My iPhone calendar will not sync with Outlook 2007

Okay, after reading a bunch of Forums, this is what finally worked for me. May not solve everyone's issue, but it looks good so far for my issue. I was not able to sync every appointment. I was only getting appointments sent by other people and recurring appointments. mhamilton11 directed me to download the Microsoft Live Maps Add-in for Outlook via the following address:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/de...

Then, using the control panel remove software function, I promptly uninstalled it. I then rebooted my computer and re-synced with iTunes. I can now see my other appointments.

I had also scanned and repaired my pst folders and checked to make sure that anything saved to the folder was using the IPM designation versus WebEx.

Maybe others will have luck with this information as well. It came from mhamilton11 here. For some reason I couldn't quote him, but I'm new here, so I haven't figured it all out yet.

A Solution to iPhone Sync issues:

Finally I've solved my issues of the iPhone (and iTunes) not being able to see (or sync with) my contacts. I advise everyone make sure they are using a Unicode version of their PST file. Even if you are running Outlook 2007 you may still be utilizing a non-unicode PST (this is the file format of all pre-Outlook 2003 data files).

See this document for info on converting your file (I found the best method was to import my info into a new Outlook file):
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.ht...

Determine the format of your PST file:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/out...
Convert your PST file:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/out...

First create a new (Unicode) PST, make that your default data file via the File/Data File Management selection. Remove the data file that had been your default data file, then import your data from the data file you removed. (to be safe I quit Outlook and restarted after each of the steps above).

I lost my filter rules and master category list (with colors) after doing this, but that shouldn't be too hard to rebuild.

Best of luck,

Steve

I too and at my wits end trying to get syncing with Outlook 2007 to work.....Strangely, ever once in a while it kind of works....my calendar will update...or my conacts will dissappear off the iPhone, never to be replaced....I cannot believe that this isn't being resolved. The other thing that concerns me is that I called Apple for support twice and neither Genius was aware of the problem and thought that they could fix it. to no avail...in fact, the last one said he would get a fix and call me back in a few hours...that was 5 days ago. I like the iPhone but without this working, it is just a toy.

This feature has been replaced in Outlook 2007 with a diagnostic fuction, in case you can't find it.

Damn. Steve's post was the most helpful but I still cant sync. There must be a field in my Calander data that is blocking this and I am struggling to find it. If I can't today, the iPhone is going back - what a load of rubbish it is!

Hi,

Having installed iTunes 7.7 and buying the new iPhone 3G. I had a problem where all contacts sync perfectly, but the Calendar was missing. (In fact, iTunes did not detect any calendars in the INFO tab, during a sync).

After struggling for a while, I exported the entire Calendar to a .pst file (FILE > EXPORT). Then changed the view in Calendar to VIEW ALL and deleted all items, then tested with one appointment, it worked!!!!

Having done this, the sync worked, and didn't take an age to run through the sync process. I then imported all items back in to the calendar again (FILE > IMPORT), and moved all items pre-2008 to a seperate calendar. This has sorted the problem, and a 2-way sync is now possible!! Success..... a very annoying problem.

(There were various intermediate steps, that are not worth noting!!!)

Happy to answer any questions!

Windows XP Pro - SP3 : iTunes 7.7 : iPhone 3G : Outlook 2007

I had the same problem and fixed it like so: Create a new calendar in outlook. Name it whatever you choose. Export current calendar to file using comma separated values (windows). Import that file to new calendar and then sink to iphone. In the info section of Itunes select sync calendar to your new calendar. It will now sync back and forth. If you uncheck your previous calandar in the sync box, it will no longer appear in your Iphone and it will become your primary. This worked for me for both me and my wifes phones.

Mine also does this. I have an iPod Touch that I use as my planner also. It worked perfectly until I updated to iTunes 7.7. I did not upgrade to iPod 2.0, I am still running 1.4. The contacts sync with no problem. The calendar syncs from PC to iPod also with no problem. The appointments created on the iPod however do not sync correctly (this is what I use to make 99% of my appointments, as I am normally not home when I set them).

In order to go back to iTunes 7.6 I have to redo my itunes library. I don't want to do that.

I tried creating a new calendar, this didn't remedy the problem.

I have reinstalled both outlook and iTunes. No Luck

Deleted "Home" Calendar and chose the regular calendar in iTunes... Nothing.

Disabled all outlook add-ins...Nothing

After digging through outlook, I found that they actually ARE syncing to outlook just fine. They just will not display on the calendar view. If I choose "view" "active appointments" they show up. I can edit them and the change appears on my iPod, if I delete them, they are deleted on my iPod. All settings are the same as my other appointments, but for whatever reason they do not show up on the monthly, weekly or daily calendar view. This is problematic when I am trying to plan my day. Also If I am home and use my pc to book an appointment I risk double booking as it doesn't alert me of an overlap.

If Someone knows how to make these appear in the calendar view then I think this might solve the problem (for me at least).

I'm having a similar issue. The new firmware update created two calendars on my iPhone, an Outlook calendar and a home calendar. The iPhone defaulted all of my appointments to the home calendar, and now none of the appointments will sync with Outlook on my computer. I've tried creating a home calendar in Outlook on my computer, and it still won't sync. I create all of my appointments using my iPhone, so this is a big problem. I need to be able to back up my appointments on my computer. Since I have several years of appointments stored, simply re-entering the appointments into the Outlook calendar on my iPhone is not an option. I only want one calendar, not two. Does anyone have a solution?

I'm really disappointed with how Apple set this up. During the firmware update, all appointments should have either defaulted to the Outlook calendar, or the iPhone should have given us the option of which calendar we wanted the appointments to sync with.

I am also coping with the problem as last reported by David, which I observe on my system exactly as he described,

Here is an added twist. I noted today that an appointment that was originally created on my PC, and which was subsequently synced with the iPhone, showed itself properly as a meeting notice alarm on the iPhone. I clicked on the alarm, and later today I synced again with the PC. That appointment has now disappeared on the weekly or monthly calendar display, but still shows on the list of appointments. It looks to me that not only appointments created on the iPhone, but those where some action, or editting is made on the iPhone, are vulnerable to this problem.

I haven't been able to find any data field in the errant appointments that appear to directly correlate to the damaged ones, but it does appear that those records typically show a much smaller SIZE field(approx. 1KB) than all of the other, properly displayed appointments (typically about 7KB). I don't have the skills or resources to research that any further, but I think it should be easily repeatable and able to be diagnosed by Apple and/or Microsoft. This problem appears to be widespread, so I'm optomistic it can be acknowledged and resolved.

OK. I was having the exact problem described by vicw and RB. Appointments created on my iPhone 3G or just acknowledged on my iPhone disapeared from Calender view in Outlook 2007. I used the solution described by Cker but just cretaed a new Calendar (called iPhone) in Outlook 2007 and manually copied my appointments over. I did not have too many appointments and Outlook can present both calendars in the same view and you can drag and drop. So far, my iPhone is syncing 2 ways and all appointmnents made or changed on the phone are properly apperaing in Outlook.

Good luck.

interesting the word "outlook" syncs seemlessly as a task despite everything else going. Interested to know if this works for anyone else. I can set each task to repeat every year and that also is a tempt fix. for me, it's historical events that disappear, not ones in the future. It's like when the time has passed, they go. It's nuts, it's VERY annoying, I've spend ages on the phone and noone at iphone seems to have bothered to read this strand.

(XPSP2, iTunes 7.7, Outlook 2003, iPhone 2.0)
This problem appeared for me when I updated to iPhone software 2.0. Why are there 2 calendars listed in iTunes now? I only have/need/want one. But that's minor. My iPhone now only seems to sync reocuring tasks from Outlook. After spending 2 hours with a support guy at the Apple Store, still no luck. I've Restored the phone, reinstalled iTunes and resynced a hundred times. I used to love my iPhone...

(Vista, iTunes 7.7, Outlook 2007, iPhone 2.0)

It sounds like we have a bunch of different problems and I'm not sure if anyone has my exact issue:

- Outlook shows up in Info tab in iTunes
- Sync is confirmed by iTunes with iPhone
- everything is seemingly fine, but on my iPhone.. nothing shows up

I tried creating a new PST and importing an old PST, but still no luck. Any ideas? Thanks!

This is exactly the situation I am having with iTunes 7.7, Outlook 2007 and iPhone 2.0 under Windows XP Professional SP3.

The sync takes forever, shows that it completed and nothing is on the iPhone. I worked my way through the Apple troubleshooting documents that get you to recreate all of your appointments in a new PST so they are in Unicode format, but it didn't fix the problem.

Same problem - iTunes 7.7, Outlook 2007,, Windows Vista Business.

Sync happens pretty fast, but no updates from calendars (recurring or otherwise) and contacts make their way onto the iPhone. Prior calendar entries and contacts show up as is, no problem. But new ones created in Outlook dont.

