Excellent help MadisonP.

Greetings Dinger,

As you tested in a new user we know this is not an issue with iCal, rather with some piece of data in your user account. Good testing!

1. Backup your data: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1553

2. Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:

Home > Library > Caches > com.apple.ical

Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3, etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache if present)

Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.ical (There may be more than one of these. Remove them all.)

—NOTE: Removing these files may remove any shared (CalDAV) calendars you may have access to. You will have to re-add those calendars to iCal > Preferences > Accounts.

—NOTE: To get to “Home > Library” in Lion hold down the option key and click on “Go” while in the Finder.

3. If the issue persists boot into Safe Mode and test again and report your results: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

Hope that helps.

via iCal keeps crashing when opened in OS…: Apple Support Communities.

Q.How can you set  a day as a birthday?

A. Yes, that’s exactly how it works! iCal pulls active data from Address Book to populate the special Birthday calendar.

Jeff [Thanks!]

via Bdays: Apple Support Communities.

People hate the interface for the above two programs. I don’t blame them. I don’t use those applications, but if I did I would use kurosawa99 suggestion below.

Matthias Eckardt’s free, “LionBleacher” helps some. At least it eliminates the horrible “Leather” metaphor.

via iCal and Address Book: Apple Support Communities.

Christopher Breen comes to the rescue with this article Mac troubleshooting FAQ: iCal and Mail. These are some common problems that I have read people on the Apple Discussion forms have. Is everyone excited about the next version of Mail in Lion? Doesn’t it look amazing and useful?

iCalViewer: Streaming iCal on your desktop « Hawk Wings. Interesting. I don’t tend to like these kind of finder/desktop integrations. They seem to cause problems when the Apples issues system updates.

Sync Services: Advanced troubleshooting for contact and calendar syncing.  This only applies if:

Please try the steps below if any of the following are true:

• Your sync issue does not involve MobileMe.
• You’ve reset your MobileMe sync data.
• You’ve already performed a reset sync history.

MobileMe: Unable to browse more than one year of Events in the Calendar List view.  So the solution is to use the Month, Week or Day view.

Several peoples experiences using MobileMe.  Most of them didn’t have a happy ending.  It is unfortunate this occurs.

Apple – Support – Discussions – Alternatives to iCal / MM for 2 PCs 2 ….  Some good suggestions John P makes here.  Most people use Google and it works well for them.

Apple – Support – Discussions – 10.5.6 fixes printing to Airport …. He probably means 10.6.5 since 10.5.6 is old.

Apple – Support – Discussions – deleting duplicate calendars ….  Some great resources for managing your iCal calendars.

Welcome to Apple Discussions, Kristi.

It sounds like iCal is trying access a shared calendar on a server and is unable to.

Go to iCal >Preferences > Accounts.
__Have you added anything here?
__By default this column is blank.
__If there is anything here, try deleting it and then close and reopen iCal

If that does not resolve the issue:

First make a backup, File > Export > Archive.

Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > MobileMe > Account >Sign Out

Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:

Home > Library > Caches
Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3, etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache)
Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.ical (There may be more than one of these. Remove them all.)
__NOTE: Removing these files will remove any shared (CalDAV) calendars you may have access to. You will have to re-add those calendars to iCal > Preferences > Accounts.

Launch iCal and test. If it works fine then Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > MobileMe > Account >Sign In.

Hope that helps.

via Apple – Support – Discussions – Recieving an error message ….

Apple – Support – Discussions – iCal crashes due to Google Cal ….

Several suggestions.  rventura said “I solved the problem by deleting the “~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache” file.”

Then do Glynns sugggestion “It got iCal working again, but the Google calendar still wouldn’t work properly. Then I deleted the .caldav subfolders that are in the same folder, after which iCal at first froze up and had to be forced to quit. Now, having re-started iCal, the Google calendar seems to be working just fine. Weird. “

To which Davegeek responded “I found when I checked the Cache file (which was where you pointed me too) it had under it permissions section a setting for “Everyone” as “Custom” I changed this to “Read and Write” and hey bingo! Problem solved. Thanks”

The alpha-numeric folder will also contain an Events Folder with all of the events in that specific calendar. Use “Get Info” to see the details of the event. Get Info will display a date created, but I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the date. It appears to be correct in most cases, but there are exceptions which I cannot thoroughly identify. “

If that is unsuccessful, download and reinstall the Mac OS X v10.6.3 v1.1 Update (Combo).”

MS lists the “symptoms” as: “Consider the following scenario. In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you receive an invitation to a meeting. The invitation is in a third-party calendar format. For example, the invitation is in the Apple iCal format. In this scenario, you cannot accept the invitation.”

2. Use a different program Busycal.  ”I recently learned about an alternative calendar called BusyCal, which I’m using on a trial basis. So far I’m able to send/receive invites to Outlook users using this calendar. It improrts all your iCal data and syncs with iCal your Mac and iPhone calendars, as well as MobileMe. The url is busymac.com”

rm -rf ~/Library/{Caches,Caches/Metadata,Preferences,Application\ Support}/*iCal*

3. restore the backed up calendars.

Everything now works. Settings for iCal had to be redone, but worth it.”

Quit iCal and find the com.apple.iCal.plist file in your Macintosh HD/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences Folder. Drag the file to your Desktop, log out/in or restart and check iCal for normal behavior.

If that is not helpful, open System Preferences…>International>Formats> and experiment with changing Region/Dates/Times. Log out/in or restart when the appropriate selections have been made.

Restart iCal and check for your changes.”

Check that the Region shown in the drop down list is the correct one – mine was set to Custom, so I changed it to United Kingdom. Quit iCal (if it’s still running) and then relaunch. Hopefully you’ll now have your hours back.”

This worked for the posters in this Apple thread.

Well fortunately this is an easy fix.  Read more here.  Matsfan85 had a solution that worked for several users “Well, simple fix. I removed the original iCal dock icon and re-added it and the date now shows the 29th. Hopefully I’ll see the 30th tomorrow.”  If that doesn’t work try this.  Thanks lindadep.

• First, All applications (except Finder) must be closed.
• On the Finder menu bar, click on “Go,” then on “Home.”
• Go into the Library folder
• Delete the Caches folder > I only deleted the com.apple.iCal folder
• Go into the Library / Preferences folder
• Delete the files: com.apple.iApps.plist; com.apple.iCal.helper.plist; and com.apple.iCal.plist
• Restart system

Poster JLHM has a idea that may work.  Try this:

Here are the instructions modified for Snow Leopard:

Select iCal | Preferences. Go to the Accounts tab. Click Add beneath the Accounts list. In the ‘Account Type’ drop box, choose CalDAV, not ‘Automatic’ setup that will make it look like poop.

Enter your Google account and password. In the ‘Server address’ field input “https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/”, then open Google Calendar in your browser to get the Calendar ID of the desired calendar –> from the main Google Calendar page click Settings | Calendars tab | Click the desired calendar’s name and under Calendar Address (at the bottom), select and copy the long email address following ‘Calendar ID’ that ends in @group.calendar.google.com. Go back to your iCal Accounts Preferences and paste this long address at the end of the ../calendar/dav/ in the ‘Server address’ field, then append “/user/” at the very end.

The final string under Server address will look similar to “https://www.google.com/ calendar/ dav/­345lsf00sfsasf9mf4knak3i23qa4d9sp1bgc@group.calendar.google.com/user”.

Click ‘Create’ and then close the Accounts Preferences window.

• iCal Freezing, window not updating, todo list makes scrollbars disappear…
• How can I publish calenders via iCal that my team at work can subscribe to?