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

[John Murrell <mail JohnMurrell org uk>]

On Mon, 2020-03-23 at 14:23 +0100, Milan Crha via evolution-list wrote:

On Mon, 2020-03-23 at 11:55 +0100, John Murrell wrote:

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.

	Hi,

I didn't mean to delete the address book, I meant to delete only the

contacts in it (aka select the book, then click on one of the contacts,

then in menu Edit->Select All, followed by Edit->Delete Contact). You

can also create a new local address book and try to import your

modified contacts there first, to verify the imported bits will look

properly.

I exported my contacts to a VCard file and then deleted all my contacts
as suggested - select all then delete. I tried to create a new
appointment but still get the Invalid Object error even with no
contacts.

I then cleaned the VCF file using a text editor to delete all the BDAYS
* Anniversary dated 9999 and reloaded it and I still get the same
error. The file looks clean now with no 1/1/9999 dates.

I have tried with and without 'Birthdays & Anniversary selected and it
makes no difference - Birthdays no longer show if the box is ticked or
not unlike last night when I could turn them on & off using the tick
box. The only way to get the Birthdays to show is to re-enable the 

'Evolution Accounts - Address Book Properties On this Computer - Personal 

there is a tickbox Use in Birthdays & Anniversaries calendar.'

See below for my 'cure' last night that has now failed again.

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)

I guess (and hope) not. The code I've been referring to is not called

during the calendar open, thus it should not influence the open

behavior.

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

That is derived from your locale. You can change the format in

Edit->Preferences->Contacts->Date/Time format, at the very top of the

General tab.

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 ?

There is a difference between content validation when user edits the

contact in the GUI and between contact import. The check on edit tries

to avoid user mistakes. The import expects valid data.

I mentioned in an earlier message that I had solved the problem by
'I have stumbled on a cure In Evolution Accounts - Address Book Properties 

On this Computer - Personal there is a tickbox Use in Birthdays & 

Anniversaries calendar.'

This worked ok last night but by this morning the error had returned.