I have spent many hours on the phone with support and have tried all the solutions. I am tired of trying to fix this problem. I waited for the new iphone and what a disappointment. Another glitch that got past testing....before hitting the market.....need some sleep

Well, the problem occured when I updated to itunes 7.7. I had NO problems before that. I uninstalled microsoft office and itunes. I wiped all of their folders and other misc. stuff I could find. I reinstalled MS office and itunes 7.6. (NOTE: Installing itunes 7.7 changes your music library file so that 7.6 can no longer read it.) So I did add folder and added all my music again making a brand new library. The problem is still there. When I opened itunes it opens a windows installer and downloads the itunes add in for outlook. The appointments will go from outlook to ipod with no problem. From ipod to outlook, they are there, Just won't show up in calendar. OH...they do show up in calendar at first, But after restarting outlook it dissapears.

I have given up. I disabled the sync to outlook. I now work exclusively from my ipod for scheduling. When apple fixes it, I guess I'll re-enable the sync. Until then...

JAYPEMA worked for me.

See above. It's radical but it works.

I went one step further. I haven't imported the pst. It's sitting on my desktop waiting for Iphone to fix the problem.

If you're willing to let your calendar history sit in another file for a while, it's worth it, to stop the anguish.

I tried to do all of these suggestions last night and none of them worked for me. However, what did work and this is a pain, was after I deleted all of my appointments, I re-entered them manually again.
Bill R

Got it fixed. You just have to delete all your calendar items. The good news is, my iPhone already had a lot of the recurring appointments (maybe all) such as birthdays that were going to be the pain to restore, and the first sync put them all back on automatically.

Just export your calendar into DOS CSV format before you delete everything. Then I printed out (about 5 pages) the list view of the calendar so I could recreated if needed. Deleted everything, restarted Outlook, synced again, and I'm back in business.

thank you to all the people who are offering solutions. The trouble is, some of us have outlook 2003, and some 2007 and the problems are similar but by no means the same. I sure hope the fix is for both versions. I upgraded to iTunes 7 and had no sync problems intil the iPhone 2.0 update. I love the new features, but I use my calendar everyday! at first, my only problem was that new appointments I added wouldn't sync. I kept everything else in calendar intact. Then I tried the various fixes that abound on this site, and I actually lost the calendar data already on my phone (reset sync history, then chose to override info on my iphone with the data on my computer since I knew that it was correct) then zip, nada, on my iphone calendar.

tried everything before deleting all the calendar entries but finally did it and it seems to be working now.

I think I may have found a solution to this problem. First I went to the Outlook navigation pane where you can see 2 calendars, 1 called "Calendar" and the other called "Home." I right-clicked on "Home" and deleted it. Then I went to ITunes, clicked on the "Info" heading, scrolled down to "Advanced" and chose "Calendars" under "Replace information on this iPhone." Then I synced and the "Home" calendar was eliminated on both the phone and my computer. Now the remaining calendar syncs perfectly both ways!

I too am having the same problem of not being able to sync my calendar with my iPhone. Has anyone tried Mobile ME with any success? I'd appreciate any input. I really want to get this to work!!

I believe that I found the cure:
It is all about the *pst file in Outlook
i-tunes 7.7.0.43
i-pod touch 2.0
outlook 2002
Windows XP

I had exactly the same problem. I don't know why contacts sync without problem and calendar does not. I also have no problems syncing the same Outlook entries with my BlackBerry...

This is how I successfully cured the glitch.

1. Go to i-Tunes and reset Sync History, close i-Tunes.
2. Check Time and Date in Outlook to confirm same settings with your I-pod touch or i-phone
3. Find your *.pst file that holds all of your exchange date
4. It should be called "Outlook.pst" and should reside in the folder C:\\Documents and Settings\USERNAME (whatever your name or the name of your organization)\Application\Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst.
5. If you can't locate this file, do a new calendar entry, close outlook and search for *.pst. The one file with the newest date is the file you want - wherever it might might reside. Save this file to a directory, where you can find it again and copy it to the directory above.
6. Save to a secure place any *.pst file you found.
7. Don't worry all files are still there - to rebuild your Outlook Calendar
8. Open Outlook and if it prompts that it cannot find the file, direct it to your outlook.pst in the directory quoted above.
9. At this time you might also want to put the backup.pst in the same directory - and do a backup in outlook. Remember all the files are still save, wherever you put them
10. After you found that all your calendar entries are in tact - and outlook knows where to find them - you might want to add a "new test date - like "breakfast" two days down the road.
11. Open i-Tunes, connect your i-Phone, i-Pod touch and open the device.
12. Go to Info and uncheck any other sync than calendar (Photo, Contacts, mail accounts)
13. Scroll to advanced and check Replace information Calendars
14. Check "all Calendars" and do a "Sync"
15. Open your i-Phone / i-Pod touch an and go to calendars. You might end up with two calendars. One should be empty and one should ave all of your Outlook calendar entries. Check for the one, that you put in as a test. You don't have to keep Outlook open during the sync!
16. I'm still trying to figure out, how to delete / or close the empty calendar, but that should not be the major concern, as long as you have all your appointments transferred from Outlook.

Couple of hours spent, Apple still has not come up with an explanation or fix, though it worked for me. It is all in the *pst file!

I have Vista and Outlook 2007... I finally after hours of my life I won't get back and much frustration called a computer tech. He came out and phoned Apple... and there is not a fix at this time for Vista/Outlook 2007 so I was just pushing a rope. Got my Blackberry reactivated as I have no .pst files... to even try the fix you all are lucky with. So when Apple figures it out since this was obviously not ready for prime time, I'll try it again. I am not willing to be this frustrated over a phone anymore. Thanks to all of you who are still plugging at it. Melissa

Just curious - did anyone here call Apple. I got iPhone 2.0 the weekend it first came out. I called them a few days later and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about! Then I called them again a couple of days ago and guess what? They were suddenly fully aware of it.

The first guy told me hundreds of thousands of people had been affected. He also said that people on Windows XP seem to have trouble syncing contacts. Vista owners have trouble syncing the calendar. I have Vista and can't sync with my calendar.

I've tried almost everything you guys mentioned above. I would caution anyone about trying any of these solutions as several of them include steps that could cause the loss of certain features in Outlook. For instance, exporting the calendar to a text file, .csv or Windows text, etc. as some have suggested above, will cause the loss of several important features. For instance the Outlook calendar, once you reimport from these formats will no longer contain any recurring events. That's just one of several things that might be lost. Also, you have to specify a start date and end date for the calendar. So you may lose some things as well if you don't choose the dates wisely.

YOU MUST BACKUP YOUR OUTLOOK DATA FILE (usually outlook.pst) BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT ANY OF THE STEPS MENTIONED HERE! Please remember, none of these steps are officially offered by Apple or Microsoft. They are offered by regular people who may or may not be aware of some of the consequences of the steps they have recommended.

Not to demean any of you - you've all been very helpful. But I just know that some of the things you've recommended have consequences that you didn't mention.

We'd be wise to let Apple FIX this problem. One of the support people I spoke to tried to blame Microsoft! She said it's something on the Microsoft side. I then reminded her that my old PC phone synced perfectly every time. And that it was Apple's responsibility to make sure its product worked with Outlook before advertising that it did.

BOTTOM LINE: If Apple doesn't get this fixed within 30 days of the time I purchased my phone I'm going to have to return the phone. I love it. But sorry AAPL... I can't live without my calendar.

While I appreciate your sentiment, the bottom line is a bit BS. Yeah, nobody posting here is from Apple or MS. And guess what? Apple and MS don't care about you. I'm an independent IT consultant, and this is exactly what I do all day, every day, to pay my mortgage. I'm not a "regular person." I make more money per hour fixing Apple's and MS's problems and subsequent lack of support than any idiot slacker you're going to talk to if you call MS yourself. And there's a good reason for that - because I know more than the support people do about their product.

This has been a problem for almost a full year now, from what I've read in trying to fix it myself. So while giving Apple another 30 days to fix it is nice, it's not going to solve anything. You seem very impressed with Apple's tech support, but they don't appear to have solved the problem for you. Seems like your problem was fixed by reading the solutions posted by others here.

Bottom line - yeah back up your data. But this is how you fix the problem, so if you want calendar syncing, do it. I can't believe you'd sit there and wait for the not forthcoming fix, while there is one staring you in the face with minimal, and well understood side effects. Pretty dumb.

Hmm.

David's point above that the iPhone created appointments are appearing as appointments applies to me running Outlook 2007 (Vista). It seems like it's not moving an appointment into the calendar until they're "accepted". This looks more like some missing steps in iTunes 7.7's use of syncing (if new meeting; it should create, then accept the appointment for you within Outlook) than a problem with Outlook or the iPhone.

Cameron's point is only interesting if by deleting *all* items he enables complete two-way syncing for Outlook 07. Since my calendar was brand new two weeks ago, I'm somewhat dubious that "delete everything and recreate it" is a decent long term strategy.

Interestingly Google Sync copies this set of unconfirmed appointments into my Google Calendar, which is all I actually need since it's my main source of calendar info; but it does seem like a high-class untested mess up by Apple (then again, given the slowdown caused by what are presumably memory leaks on the phone, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised).

