junk. Maybe someday it will work,  …but given the poor relations between Apple and (anybody else who sells in a market they think of as theirs by right) I’m not going to hold my breath.

So what about a 3rd Party app to do right what Apple does wrong?

Well, back before Apple got big eyes about Cloud based calendaring and documents, I used to use BusyCal to do what Apple didn’t do at all. Maybe it will work now?

Per instructions mailed out a few days after the Mountain Lion release, I did a reset of BusyCal (electing not reset the sync history) and then did the following:

1. Quit Apple’s Calendar.app.

2. Create an event in BusyCal. Cmd+R to sync with the cloud.Cal sync testing 01crop

3. Switch to G-calendar and verify the event got there.Cal sync testing 02crop

4. In G-calendar, change the time of the event.Cal sync testing 03crop

5. Go back to BusyCal and Cmd+R to refresh. Verify the new time.Cal sync testing 04crop

6. Go back to G-cal and change the event’s calendar to different calendar owned by the same G-apps account.Cal sync testing 05crop

7. Go to BusyCal and verify the change was made.Cal sync testing 07crop

8. In BusyCal, change the event’s calendar to a different calendar owned by a different G-apps account.Cal sync testing 08crop

9. Go to G-calendar and verify the change. At this point, there was a period (about 0:30-1:00?) during which a browser refresh showed duplicate events.Cal sync testing 09crop

(An irritating feature of G-cal is that they switch views from week to month and reset the focus to “today” w/ multiple refreshes. I don’t know if that’s default behavior or a Lab creates it/ can fix it/ whatever.) But after a brief period, G-calendar figured out what to do and the above test was verified.Cal sync testing 10crop

So BusyCal is clearly doing its job. No problem. Awesome product. It’s been working properly for me since at least Leopard and IIRC(?) Tiger.

Next: but that’s just the desktop and the cloud. What about my iDevices?

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