WatchOS 2 - Calendar data not Syncing

Phone on 9.0GM (13A340), Watch on WatchOS 2 GM (13S343). No calendars (iCloud or Exhcange) are syncing. New appointments freshly added don't sync to watch. Removing the calendars entirely from the iPhone and re-adding them back adds to the phone but still does not sync to watch. Watch restarted, Phone restarted - no change in behavior, no calendar data on the watch.

Calendar settings in Watch App are "Mirror my iPhone"

Watch App >> General >> Reset >> Reset Sync Data does nothing.

Re-paired Watch and setup as new: no fix.


All other watch syncing (contacts, mail, etc.) seem to be working fine.


Any ideas? Any others with similar behavior?

Accepted Reply

Good news Developer Friends!


I've determined the root cause.


This is caused by Secure Open In. Basically you must allow "Allow Documents from Managed Sources in Unmanaged Destinations"


Essentially probably because of Handoff or something related to it, it views your Calendar as a Managed Data Point and your device (Apple Watch) as an unmanaged location.


The main reason for this is that the way file transfer works between Apple Device and Apple Watch is why this behavior would occur. You can read more about it here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/WatchKitProgrammingGuide/DesigningaWatchKitApp.html


The key item to understand with it is: At runtime, you share files between processes by reading and writing those files in the shared container directory. To access the container directory, use the

containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:
method of
NSFileManager
to retrieve the base URL for the directory. Use the provided URL to enumerate the directory contents, or create new URLs for files in the directory.

Replies

Hi Omniver,


Everyone else with the same issue, and who couldn't fix it with what you've already tried all had another calander account other than iCloud. You could try unsyncing the Exchange calander and see if you can get just the iCloud one working before trying to reintroduce the Exchange...


Max.

Thanks Max,


I had tried exactly this. I have three calendars: 2 in iCloud - a personal one and a 'shared' one with Family accounts; and 1 Exchange calendar. Removing *all* calendars from my phone and re-adding only the 'iCloud' calendar had no change on the sync to Apple Watch.


One interesting item is when I used Siri to "add an appointment" via the Apple Watch - it worked and created the appointment, but not on any calendar linked to the iPhone. It's almost as if the watch has it's own calendar that isn't syncing anywhere.


-O

Some additional informormation:


Removing all iCloud calendars from the iPhone caused a 'new' calendar to appear - a local iPhone calendar. This new calendar had the Watch created event on it. Also, adding/removing/editing events on this local iCloud calendar *does* sync to the Watch.


I re-added the iCloud calendar and was prompted to "Merge" the local iPhone calendar. I did, and it was added as a new iCloud calendar. Syncing with this calendar still works between iPhone/iCloud/and Apple Watch *but* my other pre-existing iCloud calendars still do not appear or Sync with the apple watch.


Still no fix for the problem, but at least something new.

Interesting that you seem to have established that the watch syncs/populates exclusively from the iPhone local calender though...

More information: Did a 'Reset Sync Data' in the Apple Watch application. This cleared all the data from the Watch and now no data at all, including the recently working calendar which was merged into iCloud, syncs on the Watch. Back to the starting state.


Removing and re-adding the iCloud calendars from the phone had no effect.

Next: will try deleting the extra iCloud calendar, then delete all calendars again from iPhone. Re-add the iCloud on the iPhone. then re-pair the watch again.

Some progress, possible coorelation on the bug.


Removing calendars, repairing, etc. had no effect. The iPhone had an MDM profile installed via Airwatch which provided access to the Exhcange account. The exchange account was not set to sync calendar, so I had ruled that out early. In my last test I completely unenrolled the device and re-added the iCloud calendar. it worked - iCloud calendar was back. I then re-enrolled the device in MDM and Exchange, poof - all calendars on the Apple Watch dissapeared. Definately some coorelation here with MDM and/or the Exchange profile.


More as I figure it out.

That certainly gels with the anecdotal evidence mentioned earlier...

Good news Developer Friends!


I've determined the root cause.


This is caused by Secure Open In. Basically you must allow "Allow Documents from Managed Sources in Unmanaged Destinations"


Essentially probably because of Handoff or something related to it, it views your Calendar as a Managed Data Point and your device (Apple Watch) as an unmanaged location.


The main reason for this is that the way file transfer works between Apple Device and Apple Watch is why this behavior would occur. You can read more about it here: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/WatchKitProgrammingGuide/DesigningaWatchKitApp.html


The key item to understand with it is: At runtime, you share files between processes by reading and writing those files in the shared container directory. To access the container directory, use the

containerURLForSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:
method of
NSFileManager
to retrieve the base URL for the directory. Use the provided URL to enumerate the directory contents, or create new URLs for files in the directory.

This is another good article: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/watchos/documentation/WatchConnectivity/Reference/WatchConnectivity_framework/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40015269


Basically the WatchKit uses NSURLSession to transfer files securely between devices including performing data transfer in the background.


You might also want to watch:


Thanks Jon for your help in working throught the test cases to identify the cause. I want to highlight that this setting has been around since iOS7 and as we both know, this is not the behavior seen in WatchOS 1, it also essentially makes the Apple Watch Calendar useless in any corporate environment which is using this setting to help enforce DLP. I've reported this in bug 22648317

After I set my Exchange calendar account to 'No limit' mail days to sync the calendar got synced with my iCloud calendar AND Exchange calendar. Happy for me it works again!

Hope it works for others 2!

Same issue here, have tried all suggestions and while turning off all other calanders and adding events to iphone itself works none of my other calendars sync. I have an exchange profile installed.

I tested removing my corporate profile (Exchange Mail) managed by MobileIron and all my personal calendars (Gmail, icloud) returned. It appears it has something to do with the restrictions set on corporate profiles. I hope this gets resolved as it has rendered my watch useless as I need it to keep track of my meetings ...

Same problem here - updated to WatchOS 2 and lost all access to 3 calendars on iPhone one of which is a corporately managed exchange profile

I have a corporate profile provided via a mobile iron and I have he exact same issue. After upgrading to watchOs2 all my calendar data is gone from the watch. Regardless of resetting sync data. I removed the entire corporate profile from my phone and calendar on the watch works perfectly. Add it back and boom. It's all gone. Including my iCloud data. I really hope this is fixed ASAP.