I'm all about practical solutions, and using these posts have a functional calendar that is syncing with iPhone 3G, iTunes 7.7 and Outlook 2007 by using the export/import to DOS .csv file algorithm outlined above, then making sure that every calendar item I will be entering or altering in the iPhone is a recurring appointment, even if it is just a one-day recurrence and regardless of whether I enter it in the iPhone or Outlook. This is a pain, since there are a couple of extra steps when you enter or alter calendar items as recurring appointments, but when done they consistently show up in the day/week/month view of Outlook. Also, be sure your Office and Outlook service packs are up to date. It's worked through multiple days and entries so far. Ofcourse, I'm waiting (and waiting) for word from Apple &/or MS about a real fix, but life goes on in the meanwhile and I don't have a lot of spare time to play with this mess.

I've had the original iPhone for 7 months, no problems with sync using Outlook 2007/Vista. After iTunes 7.7, appointments created on the iPhone don't appear in the calendar view of Outlook after sync. They are in Outlook, though - look in the 'linear' list of appointments. If the appointment is saved on the iPhone as a recurring event ending on the same day it started (just one instance) - it appears in Outlook after sync. Argggghhhh.

Thanks giorgitid, for providing a succinct and accurate description of the same problem I am experiencing with calendar syncing, and for providing what appears to be a useable workaround for that problem, until Apple provides a proper solution. It worked for me, at least for the moment.

I had decided to just avoid entering new appointments on the iPhone, rather than create a mess with recurring appointments - not realizing that it is possible to enter an appointment that recurs daily, but begins and ends on the same day. That technique seems to work, although it does take a few extra steps on the entry to assure that the start and end date are really the same.

I know there are an array of issues on this thread that are all jumbled together here, but regarding this specific problem, I believe there is no true fix or solution that we can develop here, and I fully believe it will take the resources of Apple to fully solve this problem.

Well, I kept my appointment at the apple Genius bar just to find out what their thinking is and I was offered a "new" phone with the older software (the one just before 2.0). They also offered that they are now fully aware of the problem and will have "fix" within a week. Since I have a workable calendar now (thanks to the nice people on this forum), and I have spent many hours in trying all the solutions, I politely declined thier offer. Just thought I'd let everyone know that this option is out there. My "genius" also said that I could google the old software 1.1.4 and reinstall it. It would have been tempting to do that if I hadn't already spent so much time at a workaround solution already, but for those who haven't the inclination to import and export calendar files, it might be a viable options.

Well, I kept my Genius Bar appointment, too. No help. My genius claims that Apple is aware, but had no specific knowledge of a plan to fix iTunes. He did suggest resetting the sync history (in iTunes, under the Preferences / Sync), but also thought that backing up Outlook 1st was a good idea, so we didn't try it in the store. Anyone try the 'sync history reset' to try to solve this problem? He also suggested going to iPhone 2.0, but there seems to be a regular stream of complaints, so I'm not going there yet. Learned my lesson with early adoption of iTunes 7.7!

interesting that your problem syncing began with iTunes...apple is saying that the problem is with iphone 2.0. (in fact, I had no problem before updating to 2.0). But I have outlook 2003. I think the problems are different with the different versions of outlook or Microsoft operating systems.

Unbelievably, there was a HUGE line waiting to get into the Apple store to buy the new iphone....guess not everyone knows the problems yet. I would have thought sales would be affected.

I am pretty disillusioned about apple right now. :(

I no longer have "Home" calendar on my iPhone....it simply diappeared during one of the "fixes" on the apple website. What did you do....copy all you old calendar entries to the new "home" calendar?

Like some of you, I'm having the problem of not being able to sync ANY of my calendar items from Outlook 2007 to my phone. (Vista Home Premium SP1 - iTunes 7.7 - iPhone 3G.) The "sync" takes forever but no data is transferred to my phone. iTunes doesn't even seem to detect any calendars on my computer since all that shows in the Calendars section on the INFO tab is "Outlook." There are no choices in the box under Selected Calendars.

During a call to myiphone several days ago, the tech had me create a new User Account on my PC. In that new User Account, I set up Outlook and added two items to the clean calendar to test a theory he had. He thought special characters (like "&") in my appointment titles may be holding up the sync. That turned out not to be the case since it still didn't sync with those characters taken out, BUT I was able to sync as soon as I switched the two items from all day events to appointments with starting and end times.

Has anybody else had any experience or heard of anything like this? I was in the process of changing all of my all day events to shorter appointments when I came across this site. I'd rather not do all that just to find out it has no impact--in addition to the fact that I'd rather see it as an all day event on my Outlook calendar as intended.

I checked for the "Home" calendar in Outlook as referenced in dean's reply above and SWTorrey's note yesterday, but I don't see one--perhaps because I'm using Outlook 2007? I'm about to follow jaypema's & Cker's recommendations from a week ago, but also wanted to hear if anyone else was experiencing problems allegedly due to all day events in your calendars.

From: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1692

I'm using Outlook 2003 and this worked for me.

1. Reset the sync history,
2. Remove all of the information from calendar (after backing it up by exporting it into a .csv file)
3. Select the device in iTunes and click the Info tab.
4. Scroll down to the Advanced section and under "Replace information on this iPhone/iPod" make sure Contacts and Calendars are *not* selected.
5. Click Apply.

Reset Sync History

If you find that some of your data syncs to your iPhone or iPod touch, but you see an unexpected number of changes or modifications, you may need to reset your sync history. This causes iTunes to prompt to Merge or Replace information on the device when you next attempt to sync your information. To reset your Sync History:

1. Open iTunes.
2. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
3. Click the Syncing tab.
4. Click the Reset Sync History button.

If the issue continues and you know all of the data is on the computer:

1. Reset the Sync History again using the steps above.
2. Select the device in iTunes and click the Info tab.
3. Scroll down to the Advanced section and under "Replace information on this iPhone/iPod" select Contacts and/or Calendars.
4. Click Apply.

If the issue continues and you know all of the data is on the iPhone or iPod touch:

1. Reset the Sync History again using the steps above.
2. Remove all of the contact and calendar information from Outlook.
3. Select the device in iTunes and click the Info tab.
4. Scroll down to the Advanced section and under "Replace information on this iPhone/iPod" make sure Contacts and Calendars are not selected.
5. Click Apply.

Outlook 2003/iPhone 3G v2.0 Synch Troubleshooting

PROBLEMS
(I) iPhone 3g (2.0) synchronizes Outlook 2003 Contacts but not Calendar. No error message appeared. (Also, I think in my iTunes 7.7 Info's Calendar section had no item at all in the box area under "Selected calendars" -- i.e., that box was totally empty.)

(II) After finally successfully synchronizing my Phone 3g (2.0) with my Outlook 2003 Calendar, new events entered (or modified) on the iPhone's calendar would not show in Outlook 2003's Day/Week/Month view but did show in Outlook's "By Category" and other table views plus in the "Outlook Today" view.

ENVIRONMENT
Outlook 2003 (SP2); Windows XP Pro (SP3), 3G iPhone (v2.0), iTunes 7.7

SOLUTION - Problem I
Changing my Outlook pst file structure from the old pre-Outlook 2003 structure to the newer, Unicode structure first available but not required in Outlook 2003.

My Outlook 2003 data file (.pst file) was still in the old non-Unicode format called “Personal Folders file (97-2002)” because I used to have Outlook 2000 and continued to use the pst file it created even after upgrading to Outlook 2003. Determine your .pst file's format by starting Outlook and right-clicking the "Personal Folders" (top-most heading in your data) and choosing Properties, then Advanced: read "Format" type.

The old pst file structure does not use “Unicode” and therefore is incompatible with the iPhone calendar. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1324

