iPad no longer syncing with Google calendar
Discussion
In the last four or five days, my iPad (an iPad Air 2 on iPadOS 15.7.9) has stopped synchronising with my Gmail calendar. It has worked correctly for years. My iPhone 11 (iOS 16.6.1) is working perfectly.
I have tried force-closing the calendar app, and hard-resetting the iPad. No effect.
The account is called "Personal email", and links to my Gmail account, although I use an email alias that corresponds to my personal domain name. The domain provider forwards all emails addressed as "mike@oxgreen.co.uk" (not the real address) to "dr_mike_oxgreen@gmail.com" (again, not the real address).
I have also tried going into calendar settings, then Accounts->Personal email and turning off calendars for that account. As expected, all calendar entries for that account have disappeared. But upon switching calendars back on, I'm not getting any calendar entries for that account.
The calendars button in the top-left of the calendar app has a little exclamation mark, and when I tap it, it says "Unable to connect to account" underneath "Personal email". I can't remember whether it was like this before on the iPad, but the iPhone correctly lists all the calendars associated with the gmail account.
I have read that a solution is to d.e.l.e.t.e the account altogether and recreate it, but I'm reluctant to do this. When I set it up I had a heck of a job getting the email alias working correctly - emails sent from the iPad had a "from" address of dr_mike_oxgreen@gmail.com and "on behalf of" mike@oxgreen.co.uk, and when they reply it goes back to the gmail address instead of the oxgreen domain address. I don't want people using the gmail address; I want them using only the oxgreen.co.uk address, so I don't want people to see that the gmail address even exists, in case I ever want to migrate away from gmail in the future.
So what should I do? Do I have to try the nuclear option, delete the account and re-create it?
I have tried force-closing the calendar app, and hard-resetting the iPad. No effect.
The account is called "Personal email", and links to my Gmail account, although I use an email alias that corresponds to my personal domain name. The domain provider forwards all emails addressed as "mike@oxgreen.co.uk" (not the real address) to "dr_mike_oxgreen@gmail.com" (again, not the real address).
I have also tried going into calendar settings, then Accounts->Personal email and turning off calendars for that account. As expected, all calendar entries for that account have disappeared. But upon switching calendars back on, I'm not getting any calendar entries for that account.
The calendars button in the top-left of the calendar app has a little exclamation mark, and when I tap it, it says "Unable to connect to account" underneath "Personal email". I can't remember whether it was like this before on the iPad, but the iPhone correctly lists all the calendars associated with the gmail account.
I have read that a solution is to d.e.l.e.t.e the account altogether and recreate it, but I'm reluctant to do this. When I set it up I had a heck of a job getting the email alias working correctly - emails sent from the iPad had a "from" address of dr_mike_oxgreen@gmail.com and "on behalf of" mike@oxgreen.co.uk, and when they reply it goes back to the gmail address instead of the oxgreen domain address. I don't want people using the gmail address; I want them using only the oxgreen.co.uk address, so I don't want people to see that the gmail address even exists, in case I ever want to migrate away from gmail in the future.
So what should I do? Do I have to try the nuclear option, delete the account and re-create it?
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Monday 16th October 18:29
It’s a pity the person I replied to has deleted their reply.
They were assuming I was using an iCloud calendar that was subscribed to my gmail calendars, but that’s not what I’m doing.
However, maybe that would be an alternative way of doing it… enable calendars for iCloud, then subscribe that calendar to my gmail calendars by obtaining an https link for each of them. Is that possible?
Another solution that certainly does work is to simply switch to the gmail calendar app. That now shows all my gmail calendars, but I prefer the look and feel of the built-in iOS calendar app.
They were assuming I was using an iCloud calendar that was subscribed to my gmail calendars, but that’s not what I’m doing.
However, maybe that would be an alternative way of doing it… enable calendars for iCloud, then subscribe that calendar to my gmail calendars by obtaining an https link for each of them. Is that possible?
Another solution that certainly does work is to simply switch to the gmail calendar app. That now shows all my gmail calendars, but I prefer the look and feel of the built-in iOS calendar app.
Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
In the last four or five days, my iPad (an iPad Air 2 on iPadOS 15.7.9) has stopped synchronising with my Gmail calendar.
It isn't clear.Are you using the Google Calendar app on your iPad or the Apple Calendar app with that bringing through the entries from your Google Calendar.
I had written something and deleted it as your initial reply was very dismissive!
Anyway I wood go into google calendar ie calendar.google.com which on ipad is a bit s
t, so click on desktop version at bottom of screen. I’m assuming you don’t have macbook to do this on. Check the calendars on the left of screen and make sure the one you want still has a tick in the checkbox. if yes, click 3 little dots on the calendar, go to ‘Share with specific people or groups’ and check your account email name and address is there, if not maybe add it. Also make sure ‘Make available for the public’ is ticked as maybe yours needs that ticked as you have another account reading it
Anyway I wood go into google calendar ie calendar.google.com which on ipad is a bit s
t, so click on desktop version at bottom of screen. I’m assuming you don’t have macbook to do this on. Check the calendars on the left of screen and make sure the one you want still has a tick in the checkbox. if yes, click 3 little dots on the calendar, go to ‘Share with specific people or groups’ and check your account email name and address is there, if not maybe add it. Also make sure ‘Make available for the public’ is ticked as maybe yours needs that ticked as you have another account reading itIf above fails you can add ical subscription which will read from the google calendar got to the google calendar settings page as I previously described, go down to ‘public address in iCal format’ and copy the long string. Go to your ical and bottom left click add calendar, add subscription calendar, then add the url you copied to that box. That’s it (will probably still need to make sure you had make available to public ticked as described previously)
Thanks, I’ll try some of that when I have more time.
I wasn’t being dismissive; I only had my iPhone and typing is a pain on that, so I kept it short. Online communication can sometimes come across in unintended ways, but there’s often a simple reason!
To answer the other query, I am (was) using the built-in calendar app on both iPad and iPhone. It’s the iPad that has stopped working, but the iPhone is still fine. I have since tried using the Google calendar app on iPad, and that works fine - but I prefer the built-in app.
I wasn’t being dismissive; I only had my iPhone and typing is a pain on that, so I kept it short. Online communication can sometimes come across in unintended ways, but there’s often a simple reason!
To answer the other query, I am (was) using the built-in calendar app on both iPad and iPhone. It’s the iPad that has stopped working, but the iPhone is still fine. I have since tried using the Google calendar app on iPad, and that works fine - but I prefer the built-in app.
Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
I am (was) using the built-in calendar app on both iPad and iPhone. It’s the iPad that has stopped working, but the iPhone is still fine. I have since tried using the Google calendar app on iPad, and that works fine - but I prefer the built-in app.
Then the answer is likely what you already suggested - Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
Do I have to try the nuclear option, delete the account and re-create it?
My experience of using Google mail, calendar, etc. on Apple products is that getting them set up to work is a right faff and often either Apple or Google will change something after they have been set up that breaks the system.When I changed my iPhone recently it was a real challenge to get the new Google accounts working and syncing with calendar, and it was only a delete and set up again that cured it.
However even doing that was not easy because although I use the Gmail app on the iPhone I found after much frustration that I had to change the default browser from Safari to Chrome temporarily because when I received the 'confirm it is you signing in' emails from Google, if they open in Safari then you simply couldn't click through to confirm - whereas those same links opened in Google's Chrome worked fine.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff