Re: [Evolution] Failed to open calendar “Contacts : Birthdays & Anniversaries” Invalid object

[John Murrell <mail JohnMurrell org uk>]

On Mon, 2020-03-23 at 10:52 +0100, Milan Crha via evolution-list wrote:

On Sun, 2020-03-22 at 20:49 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:

Neither does the contacts.db file. A date of 1/1/9999 looks very much

like an uninitialized field.

	Hi,

being this about Birthdays & Anniversaries calendar, then the address

books data matters, because this calendar opens the configured books

and searches for contacts with either birthday or anniversary dates

filled and shows them as the calendar events. Looking at the code, the

only place where the Birthdays & Anniversaries calendar returns

"Invalid object" is not on open, but when something adds a timezone to

it.

What I do not understand is why you see such error when you are

creating a new event. The component editor doesn't open all calendars,

it opens only the one to be used as the target calendar. Is it possible

the Birthdays & Anniversaries calendar is selected as the default

calendar (you can see it in its Properties)? Eventually, when in the

Calendar view, is the Birthdays & Anniversaries calendar selected on

the left side, in the list of available calendars? Both can be used to

determine in which calendar start the component editor. The Birthdays &

Anniversaries calendar is read-only, you may see such information at

the top when you selected it as the destination calendar.

I believe the year 9999 is the problem. Try to cleanup your contacts

from these odd values. It can be the export tool from the Outlook saved

incorrect date. Maybe cleanup the contacts before importing. It might

be semi-easy being it a vCard format. You can save your address book as

one large vCard by right-clicking it in the Contacts view and pick Save

as vCard, then edit the file, delete the contacts in Evolution and

import it back. Having a backup before doing this is a good idea.

	Bye,

	Milan

P.S.: by the way, John, I didn't receive mails you sent, I see only

messages from poc for some reason (neither the archives show your

mails [1]). Could you reply to the list (Ctrl+L in Evolution) instead

of to me only (if that's the case), please? Private mails do not help

others. I added you into the CC just in case you are not on the list (I

do not know whether you are), but I usually reply only to the list,

because I receive the messages through the list. If you are not on the

list, then just say so, I can keep you in CC if needed. Thanks for your

understanding.

[1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/2020-March/thread.html

Milan thanks - I will try removing the Birthday & anniversary dates but
I have around 700 to edit. Exporting to a vCard sounds like the way to go 

but I don't think I can delete my contacts as this is greyed out.

After that I will see if that is a fix. I have been able to create new
calendar entries since I imported the data from Outlook - the Invalid
Object problem has only started in the last few days. 

If it is related to time zones could it have been triggered by the US
Summer time change even though I am in the UK ? (UK have not changed to
Summer Time Yet)

FYI - not sure if it a 'bug' but in the contacts list view the year
'9999' shows as '99' so could be confused with 1999

I suspect there is a bit of a hole in the software as normally it does
not allow you to enter a date in the future for Birthdays - not sure
about anniversaries ? Having got the date in the future in there thre
is no net to catch it. 

By the look of it all the 1/1/9999 dates should be blank or none as it
shows when you delete the 1/1/9999

In terms of the reply to the list I have been but all my messages seem
to be held for moderation as a non-user. Not sure why as I signed up
and replied to the email before sending the first of these.

It may be that my emails originate from a different address to the one
I signed up for. I signed up with a 'disposable address' so if it gets
spammed I just divert all emails to that address to the trash.

John Murrell