Unable to dismiss an instance of a recurring reminder

[Pierre D]

Hi,

I have a weekly reminder in a Google calendar that I have been using for 2 years. I
recently upgraded from TB68 to TB78 (upgrade delayed by the availability of an add-on
updated for TB78). I am using CalDav. Win10 x64 20H2.

Every time I want to dismiss the reminder (now a day old), I get a popup saying:

The item has recently been changed on the server. Submitting your changes will
overwrite the changes made on the server.
Two buttons: "Submit my changes anyway" and "Discard my changes and reload"

If I click on the first button, the popup immediately comes right back. So my only
choice is to click the second button. And a few minutes later the reminder pops up
again and I still can't dismiss it.

I have closed TB and reopened. No dice. I have rebooted my computer. No dice.

The only way I was able to dismiss the reminder was to delete the notification for it
directly on the Google calendar (website), then syncing my TB calendars.

In the past I had seen this problem with being unable to dismiss a reminder for a
recurring invite (i.e. not just a simple event created by me), but the issue was that
clicking Dismiss would do nothing (no popup appearing).

Any relief to these problems? Apparently TB78 just made it worse than it was before.
Thanks.

Pierre

[Jim S]

I had this when trying to change the time on ONE of a recurring
series. The only solution was to delete the whole series, re-set the
series up to, but not including that one, put it in as a single, then
start the series again after. A PITA.

--
Jim S

[WaltS48]

I disabled reminders on the calendar website and only use the
Thunderbird reminder.

Not sure if that would be any help, as I don't do recurring events,
preferring to edit or drag and drop them to the next occurrence.

They in the past, they are gone.

--
OS: Ubuntu Linux 18.04LTS - Gnome Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

[Pierre D]

On 01/08/21 06:09, Jim S wrote:
>  I had this when trying to change the time on ONE of a recurring series. The only
> solution was to delete the whole series, re-set the series up to, but not including
> that one, put it in as a single, then start the series again after. A PITA.
>

Thanks Jim. But no, I am not going to revamp the series as I have far too many
recurring reminders/events. The workaround of going to the Google calendar, removing
the notification for THAT event that misbheaves, and synchronizing calendars in TB is
far less disrupting, even if still a PITA.

Pierre

[Pierre D]

On 01/08/21 08:37, WaltS48 wrote:
> I disabled reminders on the calendar website and only use the Thunderbird reminder.
>
> Not sure if that would be any help, as I don't do recurring events, preferring to
> edit or drag and drop them to the next occurrence.
>
> They in the past, they are gone.
>

Thanks Walt,

I assume that what you are saying by "disabled reminders on the calendar website" is
the same as me saying "remove notification for the event on the calendar website".
Then I synchronize calendars in TB and the trouble popup/reminder goes away. It is
still a PITA.

My gut feeling is that something renders the calendar in TB temporarily R/O. The
reason I am saying this is the following:

If I edit the one instance of a troubled event in the series, remove the reminders
for that one instance, save and close, and reopen the instance, the reminders are
still there.

This might give a clue to the developers as to what is going on. Why is my change to
the reminders not honored from the TB GUI, but honored if I do it on the Google
calendar website and synchronize? I think this is the crux of the problem. Any
thoughts on that?

By the way, not being able to dismiss reminders is not a new problem.It has been
reported before multiple times in the calendar newsgroup.

Pierre

[Jim S]

Pierre
I WAS describing the synced Google Calendar, which is my default/only.
So good luck with that.

--
Jim S

[WaltS48]

No thoughts and yes it is the same as "remove notification".

[Pierre D]

On 01/10/21 15:41, WaltS48 wrote:
>> I assume that what you are saying by "disabled reminders on the calendar website"
>> is the same as me saying "remove notification for the event on the calendar
>> website". Then I synchronize calendars in TB and the trouble popup/reminder goes
>> away. It is still a PITA.
>>
>> My gut feeling is that something renders the calendar in TB temporarily R/O. The
>> reason I am saying this is the following:
>>
>> If I edit the one instance of a troubled event in the series, remove the reminders
>> for that one instance, save and close, and reopen the instance, the reminders are
>> still there.
>>
>> This might give a clue to the developers as to what is going on. Why is my change
>> to the reminders not honored from the TB GUI, but honored if I do it on the Google
>> calendar website and synchronize? I think this is the crux of the problem. Any
>> thoughts on that?
>>
>> By the way, not being able to dismiss reminders is not a new problem.It has been
>> reported before multiple times in the calendar newsgroup.
>>
>> Pierre
>
> No thoughts and yes it is the same as "remove notification".
>

The problem is getting worse, but I have an additional bit of info that may help.

For the event reminder that I can't dismiss, I went on the Google website and edited
the subject line of the event (simply adding a ! at the end). I then synchronized the
calendars in TB, and the ! appeared in the event in the TB calendar. So far so good.

Then I synchronized the calendars again and the subject line reverted to what it was
before, i.e. without the !, while on the website, the ! remains. It's now a day later
this little experiment and the ! has disappeared from the event on the Google website.

A couple of days ago, I did the following:
- removed the calendar from TB
- closed TB
- deleted the calendar-data folder
- renamed storage.sdb to storage.sdb.old
- renamed storage to storage.old
- renamed storage.sqlite to storage.sqlite.old
- restarted TB
- re-added the calendar

And the problem of being unable to dismiss that particular event came right back.

So the two little experiments above would appear to indicate that TB (78) keeps
calendar data somewhere else, or in a cache, or ... But where on earth does it keep it?

I googled for this and didn't find anything useful (all relevant to Lightning circa
2015).

Any ideas?

Pierre

[WaltS48]

Bug 1664731 fixed in 78.6.1.

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1664731>

See comments 48 and 49.

I have little experience with reminders in recurring events, preferring
to drag and drop my daily recurring event into the next day after the
reminder triggers and I finish the task.

--
OS: Fedora 33 Workstation - Gnome Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

[Pierre D]

On 01/15/21 09:24, WaltS48 wrote:
>
> Bug 1664731 fixed in 78.6.1.
>
> <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1664731>
>
> See comments 48 and 49.
>
> I have little experience with reminders in recurring events, preferring to drag and
> drop my daily recurring event into the next day after the reminder triggers and I
> finish the task.
>

Unfortunately, I don't think it's the same bug. But I am not 100% sure. And I am
already on 78.6.1 and the problem still exists.

Besides, the bug talks about local calendars, mine is a Google calendar (using CalDav).

I even tried to delete the App Data\Local\Thunderbird folder. It got recreated of
course when I restarted TB. Still no improvement.

I absolutely need to find out where TB stores calendar data. It is obvious it has
locally stored data that overwrites whatever synchronizes with the Google website.
Removing and re-adding the calendar in question simply made the problem come back.

Pierre