iCloud calendar invitations issues

[mlody]

My wife and I are very heavy on using iCloud calendar / invitations. We have been successfully using iCloud calendar and inviting ourselves (plus kids) for about 2 years or more to different events etc.

Recently, we noticed that if we create an invitation with a location included, the other person will never get a notification or the invitation will never pop up on the other person's calendar. The second a location is removed and the invitation is updated, the other person gets it. If we update the invitation again and add the location, again, nothing will happen and the person on the receiving end won't get an update.
Does anyone have any idea what is going on with the iCloud calendar and invitations?

 

[BrianBaughn]

You recently noticed that it started doing this (worked before) or you recently noticed it has always done this?

 

[mlody]

it used to work just fine until like a 1-2 weeks ago. Now, if I try it send an invitation with a location to my wife's icloud.com account, she wont get it. if she tries the same, same thing on my end. I do not get it. The moment we remove the location information from the field, the invitation goes thru and the other side sees it just fine.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I wish Apple would create a chart of how their services are supposed to work. iCloud is designed with a lot of quirks that are only hinted at when problems arise. Just search the net for "iCloud calendar invitation not delivered" and you can see the bizarre scenarios that have arisen in this one area.

In your case, I have no idea what the problem is. Perhaps the iCloud calendar spam issue is related. Just guessing as the spam thing has really taken off in the last few weeks and Apple must be monkeying around with things trying to fix it.

I don't use many of the iCloud services as I already had things set up as Exchange in some cases and at Google in others. I recommend something other than iCloud to my clients.

 

[ThorpedoJeff]

I started seeing this same issue just after Thanksgiving and I haven't been able to figure it out. If you find a solution, please post an update and I will do the same.

 

[mlody]

I started seeing this same issue just after Thanksgiving and I haven't been able to figure it out. If you find a solution, please post an update and I will do the same.

I am soo happy that I am not the only one with this issue! Yesterday I spent close to 4-5 hours troubleshooting the problem, plus another 1.5 hours on the phone with Apple support engineers. Thus far no one knows the solution; however, after my extensive troubleshooting session, I am 99% sure that Apple had done something and broke this.

If you have few minutes, could you see if you can repeat these tests and share your results?

From your @icloud.com account send an invitation to another @icloud.com account. for the location, just put a bunch of random text - just letters only, and see if the other person gets it. - the other person should receive it

as a 2nd test, do the same, but instead, letters just put a bunch of numbers - at least 7-8 digits and nothing else - this one should not end up on other's person calendar.

now, as a final test, edit the 2nd test with the numbers in the location field, and only keep 4-5 numbers and nothing else and see if the other party gets it - it should.


Basically, in my testing, I narrowed it down that if the location field has a bunch of letters, the other side will receive it. If it has a bunch of numbers (more than 6) the other party won't receive the invitations; however, if the number count is less than 5-6 digits, the invitations will go out successfully and the other party will receive it.
I bet this is some crazy mess that Apple has recently created while they are trying to deal with the calendar spam. However, unlike the spam where there are workarounds, I can't seem to find any workarounds for this issue, which renders using the icloud calendar for our family to close to worthless at this point as most of our invitations, (90%) include the location.

 

[ThorpedoJeff]

I ran the test and had similar results. I did notice that I could get an invite to go through with more that six numbers in the location field if there is text between them. Example "123 hello 456 world 789"

 

[gevans10576]

Our team at work is having the same problem! We constantly send invites to each other and our invites have recently not been going through. It seems like the problem might have been fixed because I just sent a test invite to my coworker and he told me he got it. I think for the time being we just have to avoid sending events with locations.

 

[mlody]

Our team at work is having the same problem! We constantly send invites to each other and our invites have recently not been going through. It seems like the problem might have been fixed because I just sent a test invite to my coworker and he told me he got it. I think for the time being we just have to avoid sending events with locations.

In just few minutes I spent on the official apple forums, I was able to find several threads about this issue. the problem is that the calendar issue gets overshadow by the spam crap and it does not get proper visibility unfortunately.

 

[M. Gustave]

Yep, same issue for me and my wife. Our solution was to switch to Google Calendar.

 

[mlody]

Yep, same issue for me and my wife. Our solution was to switch to Google Calendar.

Both my wife and I have outlook.com accounts which are nice cause now they are part of office365 and have full Exchange support etc. If apple does not get their act together and fixes the calendar issue in the next 2-3 weeks, I will migrate my family to outlook.com and be done with this crap.

