Sharing an ics agenda file with WebDav

[Fokke Nauta]

Hi all,

Sorry, completely off-topic, but there are a lot of clever guys out
here. Perhaps someone can shine a light on this.
This is what I want. At home we have a few pc's in a network. There is a
pc (xp pro) which acts as a file-, print-, web- and ftp server. I wanted
a shared agenda on all pc's. So I installed an ics agenda application on
all pc's, Sunbird from Mozilla, with the ics file in a shared folder on
the file server. This all works well.
Now we have a laptop, W7 Home 64b. On a remote location I want to use
that shared agenda as well. So I installed Sunbird on the laptop. And
how can you share a folder over the internet? With WebDav, I thought. So
I installed a WebDav server (BarracudaDrive,
http://barracudadrive.com/FileServer.lsp) on our server. And I installed
a WebDav client (Netdrive, http://www.netdrive.net/) on the laptop. It
maps a drive to the shared folder on the server. All well configured
(see http://barracudadrive.com/tutorials/NetDrive.lsp) and indeed I can
see the servers shared folder on my laptop on a remote location,
including the ics file that's in it. Wonderful!
But here comes the catch. I can not load this isc file into Sunbird.
When I try, the agenda is not available. An error message is produced:
"[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x804b0012
(NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL) [nsIIOService.newChannelFromURI]" nsresult:
"0x804b0012 (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL)" location: "JS frame ::
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Mozilla%20Sunbird/modules/calUtils.jsm ->
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Mozilla%20Sunbird/calendar-js/calICSCalendar.js
:: anonymous :: line 129" data: no]" Searching for "0x804b0012" does
not reveal soething useful.
OK, another calendar application, Lightning under Thunderbird. No
surprise, same situation, same error.
Another calendar application, EM Client from Softmaker Office Pro 2012:
Can't import the ics file, error: "Could not import file
"W:\calendar.ics": The VEVENT component contains unallowed nested
component ('VTIMEZONE').. The file will be skipped.
With these 3 applications, when I import the ics file directly from the
server, there is no problem at all.

Anyone has an idea? Suggestion? Any better way to share an agenda over a
LAN and a remote location?

Thanks beforehand,

Fokke

 

[Paul]

Hi all,

Sorry, completely off-topic, but there are a lot of clever guys out
here. Perhaps someone can shine a light on this.
This is what I want. At home we have a few pc's in a network. There is a
pc (xp pro) which acts as a file-, print-, web- and ftp server. I wanted
a shared agenda on all pc's. So I installed an ics agenda application on
all pc's, Sunbird from Mozilla, with the ics file in a shared folder on
the file server. This all works well.
Now we have a laptop, W7 Home 64b. On a remote location I want to use
that shared agenda as well. So I installed Sunbird on the laptop. And
how can you share a folder over the internet? With WebDav, I thought. So
I installed a WebDav server (BarracudaDrive,
http://barracudadrive.com/FileServer.lsp) on our server. And I installed
a WebDav client (Netdrive, http://www.netdrive.net/) on the laptop. It
maps a drive to the shared folder on the server. All well configured
(see http://barracudadrive.com/tutorials/NetDrive.lsp) and indeed I can
see the servers shared folder on my laptop on a remote location,
including the ics file that's in it. Wonderful!
But here comes the catch. I can not load this isc file into Sunbird.
When I try, the agenda is not available. An error message is produced:
"[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x804b0012
(NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL) [nsIIOService.newChannelFromURI]" nsresult:
"0x804b0012 (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL)" location: "JS frame ::
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Mozilla%20Sunbird/modules/calUtils.jsm
->
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Mozilla%20Sunbird/calendar-js/calICSCalendar.js
:: anonymous :: line 129" data: no]" Searching for "0x804b0012" does
not reveal soething useful.
OK, another calendar application, Lightning under Thunderbird. No
surprise, same situation, same error.
Another calendar application, EM Client from Softmaker Office Pro 2012:
Can't import the ics file, error: "Could not import file
"W:\calendar.ics": The VEVENT component contains unallowed nested
component ('VTIMEZONE').. The file will be skipped.
With these 3 applications, when I import the ics file directly from the
server, there is no problem at all.

Anyone has an idea? Suggestion? Any better way to share an agenda over a
LAN and a remote location?

Thanks beforehand,

Fokke

0x804b0012 (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL) in calUtils.jsm

The available info I could find, suggests the "path" you're feeding Sunbird,
to access the calendar information, has the wrong syntax. I used translate.google.com
on this page, to translate the thread in German, to English, and I think that's what
was the root cause in their case.

http://www.sunbird-kalender.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3194

Just like "http://" or "file://" might specify a protocol, and if you
make a mistake in the syntax, like "http:/", then that would be an
"unknown protocol", as it's effectively a "spelling mistake".

*******

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/faq.html

"To serve shared calendars from your own server machine, the best way
is to install a service specifically designed to manage calendars,
typically using a protocol such as CalDAV, or WCAP. Both open source
and commercially supported calendar service software packages are
available."

Apparently, one of the protocols has a finer granularity than the other.
One protocol, rewrites the entire calendar file. The other protocol,
modifies one entry at a time, does whatever locking is necessary and
so on.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Fokke Nauta]

On 10/04/2013 23:53, Paul wrote:

0x804b0012 (NS_ERROR_UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL) in calUtils.jsm

The available info I could find, suggests the "path" you're feeding
Sunbird,
to access the calendar information, has the wrong syntax. I used
translate.google.com
on this page, to translate the thread in German, to English, and I think
that's what
was the root cause in their case.

http://www.sunbird-kalender.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3194

Just like "http://" or "file://" might specify a protocol, and if you
make a mistake in the syntax, like "http:/", then that would be an
"unknown protocol", as it's effectively a "spelling mistake".

*******

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/faq.html

"To serve shared calendars from your own server machine, the best way
is to install a service specifically designed to manage calendars,
typically using a protocol such as CalDAV, or WCAP. Both open source
and commercially supported calendar service software packages are
available."

Apparently, one of the protocols has a finer granularity than the other.
One protocol, rewrites the entire calendar file. The other protocol,
modifies one entry at a time, does whatever locking is necessary and
so on.

HTH,
Paul

Thanks, Paul. I haven't noticed this thread before.
Instead of using w:\calendar.ics (where w: is the drive which is mapped
to the WebDav drive) I have tried http://ip-address:port
number/fs/d/bdusers/common/calendar.ics and that worked for Sunbird and
Lightning.
For EM Client from Softmaker Office Pro 2012 it still won't work. It
generates the same error message: "The VEVENT component contains
unallowed nested component ('VTIMEZONE').. The file will be skipped."
This application is my favourite to use. It only works if I import the
file directly from the share, as \\server\shared folder\calendar.ics.
Then it works fine. But I can't do this from a remote location.

Fokke