CONVERT YOUR PST TO UNICODE TYPE "Personal Folders"
(1) BACK UP YOUR CURRENT PST FILE!!!!! Don't even think of messing with it until you've done this!!!!
(2) Close Outlook and move your pst file somewhere else so Outlook can’t find it.
(3) Start Outlook 2003 and when it complains that it can’t find your .pst file and prompts for its location, type a new file name and specify a location (and observe/confirm it shows "format"/type as "Personal Folders," which is the newer Unicode pst type -- NOT "Personal Folders (1997-2002)").
(4) With Outlook open and your new empty pst data file visible, FILE/OPEN your old PST file with all the data (proceed passed the Outlook warning prompt about your old pst file being in the old non-Unicode environment). You now have TWO pst files open: the empty new one above and full old one below.
(5a) Drag your old email, tasks, notes to their corresponding folders in the new PST file BUT NOT YOUR CALENDAR ITEMS YET (e.g., drag sent email from your old pst file's Sent folder to your new pst's Sent folder; drag the contents, NOT THE FOLDERS); but do drag unique folders in your old pst to the new pst file (e.g., "unresolved complaints" FOLDER in your old Inbox to the new Inbox; or if on the same level as the Inbox, drag it to the new "Personal Folders" parent).
(5b) Right-click the old "Personal Folders parent folder" below your new one and choose "Close..."
(6) Create one new test calendar appointment in your new Outlook calendar.
(7) Start iTunes and go to Edit Preferences/Syncing and RESET Sync history. I also recommend under your iPhone's SUMMARY section UNchecking "automatically" sync until the dust settles from all of this.
(8) Synchronize! Check your iPhone for that one test calendar entry you entered in your new and nearly empty Outlook calendar.
(9) If the test entry is there, go to Outlook, and re-open your old Outlook data file as in step #4, then click on your old Calendar and change the Outlook view (View menu/Arrange By/Current View) to "By category" in order to display your old calendar items in a table view and by category.
IF NOT, HELL IF I KNOW, it worked for my and I'm burned out on this.
(10) Drag over a few recently entered NON-RECURRING appointments from your old Calendar to your new PST file's Calendar, then CLOSE the old Outlook data file again, then go to iTunes and sync again and check your iPhone's Calendar.
(11) If they're there, get ready to drag way more NON-RECURRING calendar items to the new calendar within Outlook, but do this first: scroll through the table view of your old Calendar and delete any weird events (with strange symbols instead of readable text) and empty events; consider only dragging newish calendar entries (I did 2 years worth) to the new calendar but I recommend only drag about 6-months at a time between re-syncing and re-checking your iPhone;
(12) Instead of dragging RECURRING events from the old pst to the new within Outlook, RECREATE THEM in the new Outlook Calendar; look at (and better yet print) your old Calendar's recurring appointments in your old PST after OPENING THE OLD PST AGAIN, and after grouping them together in the convenient table view by changing Outlook Calendar view to "by Recurring Appointments" instead of "By Category."
(13) Right-click the old "Personal Folders parent folder" below your new one and choose "Close..."
NOTE: CONSIDER KEEPING THE OLD PST FILE AS AN ARCHIVE OF THE OLDER CALENDAR ITEMS YOU DID NOT BRING OVER TO THE NEW PST, IF ANY; AND CONSIDER RENAMING THAT OLD PST FILE TO "OLD-CALENDAR.PST" OR "ARCHIVE.PST" OR SOMETHING DESCRIPTIVE LIKE THAT. REMEMBER, you also have your backup of the original old pst somewhere else, right?!
(14) Close Outlook, wait a minute or so, then restart Outlook and make sure it looks fine. Make sure your iPhone Calendar looks fine. Recreate your Outlook email accounts within Outlook if necessary (e.g., if you deleted your outlook Profile at any point and subsequently selected "with no email support" ).
(15) Put a horse's head in the bed of Apple iPhone's Quality Assurance (QA) Manager and retrain the pissy Apple phone techs to not blame Microsoft whenever they're stumped.

SOLUTION/Workaround - Problem II
(calendar events created on my iPhone are invisible in Outlook's Day/Week/Month view but visible in Outlook calendar's table views, such as "By Category.")

Though some people posted online solutions involving exporting their Outlook calendars to CSV then importing the CSV back (and re-configuring recurring event settings lost during the CSV transition), this did not seem pertinent to my problem, since all my Outlook calendar items created in Outlook already appeared properly in all Outlook views and on my iPhone 3G. I therefore tried another suggested workaround posted by someone else that requires an extra step on the iPhone whenever creating (or modifying) event on the iPhone v2.0 UNTIL APPLE FIXES iPhone v2.0 software and/or iTunes 7.7 synchronizing software.

On the iPhone 3G, when creating a new calendar entry (or modifying an existing calendar entry) do this extra step: change the event's "Repeat"setting from "never" to "yearly" AND the setting "End Repeat" from "never" to THE SAME DATE AS THE EVENT you just created (this prevents the event from actually recurring).

OPTIONAL: open the iPhone-created event in Outlook's calendar after synchronizing then click "remove recurrence" ; this isn't necessary since the event won't recur anyway, but it cleans it up a little.

Based on the numerous online postings about this, the problem seems to be with iPhone v2.0's calendar's handling of the "repeat" field (a.k.a. "recurrence" field) even and especially when no repeat is specified. The workaround sets the field in a way detectable by Outlook in its day/week/month view (the table view always shows the such events).

Microsoft has online Knowledge Base documents about this problem (events invisible in Outlook's day/week/month view but visible in table views and the Outlook Today view for events created programily (spelling?); this issue seems to have cropped up for programmers screwing with calendar data in Exchange Server environments but sure seems relevant for Apple's own sucky sunk sync programmers.

TROUBLESHOOTING
I tried nearly all the troubleshooting suggestions I read on a few excellent online message boards that were filling with painful postings about these iPhone 3G sync problems. I also found the solution to my first problem and the workaround to my second on these same boards.

Here are posted suggestions I tried that didn't help:

- reinstall iTunes cleanly (tried it, didn't help)

- run "detect and repair" within Outlook (didn't help)

- export the entire PST file to another PST, (didn't help) then create a Unicode PST and import everything back from the export-PST (this is a highly unstable method opposed by at least one Microsoft MVP message-board contributor because it's buggy and often causes Outlook to create dreaded "Recovered Personal Folder" corruption, which was my experience); removing the horrid "Recovered Personal Folder" entries within Outlook required deleting the Outlook PROFILE(s) via the Windows "Mail" Control Panel then creating a new Profile.

- move the existing pst file to Microsoft's default location (c:\documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook) (didn't help). This didn't make sense to me, though I tried it, since iTunes 7.7 successfully found the pst for synching Contacts. I could imagine, though, how perhaps Apple programmers coded correctly for syncing Contacts in a pst located anywhere but screwed up and coded only the MS default path to the pst for Calendar synching; this seemed extremely unlikely but I tried moving my pst to the default path -- didn't help.

- disable Outlook add-ins etc that might conflict with iTunes (didn't help)
This didn't make sense to me since Outlook does not need to be running during iTunes synchronization. When Outlook isn’t running, neither is any of its plug-ins, add-ins etc., ergo they can’t interfere when they aren't running. Therefore, they aren't causing the synch problem. CAVEAT: make sure Outlook REALLY isn't running by checking the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) for Outlook.exe. Outlook for years has had a problem of not totally exiting. If you see Outlook.exe listed under Process within Task Manager, click it once then click the "End Process Button." (P.S. This is why I installed the wonderful $5 Outlook Shutdown add-in from Daveswebsite.com.)

- run scanpst.exe to fix PST file corruption.
Scanpst.exe is the free MS program installed with every Office installation but buried in subfolders; search your hard drive for scanpst.exe but beware, IF YOU EVER HAD OLDER (or newer-but-subsequently-removed) VERSIONS OF OFFICE installed on your PC you may find two or more scanpst.exe files of different sizes and creation dates. Make sure to use the scanpst.exe file for YOUR CURRENT version of Outlook because upgrading Office still leaves the old scanpst.exe file behind. I had two different-size scanpst.exe files on my PC: one dated 1998 and one dated 2005; obviously, the 2005 one corresponded to Outlook 2003, NOT the older one. To complicate matters, I had been regularly using the older one and getting away with it because my active .pst file was still in the older file structure “Personal Folders file (97-2002)” instead of the newer (Unicode) “Personal Folders file.” When I ran the older scanpst.exe on my newly created Unicode pst, it always claimed it found errors and repaired them but actually corrupted my new Unicode PST file. Running the correct (newer) scanpst.exe after again creating a new Unicode PST file revealed no errors.

- bail on Outlook and use MobileMe instead I like this idea but found proliferating complaints online about horrid MobileMe problems, plus I don't like important aspects of MobileMe.

- use Outlook but bail on using iTunes to sync calendars and instead use Google Calendar's sync Windows program, which synchronizes with Outlook Calendars well; the iPhone can't sync its own calendar with Google's (as far as I could figure out) BUT the iPhone can easily display your Google Calendar within Google on your iPhone, especially via Google's free iPhone app. I tried it, but I feel it's a kludge without also having my contacts in Google. Still, this is a realistic workaround since iTunes could continue to sync Contacts but not Calendars, leaving the latter to Google sync.

BIG PICTURE CONCLUSIONS

(1) Web-based Contact management is the future except for people concerned with high-security. Google Calendar/Docs, MobileMe and Salesforce.com are all promising.

(2) Synchronization is NOT difficult programming, therefore Apple must not be using its best (or even decent) programmers or QA testers on it. Palm synchronization never had this non-Unicode/Unicode pst sync issue in my 10 years of using it and neither does Google's free sync program for Windows. If Palm (and Chupura) and Google can write synchronization apps that work without finagling, Apple has no excuse except for bone-headed dipsh#tery and pimply premature hubris.

(4) I probably swore more in the last 3 days working on this issue than in the last 3 years. iPhone 2.0 is no doubt causing an exponential increase in swearing. Now is also a good time to invest in manufacturers of Apple-programmer/QA tester voodoo dolls.

(5) Apple loves the bleeding edge of technology but can get away with it because its evangelical early-adopter base is so forgiving. Good for them and us, really. But I violated my policy of not being an early adopter because I thought the first iPhone released a year ago absorbed all that shock. I thought adding hardware capability, such as 3G and GPS, in the new iPhone would not cause bleeding-edge problems but I didn't realize iPhone 2.0 software put the iPhone back on the bleeding edge. I'll be more careful next time.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"EFF U, Apple iPhone sync programmers and Q.A. testers, you EFFING dip-@#$% loser pieces of !@#$!! How could you QA people miss these problems with this essential functionality?! Didn't you try syncing with Outlook?! You're FIRED!! Go work on Vista, where you'll fit right in."

