Export single event as .ics? iCalendar not working?

For additional context, I just tried exporting this event using the iCalendar option on my Linux Mint 21 machine using Thunderbird. This is what happened:

Instead of adding a single event to my already existing calendar, it tried to set up a new calendar for me to subscribe to and then then, on that calendar, nothing is listed on the event’s date.

Seems quite odd to me. Is there any way to fix this feature?

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by MrMattEastwood.

Hi @mrmatteastwood

Thanks for reaching out. Let me help you with this one.

It seems that we have encountered some Outlook issues in the past, particularly when using timezones with a positive offset (such as GMT+2, GMT+4, etc.). However, this problem has already been resolved in the latest version of our plugin. Could you please try updating The Events Calendar plugin on your side and see if that resolves the issue?

If it doesn’t help, please provide more details about what you mentioned below. I want to check it further on my end.

The single event allows exporting to iCalendar, Outlook 365 and Outlook Live, but the latter two are incompatible with the way Outlook is run across the company

The iCalendar option is currently functioning as intended. Our only course of action at the moment is to see if the suggestion provided above resolves the issue.

Let me know how it goes.

Hey Darian, thanks for following up. I just updated from 6.6.2 to 6.6.3 and also disabled the caching plugin on the website (you never know).

I tried ics again with Thunderbird on my Linux PC. When selecting “iCalendar” (e.g. here: https://pjforum.2sinn.dev/event/reflexion-training-projektleitungen-gruppe-7-modul-3/), it’s still attempting to create a whole new calendar in Thunderbird instead of adding the one event to my already existing calendar, just like I show in the video above. The latter would be the expected behaviour though and unfortunately, it’s also what our client needs from us.

It’s my understanding that the .ics format is intended as a software-agnostic solution to export and import events. I’m wondering why it attempts to set up a new calendar instead of importing the single event. Am I missing a setting somewhere?

As for the Outlook implementation on the client’s side, their IT department wrote me the following:

“We’re using an on-prem Exchange and Outlook is locally installed on VDAs (“Workers”) within Citrix.” Does that help?

I have a call with the client later today and I will see if anything has changed about the way the exports interacts with Outlook on their machines.

So, I figured out a fix. The “iCalendar” option is using a webcal:// link, which triggers a calendar app (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird) and then the whole dance from my video happens.

However, if the webcal:// in the URL is replaced with https://, a single .ics file is downloaded and that can be imported into any calendar as a single event (again, e.g. using Outlook or Thunderbird).

So, this JavaScript snippet will replace the webcal:// with https:// on page load:

const iCalLink = document.querySelector('a[href^="webcal://"][class="tribe-events-c-subscribe-dropdown__list-item-link"]')

if (iCalLink) {
    iCalLink.href = iCalLink.href.replace(/^webcal:\/\//i, 'https://')
}

That solves the problem.

Hi @mrmatteastwood

I appreciate you providing your workaround for this particular use case. I will definitely pass this along to the team for their review, with the aim of potentially implementing improvements in the future.

I’ll close this thread for now, but please do not hesitate to start a new thread if you have other issues at all. This allows us to track topics/issues efficiently and follow the WordPress Forum Guidelines.

Hello Darian,

When downloading an .ics using the method / JS described in my posts above, the .ics contains a line like the following:

X-WR-CALNAME:ASB ProjACT

As long as that line exists, Outlook still creates a new calendar in some cases on some machines in our client’s offices. So far, we can’t understand what triggers one or the other behaviour. However, removing that line seems to solve the problem.

I’d like to propose a permanent fix in TEC that introduces the following behaviours for single event iCalendar exports:

• Open an https:// URL instead of webcal:// to download an .ics file
• Remove the X-WR-CALNAME line from that .ics file to ensure proper importing

Since we’re exporting single events here, there’s no use tying them to any calendar, either by URL or definition in the code.

Hi @mrmatteastwood

Thank you for sharing your solution for this specific situation. I will make sure to share it with the team so that they can consider implementing enhancements in the future.