Trash flooded by calendar repeating events

[duarte.framos]

What could cause my Trash to become flooded with recurring events frequently?

Every now and then, when I visit my Trash to clean it up I find it flooded by many repeated copies of certain recurring events I haven't edited, modified or even opened in a while.
I clear my trash from time to time only to return and find them there again the following day. It only seems to happen to recurring events from the calendar.

I deleted one of them and recreated it from scratch and it seems to have fixed the issue, but the other one returned even after deleting it and recreating the event from scratch. The event displayed has a recurring date on the first Sunday of May.



It now happened with a different event, I noticed that events in the trash seem altered compared to original, repeating frequency now seems to be daily.



I'm now on EPIM 11.1 under Windows 10, but this has been happening for a while since previous versions. I only sync with my Android device locally through Wi-Fi, no other syncs or clouds are used

What could cause this, corrupt event? Accidentally editing "Only This occurrence" as opposed to "The Whole Series"? Is there anything I can do to prevent this in the future?

[admin]

My only guess at the moment would be as if synchronization with Android is somehow involved. But you'd need to observe this further just to be sure.

[duarte.framos]

My only guess at the moment would be as if synchronization with Android is somehow involved.

That would seem to be the case. I just tested again after clearing the Trash folder and manually prompting an Android syncing just made a few more duplicate items pop in.

My local sync settings are configured to sync all events in the past and future. Maybe that is somehow messing with Android.
Maybe purging the Calendar module in Android would solve this? That would not clear my data from Windows EPIM would it?

Anything I can help with diagnosing this? Would sync logs or any other way of debugging help?

[admin]

Yes, sync logs would help. Please forward me the latest one via PM (you can get it here: Tools->Options->Synchronization, Browse...) and mention subject of an event in question. Thanks.

[duarte.framos]

Did you ever find the cause for this? Is it a bug, or is there anything I can do at my end to avoid it?

[admin]

These are from your synchronization with AEPIM. It seems that the event "Mother's Day" is being somehow recreated in AEPIM, which then syncs with WinEPIM with new ids for the recurring items. WinEPIM on its side deletes the series and then recreates it again. So the question is - where this series of events is coming from and why is it being re-created/re-written in AEPIM.

[duarte.framos]

I also noticed it doesn't always happen to the same repeating event. When a new recurring event approaches it seems to trigger a different series of repetitions.
I now have two other recurring events on my trash.

Could it have to do with the fact that I have events syncing for All in the past and All in the Future?

[admin]

Nope, that setting wouldn't have any effect on the problem. Where these recurring events do initially come from?

[duarte.framos]

I created them all manually myself on the local calendar using EPIM for Windows, then synced them to Android afterwards through local Wifi sync.

I noticed that all duplicates that appear in trash have an altered repeating frequency set to every day, they also have an expiry date set, both of which I never set up myself on the original events.

Something about Android is perhaps changing the event series and making single one-off appointment changes, if that is possible

[admin]

Thanks for the update, let us try to dig deeper with the issue. Will revert back with additional info once I have it.

Update: please share a screenshot with details of the initially created event.

[duarte.framos]

After a lot of suffering and pain, and resorting to starting a fresh database from scratch and manually transferring data between them I think I finally got to the bottom of this and what is causing the event flood.
The new database I did not have this problem until right now, when I was editing events and stumbled across what causes this.

I previously edited a repeating event and accidentally choose Open the appointment rather than Open the series in desktop EPIM, this probably creates a "unique" entry in the event series which by itself did not trigger the issue.

Today I noticed the mistake and tried to correct it by editing the series to make it consistent with the last unique event mistake, so I edited and chose Open the series, on top of the last appointment edit.

From that moment on this caused sync events with Android to flood my trash with repeating instances from those events.
To correct it, I had to edit the series again and make them non recurring, save them, and edit again to make them recurring once more as intended, probably eliminating any stray "unique appointments" in the process.

Is there any way to fix this to prevent the issue? I wish there was a way to always force editing repeating events as a series, rather that ask if we want to open the series or just one appointment.

I never use the Open the appointment option intentionally, for that I'd rather create a non repeating event manually.

[admin]

Please mention your Windows EPIM and Android EPIM version numbers. Also, is that a direct sync between the two or via EPIM Cloud?
Which of the appointment from the series did you edit - the one that was initially mistakenly opened as a single event? Was it a first event or somewhere from the middle of the series? Was that on WinEPIM side? Were there any synchronizations with Android EPIM made in between the changes with the recurring events?

[duarte.framos]

This is under Windows 10 64bits using Windows EPIM 11.1.11 direct syncing over Wifi to Android EPIM 6.0.9 (no cloud sync involved, I think it precedes its existence), but it is not specific to these versions, it happened before in previous versions.

All editing has always been done on desktop Windows EPIM, the steps go as:

1. I created some recurring calendar event some time ago in Windows EPIM
2. It has been sitting in my calendar for a while and synced locally with Android EPIM over wifi without issues
3. At some point I edited it from some random event occurrence, by mistake choosing Open the appointment rather than Open the series in desktop EPIM and saved it
4. This has been sitting on my calendar for a while and was synced locally with Android EPIM over wifi multiple times without issues
5. Last night I edited said repeating calendar event again, from the middle of the list from some random occurrence on desktop Windows EPIM, and chose Open the series this time, unaware of previous undesirable edit as single appointment. (I'm not sure how to see if there are any individually edited appointments in the series, or how to find them.)
6. Saved the event and synced locally with Android EPIM over wifi. No editing has ever taken place in Android EPIM
7. From this moment on, every time I sync locally with Android EPIM over wifi the Desktop EPIM trash is filled with duplicate entries of those events with unique appointments

To fix this:

1. Edit problematic recurring appointment under Desktop EPIM from any random occurrence and choose Open the series. Again I have not figured out how to distinguish any individually edited appointments from the series.
2. Make the event non recurring and save it.
3. Sync locally with Android EPIM over wifi. This no longer creates duplicates in Trash.
4. Edit the event again under Desktop EPIM, and make the event recurring once more and save it
5. Sync locally with Android EPIM over wifi

From this point on Windows EPIM trash no longer gets filled with duplicates.

So I think what triggers it is editing the recurring event as Open the series under windows, after previously having edited one event as Open the appointment.

Let me know if you need more details

[admin]

I have a question about the step number 5, which seems like the most important one here that should lead us to the cause of the issue. Normally, if you first edit and then save an event form the series as a single event, you will not be able to open it up again as a series of events. So how did you do that?

[duarte.framos]

That I correct, tested just now, unique event can't be edited as series, but the other repeating non unique events from the recurring series are still displayed and editable.

From this I conclude that any further editing I did after creating the "unique" one as Open the series was obviously made from editing some random recurring instance in the middle, rather than the "unique" one, since that one is obviously not editable as series anymore.

In this screenshot I created a "TestTestTestTestTest" recurring event and edited one as Open the appointment in an obvious way by adding "AAAA " to the title to stand out.

I don't know it it works internally, if the "unique" event is still somehow linked to the recurring one, or if a new separate event is created independent from the others. I'd say the former, not only because of the issues I've been having, but also if you look at this list you can see the event occurring on December 11 2022 is not duplicated and is otherwise missing as a recurring event.

In the recurrence column you can see a crossed recurring simbol with a red line, that is probably the UI indication of its uniqueness, though I know of no way to know what series it is linked to, or how many "unique" events there are in some recurring series.