My problem is calendar items originally created in the Iphone 2G don't synch to Outlook 2007 on my Vista machine with Itunes 7.7 if I have outlook running.

If I close out of Outlook, the iphone created calendar appointments synch just fine.

I'm also running Vista, Outlook 2007, and the latest version of iTunes. I closed out Outlook while syncing my iPhone, and many of the appointments on my iPhone (which the firmware update had put on the home calendar) copied to the Outlook calendar in Outlook. I was surprised at this, because, until the recent firmware update, Outlook had to be open on my computer or else nothing would sync between Outlook and my iPhone. I also noticed that there are a number of appointments that didn't sync to my computer. I don't really see any patterns as to why some appointments would sync and why some wouldn't. All of the appointments were created on the iPhone in the same way. Anyway, it's not a perfect fix for me, but it's definitly a start. Thanks for the posting!

SUCCESS!

I had the same problem, and spent DAYS on it. Here are the details:

I could sync Outlook contacts with no issues, but no matter what I tried I could not get one calendar appointment to show up on the iPhone. Itunes would sync, and even take a while processing "Syncing Calendar", but display no errors.

* This is an iPhone 3g, firmware 2.0.5A347
* Itunes 7.7.043
* I am a Microsoft Exchange client, so do NOT use PST files to store my mail
* Would not work with Outlook 2003 SP3 -or- Outlook 2007 SP1, -or- Entourage 2008 (Mac)
I tried everything I could find on the forums, including:
* full iPhone restore,
* Creating new Outlook profiles
* Creating new Windows User profile
* Clearing Sync History
* Uninstall / Reinstall Itunes
* Disable all third-party plug-ins in Outlook
* Set outlook security to none
* I had the appropriate plug-ins for Outlook
* Tried this all on a separate PC as well - no joy

What turned out to be causing the issue were Outlook recurring appointments which had atypical characters in the name: example

JESICA'S B-DAY<<free>>
Steve's B-day<<free>><<free>><<free>><<free>>

I have been using some sort of PDA for around a decade, and carrying a lot of these recurring appointment over for almost as long. Somewhere along the way whatever sync software (ActiveSync, PalmSync) changed the formatting of the appointment itself and generated the <> symbols. When I deleted these recurring appointments and re-synced I saw all appointments show up.

Here is what I recommend:
1. First, if you are having your mail delivered to a .PST file then please ensure that you have followed the procedure to properly format/replace your PST, along with all of the other easy suggestions related to this issue.

2. Back up your entire calendar before doing this. The easiest way for me in 2007 was to highlight the calendar in the left-pane in Outlook, click File - Save As and choose .ics as the format.
3. Click More Options. For Date Range, select Whole Calendar. For detail, select Full Details. Click the Show button and check both boxes, and save this someplace you won't lose it.
4. In your Outlook Calendar, sort the entries by clicking View - Current View - By Category. Expand as necessary and sort the entries by the "Recurrence Pattern" column. Look for any entries that contain alphanumerics or other novel characters in the titles. Delete all of these odd (remember, you have a backup) entries.
5. Open up Itunes, access Preferences - Sync tab. Click the button to reset sync history, then try to sync your iPhone again.

Any calendar entries show up? If not, delete ALL reccuring appointments and try the sync again this time. If this works, you'll need to do some more analysis on those specific appointments to see which ones are causing the issue.

Good Luck
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I have been trying to get my iPhone 3G to sync to Outlook 2003. I can get the calendar items to sync into the phone but not the other way round - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGh! It's all a bit technical for me but can someone help me in layman's terms with how to get it work??! PLLLEASE?!

Weirdly, it appears that some calendar items DID sync into Outlook previously, but it is not doing it anymore!

HELP before I tear all my hair out!

I suspect the individual software versions for all of our configurations will make pinning down an exact fix which works for all hard to find (until Apple actually fixes it, that is...) - but SO FAR, and I mean SO FAR, this seems to be working on my 2.0 firmware 2g iphone (syncing to Outlook 07):

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > New Invitation Alerts > SWITCH OFF

So far it seems to sync ok without having to do the tedious 'set recurring for 1 day' fix. Not sure why it should work, I was just reaching for a solution.

Keen to see if it helps any of you guys (hope so). I will also report back if it all goes to worms in 24hrs like many suspected magic fixes do.

just for the curious .. i tried everything you guy's posted here, i have spent thousands and thousandsof hours since i upgraded my v.1 iphone to 2.0 firmware to no avail. nothing works for me. i wanted to let you know i tried this MOBILE ME over-the-air syncing system and it DOES NOT WORK. dont even try. you will wind up having more of the same. appointments in iphone not shown in outlook nor in mobile me website and viceversa; i even synced with my laptop at home 'dreaming' it would work and it DID NOT, all appointments added/modified at home did not update in mobile me nor iphone nor office; chaos. I am going to unsuscribe right now. i have to admit i love the iphone 2.0 firmware, there are really neat applications.. but not having the calendar in the iphone makes it not worth it. I dream with activesync and the not least famous 'chapura' hotsync palm days. PLEASE FIX IT APPLE-OUTLOOK PEOPLE.

I have a fix for this problem (Hopefully it will help you out on these problems) To view the fix please visit
http://www.dionhall.com/Forum/

I'm pretty sure it will work with 07 as well!

I have added photos on how to perfom the fix!

I Don't mean to be skeptical, but this looks like a temporary band-aid, that doesn't really address or resolve the underlying software problems. Also, there are multiple problems and issues in this thread. Which one are you fixing, or do you believe this will fix them all?

I can easily sync my existing Outlook calendar to a PDA, and successfully add, delete, modify and exchange appointments from either end, without any flushing or tweaking the existing data. My contention is that Apple needs to be able to reliably accomplish that same feat, without me having to manipulate the records, either one time, or periodically to restore performance.

i dont get it. just spent6 hours trying to get my wifes new iphone to sync with outlook 2007 which cost me $250 since i thought you couldnt use 2000 which we owned. if you want to sync a calendar buy a blackberry. works right out of the box in minutes. this experience reminds me of the first palm pilots where you could lose everything. it is 2008 and apple is just ignoring the pc world. my company has 15 blackberries. if this went well we might have all had iphones. not a chance in the world after this experience. i would need a full time person to help my salesforce. if you want a toy, buy the iphone. if you want a business tool buy the blackberry.

The whole you must use outlook 07 is crap! I use both and they both work fine. This fix is for your calendar not syncing with your iPhone. It is a one time fix and you should be good to go! After the fix, i have been able to sync my calendar for 2 weeks! No problem at all!!!

John Gardner, Sorry you went out and spent the money and bought 07 (07 is cool, you just did not have to do that)

I have two computers with two iphones, One is using outlook 07, and the other is using outlook 03.

For some reason, this fixed all my problems. (Really don't understand how but it does work)

Once these fixes get sloved, the iphone is pretty sweet! I have had a PDA for years, and just recently bought the new iphone 3g and i love it! Mine worked for me right out of the box, everything synced just fine! My coworkers was the one having the probelm with the calendar not syncing. After we perfomed my fix he has had no problems at all!

You guys have to remember that the blackberry, the 8125, tilt, all had windows mobile on them, and they were designed to work with windows! The iPhone has been modify to work with windows,after all it is a Apple product!

Hang in there these problems should get resolved!

DionHall
Microsoft Geek!

I finally resolved the problem. I'm using XP and Outlook 07. Basically, after trying ALL the suggestions, I deleted everything from my calendars. I think my problem was that I had multiple calendars. Even though I emptied them, I didn't delete them. It never worked. So, deleted the extra calendars and started from scratch. Now I am able to sync again. What a relief. Definitely needed the calendar feature. A friend just purchased the new iphone and has had no luck with the MobileMe either at work or home. Wondering if the MobileMe issue is related to the internet carrier (Cox)?????????????

Thanks for everyones suggestions. It helps to know I wasn't the only one with the problem and going crazy.

I'm using 07 and XP HE SP3 plus Vista on a notebook. I've just tried Dion's suggestion and so far so good: I got a message during export warning me about changing my re-occurring appointments to individual ones, which I clicked OK to.

I am pleased to see all my appointments now showing on my normal calendar view.

Thanks to Dion for this quick fix and I'm looking forward to seeing Apple sort it all properly. Now all I need is my task list back!

I am still on the verge of handing back my iPhone and going for a BlackBerry. I’m with O2 (UK) on a long contract and reckon I could mount a strong argument that my contract has been voided because the device doesn’t do ‘what it said on the box’ when I bought it. Our consumer laws are pretty good in this area and I would be interested to hear from anyone who is pursuing this course of action.

The 'wipe/restore the Outlook calendar' approach for fixing this problem might work (I haven't tried it), but I understand that, by exporting to a non-PST file, the restored calendar loses all recurrences in appointments. True? Let's be clear - I have a 2.6G iPhone and have synced since November 2007 w/o any problems. Not other change than update to iTunes 7.7 - this is where the problem began. Seems like it is Apple's problem to fix.

Yep - that’s what happened to me. It gave me the choice of specifying a date range for all my recurring appointments to be changed to individual events. I just chose a date in 2010. By then Apple might have fixed it so I can change my birthday entries etc back to recurring!

It’s a temp solution and at least I can now see all my appointments in normal calendar view.

More importantly, I am still testing to see if appts made on my iPhone are syncing back across to my PC (I am using Mobile me at the mo as a free trial).

A lot of people are saying here that their problem is solved - but is there really a genuine fix to problem II described in BledEdge's post on the 28th ("new events entered (or modified) on the iPhone's calendar would not show in Outlook 2003's Day/Week/Month")?

I use Outlook 2007 and still have this problem. The only genuine workaround I have seen so far is to make new events one-day-recurring when adding them on the iPhone.

Fantastic Dionhall,

After a very frustrating first few weeks as a new Iphone user with the same problem of not syncing calendars from my outlook 03, I spent countless hours on the phone with Apple tech support to no avail, had an appointment at the Apple Store with a “Genius” good guy and all but after three long hours sitting there watching him perform many of the steps that I had already done over the phone and many others, he exhausted his possibilities and sent me home without resolving my issue. I left the Mall that night way after closing time and was somehow dizzy after so many hours battling that it felt weird and surreal like if I was in some kind of zombie movie...

I’m definitely going back there to show him your solution for the problem and I just can’t believe that Apple put out such a great product with a glitch like that and looks like they are ignoring the problem sticking their heads on the sand hoping that the problem disappear, or waiting for someone like you come along and solve the issue for them.

Kudos to you my friend, I’m a happy camper now...

A FIX for ME... maybe YOU?!

Outook 2007: Go in to your Outlook Calendar and make sure ALL of your recurring meetings or appointments have specified end dates. Do this by opening your calendar, and in the left navigation panel, under the section "Current View", click on the radio button "Recurring Appointments". This will bring up all of your recurring appointments.... go in to each appointment that does not have a specified end date and give them an end date. Once I did this and resync'd my iPHONE all of my calendar meetings, appointments started showing up.... YIPPPEE for me and maybe you 2!

It appears that with the just released iTunes 7.7.1.11, Apple may have provided an actual fix for the problem of no display of Day/Week/Month views of appointments that were created on the iPhone and synced to Outlook. I just updated iTunes, created a test appt on the iPhone and synced with it, and Outlook properly displays that appointment. I went through a second sync, just to be sure that it wouldn't disappear.

I know there's no guarantee of consistent performance yet, but it looks promising to me. Perhaps with an actual solution, assuming this one is real, we will soon be able to forget all the workarounds that .are rumbing around.

Holy Monkey Nuts Batman.......... It seems that Apple has fixed the problem. I too just downloaded the newest version of Itunes, placed an event in my Iphone, and a separate one in my Outlook Calendar, and then I did a sync......... they both transfered beautifully. I am soooo happy!

Good to hear itunes fixed the problem!

I just came across a program that will sync my outlook calendar to google calendar and then to my iphone calendar without having my iphone connceted to my computer!

To learn more about how to do this visit my forum!

http://www.dionhall.com/Forum/

This sounds very promising! Please share what you find out. I am dying to know if this one has finally been solved.

Well I have recived reports that the new version of iTunes has fixed the calendar problem. I have not tested this out for sure but it sounds to me like it has been fixed!!

To update you iTunes, just open your itunes and hit the help button and then check for updates and it should update to the new version!

Worked for me. Great!

It didn't work for me, I guess Apple and Microsoft have more in common then we thought!

I totally agree that if Apple cannot come up with a syncing method that is as reliable as ActiveSync is for syncing most PDAs why are we all trying to do their work for them by flushing, tweaking, revising, our existing data to accomplish some "AppleGeek's workaround?"
I know it's hard for some to "toss it in" on any kind of computer tech challenge. But, it's no good trying to fashion a new leg for this horse to get him back in the race.
I say, shoot it and put us all out of our misery.

Just trying to sync. Had a Blackberry for 5 years. NEVER a problem. The iphone was slow to sync when I fist got it. Now there is a UPGRADE. Guess what, the iphone now runs slower and won't sync at all. It just will say its syncing for hours. There is no update status that shows % done. This just sucks. I missed a meeting today because when the new s/w was released it didn't sync my phone to outlook and deleted the appt from the iphone. I see some attorney starting a class action suit over this debackle.

The latest iTunes update fixed all of my calendar syncing problems. Once i ran the update, I synced my phone, which copied all of my appointments on both calendars (the last firmware update defaulted all of my appointments to a home calendar even though I didn't have a home calendar in Outlook. None of the appointments would sync). In Outlook, I then exported the appointments on the home calendar to a csv file, deleted the home calendar, and then imported the csv file to my original Outlook calendar. I synced my phone once more and had it replace the calendar info on my phone. Now all is back to normal and no more calendar problems. The useless home calendar is gone for good.

My tests all worked fine. I can now make appts on the iPhone and see them on my PC. I am working through Mobile Me at the moment as well (the free trial).

so, you export all of the appointments to csv (lose recurring - no biggie) and then delete all appointments (pain in the ass if you have tons of invites) and then reimport. wala, it works. now why in the world wouldnt the mac geek (what is a pc?) in the store tell you that. i guess if you ignore a problem it doesnt exist (mac and ms execs).

and what is the story with all of the losers standing in line to get a phone? what a pathetic bunch. almost like a line for star wars or harry potter.

I have the "2G" 2.0 with outlook 2003. TRY THIS!!!!!! (I saw this under another post in this forum) So I have no idea as to why, BUT, adding a "HOME" calendar in addition to the default "CALENDAR" within outlook, seems to have cured everything for now (ie: the last hour or so with constant attempts to make it blow up...). Ever since mid july I haven't been able to use/sync the outlook calendar at all. Each time I would sync, my appts would dissapear and be lost... Now, I have successfully synced back and forth both ways from the phone to outlook's "HOME" & default "CALENDAR".... WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!My (admittedly very vague and un-scientific) process involved:* adding the home calendar to outlook (well, actually retrieving it from the deleted files folder as I deleted it a week or so ago in frustration from this whole fiasco)* re-setting the "sync history" in itunes* syncing a time or two until the "HOME" calendar showed up in the available calendar list in itunes* making dummy entries in the iphone & outlook "HOME" calendar* selecting HOME only in both itunes and outlook * syncing* seeing light at the end of the tunnel* re-setting syncing history* adding both calendars to the sync/check box list
* confirming success and then running around like an school boy on pudding day...

Hope this helps. Currently I still have both calendars open and selected as I'm too afraid to change anything....

I gave up on this one.

To confirm dionhall's earlier suggestion, Nuevasync works very well for me now: syncs the iPhone wirelessly with Google Calendar, and then I use Google Calendar Sync on my PC. No exporting, no importing, no muss, no fuss.

I suppose I ought to thank Apple for pushing me towards a solution that is actually better than if their Calendar sync worked.

All:
I just downloaded the newest iTunes 7.7.1 and it fixes the problem. I have Win Vista and Outlook 2007. I am now able to add calendar appointments in my iPhone (first gen iPhone with 2.0 f/w) and have it sync correctly to my Outlook 2007 calendar! Hooray for the fix!!!

It have the problem of events not showing up properly in Outlook (i.e. can be seen in "all event" view but not in "day/week/month" view). Once 7.7.1 Itunes is installed everything fixed. Yet it doesn't apply restrospectively so only new event sync properly.

Cheers

The latest fix works great on 'new' appointments but not on my old ones. Come on Apple, I need my entire calender back to normal not just good from today.

I too had this issue when I tried to sync my outlook with my new 3g iphone using itunes...After doing couple of test I could finally sync all my calendar items on to my iphone.
Its looks like the issue with recurring calender items in the outllook...below is workaround which may resolve this issue.
Create a new PST and export all the calendar items to the new pst.
Now delete the entire calendar item from outlook original calendar.
Now perform sync with itunes.
Add a test calendar item and sycn to see if sync is working fine.
Copy all the calendar items from the new pst to its original location.
Now perform sync and this must work....

- Good Luck .......NAZ

Here is my problem...perhaps someone has the EXACT same issue and can lend me a helping hand :)

Only having a problem with Calendar syncs, nothing else.

1. Outlook calendar items sync TO iPhone 100% fine
2. Appointments entered into iPhone DO NOT sync back to Outlook.

Called Apple and they told me to uninstall iTunes, install newest version, wipe sync history, etc. Everything found in their support article. This worked for two weeks then stopped working.

Before I go through the exact same process, does anyone know of a permanent fix? ANY help is greatly aprpeciated, thank you!!!

Like many of you, I am having the partial sync problem with some dates. I *think* I've managed to work around it for now. Here's what I did/found:

1. My Outlook.PST file was the older non-Unicode version. Thanks to the posted links by "se419" above, I was able to fix that. (Note to HCU from above post: this fixed my iPhone to Outlook 2007 sync issue.)

