Sorry for the lack of posting recently, but I’ve become so busy with real-life issues I’d allowed this to lapse. I’ll endeavor to put this at a higher priority.
Back in September my primary computer, an iMac G5, decided to call it quits. Suffice it to say that it succumbed to a problem endemic to that model. Last month I was able to replace it with an all new, just recently announced, iMac with a 2.5GHz Core i5 processor. Nice machine, even if it is the base model (considering my previous Mac, it was a big jump). I connected the old Mac’s hard drive externally so when I got to the appropriate part of the setup process, I could have it import everything. It seemed to work as I’d been able to access all the files I expected to be there.
I noticed a deficiency today. I was going to update my address book with data I’d originally put in iCal. However, the one calendar I needed for this didn’t have anything in it other than what I’d put in since I got the new Mac. Naturally, I freaked out. I thought I’d put this somewhere else and looked, but didn’t find. I pulled out the old Mac’s drive and found the calendar file and tried to import but got an error that it couldn’t be read. At this point, I’m about to pull what’s left of my hair out at this point.
Deep breath. I open the file in a text editor to find that there is readable data. I assume iCal just gave up too quickly so I try reading with other applications. I try to import the file onto my PC running Thunderbird with Lightning but it doesn’t appear to import (although no error messages are produced). I was able to import into a Google calendar, though. I take an export from that and try to import into iCal only to find that it can’t read THAT file either. I might as well shave my head at this point.
I use Google to search for references to the error message that iCal gave me. I found a discussion which basically seems to bemoan the fact of this being an issue with iCal on Snow Leopard not being able to import from a Tiger calendar. Several workarounds are mentioned with reference to at least one third-party software product. The workaround I attempted was to import the calendar onto another computer in my house running Leopard. This was successful. I then export from this and am able to successfully import onto my new computer. What a pain, but at least I can continue working.
Just so this might show up in a relevant search, the error message I got from iCal was: iCal can’t read this calendar file. No events have been added to your iCal calendar.