Calendar sync issues

Calendar sync depends on third-party APIs and authentication tokens that occasionally break. This article covers the most common issues.

My events are not appearing

1. Check the connection

/mentor/settings/connections shows the status of your connected calendar.

• Connected: green indicator. Events should be syncing.
• Needs reconnection: yellow / red indicator. Click "Reconnect" and re-auth.

If the status is connected but events are missing, move on.

2. Check you picked the right calendar

You may have connected to your primary calendar but events are pushed to a sub-calendar.

In Google Calendar, sub-calendars are listed in the left sidebar; make sure "MoveMentors" or whichever calendar you picked is visible (checkbox ticked).

In Apple Calendar, sub-calendars appear under your account. Same idea; make sure the right one is visible.

3. Recently created events take a few minutes

We push new events asynchronously; expect a 5-minute delay from class creation to calendar appearance.

If you created a class an hour ago and the event is still not there, something is wrong; move on.

4. Force a re-sync

/mentor/settings/connections → "Sync now". This re-pushes all upcoming events.

If the re-sync fails, the error message will indicate what is wrong.

Events are appearing at the wrong time

Most common cause: timezone mismatch.

The class's timezone is set when you created the class (default is your profile's timezone). The event's start time is anchored to that timezone. When your calendar app shows the event, it converts to your calendar's local timezone.

If you have travelled and your calendar app now shows a different timezone than your home, events from before the travel still show in their original timezone, converted to your current display timezone. This is correct behaviour but confusing.

To verify: open the event in Google or Apple Calendar. The event details should show the original timezone (e.g. "11am Berlin time, 5am New York time"). If it does not show that, the original class timezone is wrong; edit the class on MoveMentors and re-save.

Cancellations are not removing events

If you cancel a session in MoveMentors, the corresponding event in your calendar should be deleted.

If it does not:

1. Check /mentor/settings/connections for connection status.
2. Wait 5 minutes; deletion is async.
3. If still there, delete manually from your calendar.

Bookings changing (party size, attendee names) update the event description but do not move the event.

My calendar is full of duplicate events

Usually a sync that started before a clean disconnect happened. Workaround:

1. Delete the events manually (or delete the whole sub-calendar if you used a dedicated one).
2. Disconnect from MoveMentors.
3. Reconnect.
4. Force a clean re-sync.

If duplicates keep appearing, something is wrong; email support with details.

Google Calendar: "Cannot access your calendar"

Google's OAuth token may have expired or been revoked.

To fix:

1. Go to myaccount.google.com/security.
2. Find "Third-party apps with account access".
3. Check if MoveMentors is still authorised. If yes, remove the access (you will re-authorise next step).
4. Back to MoveMentors. /mentor/settings/connections → "Reconnect Google".
5. Re-authorise.

Apple Calendar: "Authentication failed"

Apple's app-specific password may have changed or your two-factor auth setup may have refreshed.

To fix:

1. Go to appleid.apple.com → "App-Specific Passwords" → delete the old MoveMentors password.
2. Generate a new app-specific password.
3. Back to MoveMentors. /mentor/settings/connections → "Reconnect Apple" with the new password.

Two-way sync confusion

We do NOT have two-way sync. Changes you make in Google or Apple Calendar (moving an event, deleting it, etc) do not propagate back to MoveMentors.

If you accidentally moved an event in your calendar:

• The class in MoveMentors is unchanged.
• The next sync from us will move the event back to where it should be.

To actually change a session time, edit the class in MoveMentors. The change pushes to your calendar.

Students did not get my schedule changes

Calendar sync is between MoveMentors and your calendar app. It does not affect what students see.

If you change a session time:

• The class detail page updates immediately.
• Students booked on the affected session get an email about the change.
• Their .ics calendar files (already in their personal calendars) do NOT auto-update; they would have to re-download.

We are working on student-side calendar subscription (a webcal:// URL they can subscribe to so changes flow automatically). Not yet live.

Why does my calendar show "Unknown organizer" for MoveMentors events

Event organiser fields are sometimes blank or generic depending on your calendar setup. The event still works (correct times, location, etc); the organiser display is a quirk of how Google / Apple render external calendars.

You can manually edit the event to set yourself as the organiser if it bothers you, but the auto-imported events have a generic organiser.

Common questions

Can I use Outlook calendar? Not natively. Workaround: connect Google Calendar to MoveMentors, then connect Outlook to Google Calendar (Outlook supports this). The chain works.

My phone shows events; my desktop calendar does not. Likely the sub-calendar is hidden on desktop. Check the calendar list in the left sidebar and toggle visibility.

Sync stops working after a few weeks. Most often the OAuth token expired. Reconnect.

Events are missing for one specific class but present for others. Check if the class is active in MoveMentors. Inactive classes do not push events. Also check the class's location is set; missing locations sometimes break event generation.

Next steps

• Calendar sync for mentors: setup walkthrough.
• Schedules and recurring: how class schedules work.