2. Some of my Calendar entries had End Dates set. So...they would completely vanish off the Month view of Outlook, but would still be in the "All Appointments" current view. Of course, setting each of these End Dates to "none" made all of them appear back in the month view of Outlook (note: this wasn't an iTunes/iPhone issue as it was Outlook-centric).

3. There was a possibility that the Message Class property of my Outlook entries was not set so iTunes could read them (it wasn't, they were fine). This article explains that: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1465.

4. Exported all my non-recurring dates out and imported back again (not sure if this fixed anything though but good to do according to above posts).

5. iTunes version 7.7.1.11 (the latest build as of this writing) appears to have a bug. Several of my recurring entries were completely invisible (for example: my parents birthdays), and others have the time-stamp 11pm (they should be "all-day"). I can fix an entry by moving it from the birth-year to the year 2000 (example: 1/1/1941 to 1/1/2000), then syncing. Then...it shows up fine. Reverting the entry to the birth-year, and resyncing, makes the entry invisible/11pm again. It's scattered though. Some recurring birthdays are completely fine without having to use this trick. It's fairly obvious that iTunes doesn't completely understand Outlook's recurring date format. But...at least now I have a work-around.

Not only does my Outlook Calendar not sync, the interface is strange -- I don't see a calendar with dates

I am absolutly frustrated about this problem; I do not understand, how a company like apple thinks it can afford to treat their customers in such a manner.
Can tell me anybody, if there is a legal way to force apple to deliver products, which function as announced?

I am absolutly frustrated about this problem; I do not understand, how a company like apple thinks it can afford to treat their customers in such a manner.
Can tell me anybody, if there is a legal way to force apple to deliver products, which function as announced?

I am having a bit of a different problem than everyone else, any info anyone has would be helpful. I just received my 3G iphone yesterday and have spent over 4 hours on the phone with apple support because my phone will not pull my contacts or my calendar out of outlook. It goes through the motions like its working and doesn't get anywhere. I don't get any error message or popups. Has anyone had this problem before?

Thought I'd just thank Little Birdy, detect & repair just worked for me on 2003.
If 2007 doesn't have this option (I don't have it to check), perhaps going to add/remove programs in Control panel and doing a change/remove of Office 07 > repair may do the trick.

Just a suggestion ?

More fodder:

If you use Outlook's Web Access, most of your contacts there have no names. That is, they show up on your phone, and in Outlook, but if you log into your Outlook account over Interent Explorer, Contacts have no names in the contacts directory. My users who have not updated to Itunes 7.x / Iphone 2.0 do not have this problem. Users who have synced using 7.7 and 2.0.2 do, including me. The only fix I can find is to open and re-save the entries in Outlook Web Access.

I also have several entries whose data disappeared. All of them were businesses, and this seems to be common among all my users. People are finding that business phone numbers they had before have no data on their phones or in Outlook anymore - not all of them, though. No idea what the rhyme or reason is to disappearing contact info, but after changing to activesync, I've had no further issues with contacts going away.

i too have this problem. calendar items added to itouch go directly into my home outlook calendar when i sync-before they went into the main calendar. where did the home calendar come from? i have just spent 2 hours on the phone with apple help but the problem is still there. i want to call them back and suggest they read this article, they claimed not to know about the problem!

I synced by iphone calendar with Outlook today and it deleted any appointments that I put on my Iphone calendar. Is there a log somewhere with the deleted appointments? I am in trouble because there were many appointments that were deleted

for the calendar problems try resetting the date format in the regional settings. the problem i had was wierd, all synchronized dates were 1 day different!

Helpful thread but I strongly believe that the problem is caused by a rogue corrupted calendar entry in outlook. Possible to simplify the steps to resolve this - you can see this here
http://nickvt.blogspot.com/2009/01/ip...

Tried this tonight. Followed instruction from "ish" but on the first sync I checked the boxes to only download to iphone and not back to the computer. Second sync was both ways. Third sync was also both ways. All worked as I had hoped. Problem is solved for now and I have a workaround plan for the future. Thanks "Ish".

I ́ve been facing this problem since I started using Outlook 2007 and iTunes 8.1 with non unicode pst. Just fixed it using a easy way. I do have many and different email accounts and personal folders in my outlook. The problems is that the calendar and contacts not reside in the default account that I have as default on outlook 2007. To fix i:
-Tools
-Account Settings
-Data Files
-Click on the datafile your calendar and contacts are stored
-Click on Set as Defaul butoom
-Re-start Outlook
-Sync your iPhone again.
Although you have your calendar checked on Calenda --> My Calendars screen, that does not mean iTunes will use it, so, you have to follow the steps above in order to have your sync Ok.
I hope this helps
... By the way... Apple documments didn't help at all to solve it, even exporting and importing to a unicode pst file..
Andre.

Well the fix for me was simple, adn I hope it works for you as well...

I unchecked the box - do not sync events older than (_) days

it finally synced

Good luck all

I like simple solutions and wouldn't dare doing anything on my own that meant exporting/importing/copying pst files.

So I looked at my Outlook 2007 that showed a few calendars. Clicking on each one seems to pull up a different screen.

Went to iTunes, clicked on Info Tab.
Saw that there are two choices to synch with: 1)All Calendars or 2) Selected Calendars.
I checked Selected Calendars that gave me only one calendar choice

Then I did test entries on the phone. Synched. It showed up on Outlook.

Tested on Outlook, deleted same entry. Synched.It disappeared from iPhone.

Entered a new entry on iPhone. Synched. worked that time, too.

Tested it both ways, an it seems to work fine now.

It can't be that simple, can it?

When itunes is opened with the phone page up on your screen click on the white info tab almost at the top of the page. When it switches to the info page, you will notice "calendars" almost at the bottom. Click on the "sync calendars with" box and make sure it says Outlook in the box. Then click on apply in the lower right hand corner and then re-sync and you should be good to go!

I have:
iPhone 2.2.1
XP
Outlook 2007

Previously iPhone would only sync some of my calendar but not everything and it screwed around with the all day events of what it did transfer.

Just upgraded iTunes to 8.1.1.10 - in the Info tab took out the tick of 'do not sync with events older than [ ] days' and tried a sync and it took everything across.

...now if only we can get Apple to play a decent event reminder with a snooze instead of the useless 2 second beep and I'll be a happy camper!

After a bit of playing around, I believe I have fixed it. Someone suggested that the time zone may need resetting on the iphone. Sure enough, the time zone was Cupertino wherever that is and I live in Melbourne.

Thanks for everyone for posting your suggestions,

Matthew

I upgraded with new iPhone software 3.0 and iTunes 8.2...now my calendar will not synch...any advice?

I synchronise my calendar and contacts to my work email account with MS Exchange, while everything else is synched with iTunes on my home PC. I was having this problem where calendar events were not appearing on the iPhone. I went into Settings and turned off the calendar, which deleted all events, then turned it back on again. It synchronised everything back over, including the appointments that previously wouldn't appear. It seems to have fixed it, thankfully.

Tried everything (Outlook 2003) but nothing has worked so far. No calendar events synchronize.

Try this (meant for correcting syncing problems with between Outlook and Google calendars). Did not work completely: Calendar events went from computer to iphone but not the other way. Better than nothing.

Follow these steps to resolve this error:

Close Microsoft Office and Google Calendar Sync.
Open C:\Windows\system32
Locate the file 'mapi32.dll.'
Right-click this file and select Rename.
Enter [ mapi32_backup.dll ] as the new name of this file.
Open the Start menu and select Run...
Type [ fixmapi ] and hit Enter. (Keep in mind that you may not receive any confirmation that the tool is running.)
Run Google Calendar Sync again.
Note: If Google Calendar Sync fails to sync successfully, we recommend restoring the original file name (mapi32.dll) in your C:\Windows\system32 folder.
Learn more about the Fixmapi.exe tool.

Error code: 2013

All I have found to work is going into the specific appt that is missing on my iPhone and making a simple change and save/close it. (I change the category... make the change in Outlook) Obviously, the problem here is usually that by the time you notice something is missing, it's too late. "Luckily" for me, I am usually in back to back meetings all day so an opening on my calendar at all is a red flag that an appt did not sync.

The Apple iPhone Outlook calendar relationship is a steaming pile. Considering there are millions of PCs with Outlook I'm fuming Apple hasn't done something about this. It's outrageous that one day Outlook calendar syncs with my iPhone and the next it doesn't. My user satisfaction with iPhone is dropping because of the calendar. It's real pain in the !@#$!@#$!!!

OK. I talked to the Apple guys and the iPhone in iCal has a nasty habit of making new calendars like a couple of bunnies in the woods.
When I pressed the 'Calendars' button at the top left of the iCal screen on my iPhone, it showed me all the calendars I had. I had 5! Only one syncs with Outlook. Make sure you are in the calendar that syncs with Outlook when you are inputting an appointment. It will work.

Also, in the settings under 'Mail, Contacts, and Calendars', go down to 'Default Calendars' and choose the Calendar that syncs with your computer. Because I was syncing with my PC and my MacBook, I had multiple calendars and the default one was not the one I was syncing with my Outlook calendar on the PC. After that the appointments were put in the proper Calendar and were transferred to the desktop during syncing.

