Troubleshooting

A common ‘new’ users problem

… is that the shortcode has not been entered correctly. You can use either http or webcal, however it must just be the url, not a hyperlink markup, no carriage returns, no colons ‘:’ in front (old filter use of plugin), no other text unless it is a parameter such as days=60.

Right and wrong
Right and wrong – can be http or webcal

Check:

  • versions: wordpress, php and the plugin
  • ical url
    • is the ical file accessible when you are not logged in to it  – try pasting it into your browser url line (public, not private) ?
    • do you have the full url (not a relative one)?
  • shortcode
    • check it is not been converted into a hyperlink when you pasted it into the shortcode
    • check that the page shortcode is correct for latest version (no “:”)
  • calendar page
    • check the settings for list type 1 if you have not specified a listtype.  Check how many days and how many events you have requested.  the more days you ask for, the more work the plugin  has to do, however if you say 30 days and 5 events, if the first event is more than 30 days in the future, then no events will show.  So choose a days setting that will be suitable for you.
  • widget
    • check which listtype you are using and check it’s settings (default is listtype 4)
    • you may have specified 5 events in the widget, however to avoid recurring events causing a lot of unnecessary work, it is also necessary to constrain the number of days – the default is 30. So choose a days setting that will be suitable for you.

Some debugging techniques

  • try different calendars, for example take one of the working ones from the examples, so we can tell whether it is a calendar problem or a plugin problem
  • play with the url parameters. This will tell you if it is your implementation, or perhaps a plugin problem.
  • try adding ?debug or &debug to the page url – it may be hard to follow, but perhaps you will see something that indicates the problem

Not all the events I expect to see are there:

  • check the internal parameters in the settings (days, months, events) as well as what you might have specified in the shortcode

The Widget looks awful

  • You  need a suitably lean format for the widget.  The listype 4 and default css usually look fine.   If you cut your listypes down to 1,  you will have to tailor the 1 listype suitably, as per 4.   If you reload the listypes back up to the default 6, you make have to “Reset” to get the default settings back, otherwise it creates 6 versions of the 1.
  • Adjust your css to cope with your content.  Depending on what your theme does, you may need to adjust either the theme css or the ical css.  It is not possible to offer a packaged one size fits all css as everyone has different themes with different size sidebars and pages.   If your content (long urls are often the problem) forces a table to be wider, then you may need to add css to constrain that field.

It works on the test files, but not on my google calendar

  1. Which google url are you using?  Is it definitely the .ics file?  Private or public?  Logoff google and check whether you can still access the url as another person not logged in.
  2. Try using a public google calendar like a public holiday file.

How do I get it to show updated events (ie: override the cache)?

There are a number of ways to refresh or clear the cache:

  • on a normal calendar page at the bottom left there is a refresh icon, click – page will reload with nocache for all calendars
  • for either a calendar page or a widgets add either ?nocache=true or &nocache=true to page url and reload/refresh page
  • delete the cache file from cache directory…..YourUrl\wp-content\ical-events-cache

Once or twice there has been a delay in the ical generator providing an updated ics file, even though you can see the update.  To check if this is the case, download the ics file and open it in notepad.  Check if your update is in the file.  Then refresh the cache again.

Note: Widgets need to be as low on content as possible as they often load on many pages so I am loath to add the refresh icon to the widget – prefer to keep it ‘lean’.   However you can add it yourself in the settings, or add the nocache to the query line.

My events are not showing up correctly

If an event is showing up correctly in your calendar application (iCal, Google Calendar) but not on your blog, check

  • the timezone of your wordpress installation, and what timezone the plugin thinks it is in.
  • which events are wrong in what sense
    • are they individual or recurring
    • how were the dates specified – floating? with a timezone?  or universal etc

The default css looks funny

Yes well, this may be the interaction between your theme’s css and  the ical plugin.  we have overcome many difficulties with interactions.

Specificity was hard as we could not used “ids” in case people wanted multiple calendars on one page. I think I managed to get over much of that with some repetitive definitions.  I did not want the css to be cumbersome though, and did want it to inherit style as much as possible so that it would look like it belonged with the rest of your web.   In many themes, this worked quite well.

Getting Support

Please use the support forums either at wordpress or here https://icalevents.com/support/

  • try to debug yourself first
  • bear in mind, support is not mandatory and contributions help
  • the more information you provide, the easier and faster you can be helped and sometimes you see the problem when you are looking at the info! so please  note:
  • the ics url of your calendar file (Make sure it is public so i can see your file, or send me the file)
  • the timezone of your wordpress installation
  • which events are wrong and in what sense you think they are wrong, don’t just say they are ‘wrong’ – also whether they are individual or recurring.
  • the wordpress version you are using
  • the ical events version