 

[k.alexander]

I am soo happy that I am not the only one with this issue! Yesterday I spent close to 4-5 hours troubleshooting the problem, plus another 1.5 hours on the phone with Apple support engineers. Thus far no one knows the solution; however, after my extensive troubleshooting session, I am 99% sure that Apple had done something and broke this.

If you have few minutes, could you see if you can repeat these tests and share your results?

From your @icloud.com account send an invitation to another @icloud.com account. for the location, just put a bunch of random text - just letters only, and see if the other person gets it. - the other person should receive it

as a 2nd test, do the same, but instead, letters just put a bunch of numbers - at least 7-8 digits and nothing else - this one should not end up on other's person calendar.

now, as a final test, edit the 2nd test with the numbers in the location field, and only keep 4-5 numbers and nothing else and see if the other party gets it - it should.


Basically, in my testing, I narrowed it down that if the location field has a bunch of letters, the other side will receive it. If it has a bunch of numbers (more than 6) the other party won't receive the invitations; however, if the number count is less than 5-6 digits, the invitations will go out successfully and the other party will receive it.
I bet this is some crazy mess that Apple has recently created while they are trying to deal with the calendar spam. However, unlike the spam where there are workarounds, I can't seem to find any workarounds for this issue, which renders using the icloud calendar for our family to close to worthless at this point as most of our invitations, (90%) include the location.

I just followed your exact steps and my results were the same. However, additionally, I found that sometimes it's as little as 3 digits (for ex address "180 Main St") the "180" stops the invitation from going out; also input into the url box can also stop the invite from going out.

I am going to call Apple to report this. The more people do it the more likely they will fix this problem. I am guessing that this has something to do with Apple working on a fix for the calendar spam issue. Possible that they've implemented various fixes and this is the result that we've got.

What's the status of your call/ticket with Apple?

 

[mlody]

I just followed your exact steps and my results were the same. However, additionally, I found that sometimes it's as little as 3 digits (for ex address "180 Main St") the "180" stops the invitation from going out; also input into the url box can also stop the invite from going out.

I am going to call Apple to report this. The more people do it the more likely they will fix this problem. I am guessing that this has something to do with Apple working on a fix for the calendar spam issue. Possible that they've implemented various fixes and this is the result that we've got.

What's the status of your call/ticket with Apple?

I still haven't received an update from the support on this issue and I doubt I will.

 

[k.alexander]

I received a call back from tech support, the same person I initially spoke to last week. He is working with the engineering team, and he had additional questions to me asking how I tested, what results I received, etc.

 

[mlody]

A week has passed and still not a single update from Apple. I sent two inquiries and nothing.

 

[mlody]

Still no update from Apple, but I tested couple invitations with location and it appears to be working now. Can someone else test and confirm it please?

 

[ardchoille50]

A week has passed and still not a single update from Apple. I sent two inquiries and nothing.

It may be that the issue can be resolved with a server-side fix, in which case we wouldn't see a iOS update for it.

 

[ThorpedoJeff]

Still no update from Apple, but I tested couple invitations with location and it appears to be working now. Can someone else test and confirm it please?

I just tried it and it is not working. I opened a support ticket and I have had a few calls with the sr. advisor but all we have accomplished is running some tests and sending them some diagnostic logs.

 

[mlody]

Still no update from Apple, but I tested couple invitations with location and it appears to be working now. Can someone else test and confirm it please?

it looks like my excitement was short lived. had to be some kind of a glitch at that point cause the location functionality in calendar invitations only worked for like 1 hour and it stopped. It hasn't worked since then.

 

[mlody]

I got a response from Apple that the issue is resolved. I can confirm that it worked for me. Can someone please test it out too?

Thanks

 

[k.alexander]

I can confirm that the problem is resolved for me and others I've tested with as well.

 

[mlody]

unfortunately, it is still not working for my family. Strangely, if I send an invitation with the location, it everyone else gets it, but if anyone from my family sends it, no one gets anything. It almost seems like the fix is not propagated to all the accounts or something else is busted

 

[ThorpedoJeff]

Still isn't working for me either. I have had an open ticket for a few weeks and all we have done is some basic troubleshooting and testing with no real progress being made.

 

[qtrim]

I was having the issue that if I sent my wife a calendar invite with a recurring event, it would not go through. If I removed the recurring part, then it does go through. Ironically, we were both on Google calendar on iOS and switched to the native calendar thinking it would be better. I guess not.

 

[mrtune]

My wife and I are having the same issue. It used to work and stopped a few weeks ago. Very frustrating.

For the moment we only send invites without map locations so they are actually received. Location based stuff never gets sent.