Spanning Sync, Pocket Informant, Google blame Gcal sync issues on RTM
Many, many people have had a hard time with unresponsive RTM iCal calendars that they try to view in Gcal, and with that in mind I thought this was worth pointing out. I'd be curious if Andrew or Emily or Bob have any reactions to this.
From http://blog.spanningsync.com/2010/02/remember-the-milk-causing-widespread-sync-problems.html
If you're unable to sync due to "could not generate your list of calendars" errors, please remove any subscribed calendars from Google Calendar, including Remember the Milk, even if you're not syncing those calendars.
After several weeks of investigative work by engineers at Google, NuevaSync, Pocket Informant, and Spanning, we've found the root of a problem many users have been experiencing. Calendars to which the user has subscribed in Google Calendar can become unresponsive, causing the Google Calendar API to be unable to work with sync clients from any vendor.
Apparently calendars from Remember the Milk have become relatively unresponsive in the last few weeks, causing many of our users to be unable to sync. Deleting the RTM calendar from the Google Calendar web interface solves the problem immediately.
Much thanks to our counterparts at Google, NuevaSync, and Pocket Informant for helping track down this issue. Please let us know if you have any questions.
I cannot help but notice they make no mention of RTM's staff in the final paragraph.
From http://blog.spanningsync.com/2010/02/remember-the-milk-causing-widespread-sync-problems.html
If you're unable to sync due to "could not generate your list of calendars" errors, please remove any subscribed calendars from Google Calendar, including Remember the Milk, even if you're not syncing those calendars.
After several weeks of investigative work by engineers at Google, NuevaSync, Pocket Informant, and Spanning, we've found the root of a problem many users have been experiencing. Calendars to which the user has subscribed in Google Calendar can become unresponsive, causing the Google Calendar API to be unable to work with sync clients from any vendor.
Apparently calendars from Remember the Milk have become relatively unresponsive in the last few weeks, causing many of our users to be unable to sync. Deleting the RTM calendar from the Google Calendar web interface solves the problem immediately.
Much thanks to our counterparts at Google, NuevaSync, and Pocket Informant for helping track down this issue. Please let us know if you have any questions.
I cannot help but notice they make no mention of RTM's staff in the final paragraph.
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Unfortunately this blog post is the first we've heard about this! (Past issues reported with calendar subscriptions haven't been specific to RTM, but have affected Google Calendar's calendar subscriptions in general, e.g., see here and here).
We're unaware of any current problems with our system, so we're a little bit disappointed that it doesn't look like any of the companies involved took the time to contact us to report the issue and give us the opportunity to resolve it. :(
We've now reached out to Google to get the full story; obviously if they've discovered any issues with RTM we'd love to hear about them so we can get things fixed!
I'll post an update as soon as we get the story from Google.
We're unaware of any current problems with our system, so we're a little bit disappointed that it doesn't look like any of the companies involved took the time to contact us to report the issue and give us the opportunity to resolve it. :(
We've now reached out to Google to get the full story; obviously if they've discovered any issues with RTM we'd love to hear about them so we can get things fixed!
I'll post an update as soon as we get the story from Google.
How very bizarre they did not contact you first. I am embarrassed to say that did not even cross my mind as a possibility.
I am sure I speak for everyone who has wrestled with RTM iCal feeds in Gcal when I say I'd love to hear updates about this as you learn more. Thanks for your quick reply, Emily.
I am sure I speak for everyone who has wrestled with RTM iCal feeds in Gcal when I say I'd love to hear updates about this as you learn more. Thanks for your quick reply, Emily.
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Yup, doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. :| The lack of a mention makes it sound like we're not interested in solving the problem (whatever it is!), which couldn't be further from the truth.
We've been put in touch with the right people at Google, so we're just awaiting a response -- we're definitely keen to find out what's going on. :)
We've been put in touch with the right people at Google, so we're just awaiting a response -- we're definitely keen to find out what's going on. :)
(closed account) says:
Thanks for the quick twitter reply. Hope the issue can be fixed soon ´cause I really like using rememberthemilk and spanningsync. Btw, as a Palm Pre user I was wondering if there are any plans for a native webOS-app. This would be awesome.
T.
T.
charliespanning says:
Hi Emily-
This is Charlie Wood from Spanning (I wrote the blog post). I tried to find a contact email address on your site and couldn't, so I submitted a support request asking for someone to get in touch with me about this issue. I never got a response. I'm sorry we never connected, but I did try! :-)
Now that we're in touch, please contact me directly at charlie.wood@spanningsync.com. I'd be happy to share with you what we know, and to put you in touch with the people we've been working with at Google.
Thanks,
Charlie
This is Charlie Wood from Spanning (I wrote the blog post). I tried to find a contact email address on your site and couldn't, so I submitted a support request asking for someone to get in touch with me about this issue. I never got a response. I'm sorry we never connected, but I did try! :-)
Now that we're in touch, please contact me directly at charlie.wood@spanningsync.com. I'd be happy to share with you what we know, and to put you in touch with the people we've been working with at Google.
Thanks,
Charlie
mb01915 says:
Emily - I have noticed ongoing spanning sync problems. However, I do not have an RTM subscribed calendar running through spanning sync. I'm not sure it is not their problem. This is a small sample size of one though.
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Yup, this problem fortunately wasn't due to anything on our side (or anything to do with the "responsiveness" of calendars on our end).
Basically, according to Google, their system was having trouble loading the Remember The Milk calendar (that's used for our gadget) due to its popularity and so many people trying to load the same calendar.
They're making some changes on their end to better handle popular calendars like ours, so that their system will load the calendars successfully. Presumably, this will solve any issues that third-party apps have syncing with popular calendars.
Basically, according to Google, their system was having trouble loading the Remember The Milk calendar (that's used for our gadget) due to its popularity and so many people trying to load the same calendar.
They're making some changes on their end to better handle popular calendars like ours, so that their system will load the calendars successfully. Presumably, this will solve any issues that third-party apps have syncing with popular calendars.
virtualbookworm says:
Emily- Just wondering if you could address the lack of RTM and Pocket Informant. They continue to say RTM won't reply to them and that they do want to integrate RTM with their iphone app. Is this true, or are only being given one side of the story? Thanks.
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
virtualbookworm, to answer your question, the API is available for non-commercial use, and requests for commercial access should be submitted in the form of a business proposal.
We'll get in touch with the submitter if we're interested in the proposal (we receive a number of submissions every day, so unfortunately can't correspond with everyone who submits a proposal). We can't comment on any business proposals that we receive, sorry, but we appreciate your feedback on which apps you'd like to see integrate with Remember The Milk. Thanks!
We'll get in touch with the submitter if we're interested in the proposal (we receive a number of submissions every day, so unfortunately can't correspond with everyone who submits a proposal). We can't comment on any business proposals that we receive, sorry, but we appreciate your feedback on which apps you'd like to see integrate with Remember The Milk. Thanks!
Thank you very much for the update, Emily. I am pleased to hear the root issue has been identified, and that it wasn't actually an RTM problem (other than just how popular you all are). I add ed a link to this thread to the post over on Spanning's blog so that people who stumble across it in the future can learn of the resolution.