Desktop calendar applet not automatically syncing with Google Calendar

[nemo701]

Distribution

Mint 22.1

Package version

6.4.6

Graphics hardware in use

Nvidia GeForce GTX980

Frequency

Always

Bug description

If you add or update information in a Google calendar, that information does not automatically get synced to the Cinnamon desktop calendar applet. However, if you manually launch gnome-calendar, the calendar will sync and the applet will show the updated information. I think the synchronisation should occur automatically...

Steps to reproduce

• Sign into a Google account via system settings > online accounts
• configure the account to only synchronise calendar items
• add an event to the Google calendar via its web interface or any other connected app (or edit an existing event)
• the new event does not display in the desktop calendar applet (or the event still only shows the old information), even after several minutes
• install gnome-calendar
• launch gnome-calendar
• on launch, events are synced, and the applet then shows the updated calendar information
  (- edits made in gnome-calendar are automatically/immediately shown in the desktop applet, and pushed to other apps connected to the Google Calendar)

Expected behavior

Calendar synchronisation should be automatic so that the applet always shows current calendar information

Additional information

No response

[mtwebster]

The calendar applet is deliberately 'pull-only', and after its initial sync (when Cinnamon or your session starts), only requests updates for certain system events and when the user opens the applet.

This means that the applet isn't notified about any changes, and won't look for itself until you open it.

If you can reproduce this again, but leave the applet open to observe if/when the update occurs.

The applet and Gnome calendar are both clients of the same service they get their calendar data from the same source (evolution-data-server). We can consider being a bit more aggressive about updates, or poll occasionally, but we generally want to avoid background work like this whenever possible within the Cinnamon process.

[mtwebster]

Ok I did my own testing, it looks like remote calendar changes actually aren't triggering updates any more.

[nemo701]

Thanks for responding, I've just been doing my own testing, too :)

I deleted an event from my Google calendar, and it took somewhere between 15-20 minutes before it stopped showing in the applet, too - so (aside from my impatience), it looks like syncing is still happening, just on quite a delayed schedule. I appreciate your sentiment not to bog the system down with large volumes of sync checks, but maybe once per minute might be acceptable (or a user-configurable option)?

[mtwebster]

If you want to try the changes, download changed file:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/d52e9c02cbab23507d4cb63ce7c5ffe064bc2fd8/calendar-server/cinnamon-calendar-server.py

and replace the contents of /usr/libexec/cinnamon/cinnamon-calendar-server.py

If you just replace the file, make sure it remains executable (sudo chmod +x <file>)

[nemo701]

Tested, thank you - that's much better :)