Apple has released a new update to the iPhone software today, 9/10/09. One of the fixes listed is for calendar synchronization.

My problem is resolved. For some reason I had two Calendars in Outlook - not sure how that happened but once I narrowed it to one Calendar everything worked fine after that.

Unfortunately I only have one calendar. That was the first things the Genius bar folks checked right after uploading all the new software didn't help. Sigh! Thanks though! :-)

I find that it is still unresolved after trying all of these tips. However, as crazy as it sounds and it is a manual fix. Simply open the meeting request or event and make a simple change. Type anything and be sure to save it up exiting and the event pops into your iPhone...Crazy but works...

I can get my iPhone calendar to sync with my Outlook 2003 calendar that I SEE. However some (not all) of them do not show up as "Busy" using the meeting request function. They do if I make a small change like Big Dog. However, it is a real pain to have to check this every week as the whole purpose of that function is to allow others to know when you're busy.

It appears that I am a little bit luckier than most. My 2007 calendar syncs well with my 3.01 Iphone and 8.2 Itunes.

My problem is that after i synced it with in a different laptop (but still the same Outlook calendar that I copied to the new computer), my Iphone will show the dots in the month view as if there was an appointment for years to come.

This is really annoying because I can't program my week/month accordingly

I just got a new iPhone and had to upgrade my Outlook to 2007. The migration to the iPhone was easy, but my new calendar entries on the iPhone wouldn't show up on the desktop. Noticed that there were two "Calendar" fields on the Outlook toolbar and clicked on the second one and there were my missing entries. When I did the iPhone entry I used the location field for part of my information. This apparently made it go to a new calendar since it had never been used for the ones I migrated. I went back and made the entries all on the "Title" line and left the location blank, and they showed up on my main calendar then. For me it was mystery solved. Hope it works for you.

I started having problems with my iPhone calendar not syncing to my Outlook calendar after my company moved my Outlook mailbox from 2003 to 2007. Entries added/changed in Outlook were not updating in iPhone AND entries added/changed on iPhone were not updating on Outlook.

I don't sync my calendar/contacts using iTunes because it is not allowed to be installed on my work system where my Outlook mailbox and files are so I rely on Exchange to sync.

I tried a bunch of things from this post, but nothing worked. Here is what DID work though:
- On iPhone, went to Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
- Selected my Outlook mail Account
- Toggled the "Calendar" setting to "Off". This warned me it would delete my iPhone calendar, so I accepted it.
- Opened calendar in iPhones and confirmed it was empty.
- Went back to Settings and turned "Calendar" setting back to "On"
- Opened calendar in iPhones and confirmed it was now showing appointments from my Outlook calendar

After doing this I tested several times adding calendar items in Outlook and they are not going to my phone within a few minutes. I have also added several calendar items to the calendar on the iPhone and they are now going syncing to Outlook.

It seems there was some interference caused by the Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007 move and reseting the entire calendar fixed it. Hopefully it will be a permanent fix! For reference, my iPhone is running version 3.0.1.

Warning, before you try this if you have calendar items added from iPhone they will get wiped out if you do this and they have not synced to Outlook, so make sure you re-enter those after or go ahead and put them manually in Outlook.

Hope this helps!

Have you verified which Calendar on your iPhone is syncing with Outlook? When I pressed the 'Calendars' button at the top left of the iCal screen on my iPhone, it showed me all the calendars I had. I had 5! Only one syncs with Outlook. Make sure you are in the calendar that syncs with Outlook when you are inputting an appointment. It will work. Set it as your default.

I missed an important appt today because the calendar items are not syncing with my NEW iphone.

I agree. I've solved the problem by switching to google calendar. It even syncs over the air and works on unlocled iphones (see Simon Blog for more details)

My issue cropped up again. I no longer even use the calendar on my iPhone. I went back to using a Franklin-Covey planner. Yes, paper.

I don't know what to say. I tried on my workstation and couldn't get it to work. But then just tried on my laptop without making any changes and it worked. Have no idea why but it works.

I don't think this is an iPhone issue. From what I have been able to tell, the problem is with the latest version of iTunes (9.0.2). My guess is that if you could downgrade to an earlier release, the problem would go away... of course Apple says it is 'not possible' to downgrade iTunes... maybe they will fix it in the next release once they admit to the issue.

my father in law had this problem and on the apple support site they suggest:

1. restart computer and make sure nothings syncs when computer starts up

2. go to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\

3. rename SyncServices folder to SyncServices_Bac or what ever you want

4. then resync your iphone or itouch

notes:

it may take a while to sync cause it has to make a whole new backup of your iphone or touch so give it time i just did this today and it fixed the his calender

That doesn't work, Joshman....as the issue is not in the Sync Services. It's in Outlook itself - something has corrupted the Calendar portion of the .pst file and the data in there isn't actually showing up as Calendar data at all. I had this same issue for some very difficult months and I grew impatient with it and did not want to have to give up my precious iPhone because of a stupid little issue like this. I had seen this solution (below) before but didn't necessarily want to do it as it CAN be a little taxing. But since doing it, I am SO happy I did. It took me a little while and some tedious clean-up because I have a TON of appointments, but I now have no problems at all syncing.

What people need to do is to the following:

1) Open Outlook 2007
2) Go to Calendar
3) Under the "View" Menu, select "Current View" and then "All Appointments".

If any of the appointments don't actually fall under "Calendar" or they look like they're in a segment not directly below "Calendar", then they're not actually Outlook Calendar data. Sure, they show up as appointments and they're in fact in your Outlook calendar itself, but iTunes and your iPhone won't see them if this is the case.

What you need to do first is export all of your existing calendar appointments to a CSV file as described above. Put it on your desktop, for example.

4) Go to File > Import & Export > Export to a File. Next.
5) Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows). Next.
6) Select your MAIN CALENDAR FOLDER as you see it listed under "Personal Folders". ONLY select this. Next.
7) Choose a name for it, it doesn't matter what, and export it to your desktop so you can find it easily enough again. Next.
8) Hit "Finish"

You will get a prompt that says "The file format that you are exporting to does not directly support recurring Outlook appointments or tasks...." This is TRUE. You will have to manually go into your Calendar and choose the items that you want to appear as recurring, and set those up again.

9) Once you've selected the desired date range, hit "OK". This will start the export process.

10) Once the export process is complete, repeat Steps 1 through 3 above and then delete all of the items in there. (Don't worry, you just exported them to your desktop so they're safe).

After you've deleted all your old appointments, do:

11) File > Import & Export > Import from another program or file. Next.
12) Choose "Comma Separated Values (Windows)". Next.
13) Locate the file on your desktop. Make sure that "Do not import duplicate items" is selected. Next.
14) Choose where to import the file. Naturally you'd choose Personal Folders > Calendar.
15) Hit finish to "Import "whateveryounamedyourfile.CSV" into folder: Calendar.
16) The import has begun.

NOW - you will have imported all of your appointments back into your Outlook 2007 Calendar. Under the "View" Menu, select "Current View" and then "All Appointments", or you might already be there due to a previous step in the process. Anyway, all of your appointments are now imported, and you can then go through and reapply recurrence settings to any of them you wish.

As part of a clean reimport:

17) Reapply your recurrence settings to your desired appointments.
18) Go into your Deleted Items and delete all your old appointments
19) Close iTunes
19) Close Outlook
20) Reopen Outlook
21) Reopen iTunes

- Perhaps even a reboot might be good before performing Steps 20 and 21 -

You should then see "Calendar" appear under your iPhone > Info Tab > Calendars", whereas you probably didn't see this before. iTunes now recognizes good calendar data once again and you can successfully sync.

Cheers!

Yes, that's what I first tried it on, and now I'm using 2007. The instructions are specific to Outlook 2007 but you should, with any knowledge of the Outlook menu and file structure and all that, be able to find your way around to the areas the instructions point to. They're not much different, if at all. The problem is not specific to iTunes at all.

Or if you're like me, using Outlook 2003, and you only have a few personal appointments in your other "calendars" that you don't mind deleting, you just go into the calendar button in outlook, on the left where it says "My Calendars", and blow away all t the calendars except for "Calendar", and you will start syncing correctly again...

No, it's not recurring appointments - it's ALL appointments. And who knows why things happen like this: bug, malfunction, sync error, phone pulled off cable too quickly, file corruption, there is no definitive answer. Unless you want to continue to experience sync issues, this is the only successful solution I've found, and it has worked flawlessly since. It's the inconvenience about it that everyone dreads and hates...but get over that and you'll be back in business again.

Ok, I have worked on this for a week now and FIXED it.
For Outlook 2003:
the iPhone seems to only sync current and future calendar entries. if you have like - me - entries which are going back for years it seems to struggle with that.
so what I did was:
- create another calendar (folder) and COPY all your calendar entries in there
- delete all entries from your main calendar
- in the copy calendar choose the view "active appointments"
- COPY these now back into your main calendar
- sync with iPhone (these entries should now be on your iPhone)
- delete all entries from main calendar (to avoid double ups) and
- change view in copy calendar that you can see all entries again and
- copy all entries to main calendar
- sync again

that fixed it for me. just took me long time to figure it out....