Google Calendar problems

Google finally launched their Calendar service today and it's pretty impressive for a first cut. However I've had a series of problems with it already.

• when I imported my Outlook Calendar, the times were all screwed up, even though I had correctly set my timezone in GCal
• so I tried to delete that Calendar to start again, but GCal was down for a while
• now it's back, I'm trying to build a new calendar, but when I change the settings for the timezone and save it I get the message "Failed to save changes".

Anyone else seeing that? I'm looking in Technorati but no-one else seems to be reporting it. But maybe I'm in between Technorati refreshes.

Comments

[gavin wilson]

Cam - same thing happened to me but I sorted it by doing the folllowing:

1. kept existing calendar (the default one that I started with)

2. create new calendar WITH OUR TIME ZONE GMT +10 (get the "Failed to save changes" error)

3. change the time zone in original calendar to anything (GMT +2 for example)

4. New calendar appeared!

5. import Outlook csv file (same one I did in original calendar)

6. Bingo! - all appointment times as expected.

7. delete original calendar.

I suspect the issue is that the default calendar created in setup somehow retains the US time zone.??

[gavin wilson]

Actually - forget step 7. Don't delete the original calendar - it is designated "primary calendar" and if you delete it you'll have to start again. So just display your second one.

[Marc]

i had the same kind of problems, starting with logging in: 'service temp not available'. 1 attempt later I was in, e'thing worked. Then logged out, came back, logged in, and timezone was reset to London. if i find more, I'll keep you posted. cheers big ears :]

[Cameron Reilly]

hehe thanks Gav. I just followed your first post - without having read your second post. :-)

You're right - it worked the 2nd time, but then I deleted my entire profile. Now Gcal is offline again. :-)

Anyway, it worked. Reading Charlene Li's blog today, she said they are coming out with Outlook synch "soon" as well as the public API to allow people to build new functionality. This is going to rock.

[Cameron Reilly]

hey Gavin - have you discovered the problem with your work-around? GCal still thinks the original calendar is the PRIMARY calendar. So it auto-ads new appointments to it, etc. Pain in the ass....

[Eddie Ball]

Our amateur radio group (ARES) started using GCal a few weeks ago but all the text appears to be in German. The person doing the calendar for us cannot figure out the problem. Any ideas?
Thanks
Eddie Ball, WB4QAU