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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout Apps
A major annoyance with Apple's iCal is that it won't give you reminders that you have set up if you have rebooted or logged out, and then not launched iCal again. After iCal has been run, it leaves a helper app to give reminders, but this doesn't get launched at login.

The iCal helper app is hidden inside the iCal application itself. To find it, control-click on the iCal application and select Show Package Contents. The app is in Contents -> Resources-> iCal Helper.app.

Now open System Preferences and select Login Items. Just drag the iCal Helper.app from the Finder onto the Login Items list, and you're set. You can't just select the iCal Helper app from the Login Items panel as it is inside another application.
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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout | 11 comments | Create New Account
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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: dave@mmu on May 12, '03 10:14:34AM

thats weird, it's always worked fine for me! I can even see ical helper running using process viewer even after a reboot, and it's isn't in my Login items!
Dave

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Dave L



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: arru on May 13, '03 01:07:15PM

As far as my experience goes, the iCal helper is automatically placed among the login items as part of the installation. Of course there's ways to screw that up - which is probably what's happened.



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: ptwithy on May 12, '03 10:36:33AM

I thought it was sufficient to add /System/Library/CoreServices/System Events to your login items?



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: osxpounder on May 12, '03 12:20:01PM

Is it, though? I mean, have you put "System Events" in your login items, and did that take care of iCal notices, even if iCal wasn't running [even after restarts]?

How do you put "System Events" in your login items, anyway? If that isn't a hint here, it sounds to me like it might make a great hint for lots of OSX users, iCal or not.

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osxpounder



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: jyu on May 12, '03 12:34:53PM

It also worked for me even after log out/in and without launching iCal. in Console log, I have these two lines after creating an alarm:

2003-05-12 12:20:09.371 iCal Helper[2588] Launch of helper planned at : 05/12/03 12:24:00

2003-05-12 12:20:43.246 iCal[2589] Launch of helper planned at : 05/12/03 12:24:00



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: osxpounder on May 12, '03 02:35:26PM

I see what you mean; I tested it and it's working for me, too. I don't recall how "System Events" got put in my Login Items anymore--maybe I did it and forgot. Anyway, if it's the case that System Events don't automatically get put in Login Items, it'd be a great boon to macosxhints users to know how to put it in place.

I see that I don't need iCal in my Login Items anymore. Cool.

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osxpounder



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How about WHILE logged out
Authored by: 47ronin on May 12, '03 06:54:20PM

I wish there was a way to send iCal alarms while logged out. Apparently the only way they go off is if you're logged in. I do have a Jaguar webserver that runs 24/7 ...are there some opensource PHP solutions? Something I can input birthdays and such and have it email me when the date's coming up? (Please, I try to avoid too much Perl)



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: uurf on May 13, '03 01:47:10PM

I don't have "System Events" or "iCal Helper.app" in my Login Items. iCal notifies me of alarms after login/logouts.

iCalhelper is launched automatically at regular intervals to see if there are any pending alarms. It doesn't need to be added to login items, afaict.



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: eilers on Nov 13, '03 07:46:48AM

Strange.. I think my iCal Helper.app crashes after starting.
This might be the reason why I never get any reminders.. ever..

See this.. Anyone an idea ?

stefan:/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/Resources/iCal Helper.app/Contents/MacOS$ ./iCal\ Helper
2003-11-13 13:40:07.855 iCal Helper[14130] *** -[NSCFString setTimeZone:]: selector not recognized
2003-11-13 13:40:07.857 iCal Helper[14130] An uncaught exception was raised
2003-11-13 13:40:07.858 iCal Helper[14130] *** -[NSCFString setTimeZone:]: selector not recognized
2003-11-13 13:40:07.859 iCal Helper[14130] *** Uncaught exception: <NSInvalidArgumentException> *** -[NSCFString setTimeZone:]: selector not recognized
Trace/BPT trap



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Make iCal alarms work automatically after reboot/logout
Authored by: hidingout on Jan 29, '04 05:12:06PM

oddly I have the same problem & the same result in the console.log
Has anybody figured this out ?

Thanks in advance for any info .



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A fix for iCal alarms not working and iCalHelper crash
Authored by: seamus on Sep 02, '05 01:10:40PM

I've had this very same problem for quite some time now on my dual G5 at work running 10.3. After many hours of trouble shooting, I determined that it was user specific (Alarms worked fine on a test user).

I ended up deleting my calendars (after backing up of course), and sure enough the alarms worked again with new calendars. When I copied my backups back into iCal, I received a message saying that some of the alarms may be corrupt and asked if I wanted to delete them. Even though I clicked OK, iCalhelper was still crashing.

I finally solved it by opening iCal's preferences and set it to delete everything that was more than sixty days old. Apparently what ever was corrupting it was more than sixty days old.

So, What caused the problem? I'm not sure but I do use iSynCal to sync my calendars from my work machine to my personal laptop and it may have been caused by a bad sync. I also sync my Palm to my laptop, and it may have been a combination of everything.

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Seamus



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