4 ms·

Warn HN: Google Calendar is not reliable

16 points by cool-RR 17y ago

I've been using Google Calendar for a few years now. I've been relying mainly on its "alerting" options -- For example if there's something important I'm supposed to do two months from now, I would set an event for that time with an e-mail alert, and then I'll get an e-mail from Calendar reminding me of that. I was very happy that there is some service I can write things down in and then completely forget them, trusting it will alert me by e-mail. Well... Lately I've been suspecting that Calendar is simply dropping e-mails occasionaly. Sometimes there will be an event and I won't get an e-mail. For a while I thought I was missing something, maybe I didn't set the e-mail alert right, or deleted the e-mail and forgot. But it kept happenning, and today I confirmed it. I made a reminder and made sure everything was set up right, and then I didn't receive the e-mail, and I also checked the spam folder. I'm pretty sure it was just not mailed. So be warned: You cannot trust Google Calendar to alert you to your important events.

cool-RR 17y ago
Also, I would be very happy to hear a recommendation about an alerting service that you can trust.
- JamieEi 17y ago
  Um, Outlook does a pretty good job.
  - cool-RR 17y ago
    Release the hounds.
  - abyssknight 17y ago
    That it does, and with Exchange (gasp) its amazing what you can do. Vendor agnosticism is a virtue. Remember that. :) I <3 exchange, but I'll agree its expensive.
macemoneta 17y ago
Email is not a guaranteed delivery protocol. Messages get dropped if any server in the path has a problem. With 80+% of email being spam, it's also possible that an aggressive filter on your ISP or an intermediate machine is selecting the messages incorrectly. Treating email as a reliable protocol does not make it so.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  No ISP involved -- It's all in-Google.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    If it's all in-house Google, there's no reason why they can't develop some sort of guaranteed delivery protocol, just for internal use. That would be a huge boon to a calendaring app with notification.
    - mahmud 17y ago
      I think about 5 googlers just got yanked from their fun 20% projects into a meeting room. Yes, of course!
- roundsquare 17y ago
  It may not be guaranteed, but how many emails do you have dropped every day? If someone is missing an a day from some source, I'd think that its not a problem with the servers along the way but a problem with the source or destination.
gizmo 17y ago
Use the SMS notification feature. It's free and in my experience 100% reliable.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  Been using the SMS alerts for years as well - It's much LESS reliable than the e-mail alerts for me, with SMSs being dropped all the time, but this is probably because of my phone company which is in Israel, so I won't hold it against Google and this is why I did not mention it at all in this complaint.
k0n2ad 17y ago
There are too many points on the path where something could go wrong. Given that this is the first time that I am hearing about Google Calendar being a problem, I doubt it's the actual problem. What email service are you using?
- cool-RR 17y ago
  It doesn't even let you specify an email address -- It just sends to your associated Gmail account.
- newsio 17y ago
  I use Google Calendar alerts and have regularly noticed late email notifications (up to an hour or two), but never failed deliveries. I use Yahoo mail.
  - cool-RR 17y ago
    Possibly you don't use it as heavily as me, I have maybe ~5 reminders a day.
vgurgov 17y ago
are you using gmail mailbox for that??? i also had issues with local mailbox but gmail+googcal pair works fine for me.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  Yes, Gmail. What do you mean, "works fine" for you? In more than 95% of the time it works fine for me too, I'm just concerned about it not being close enough to 100%.
  - blueben 17y ago
    Yes, I can see how this might trouble you. I mean, you've paid good money for a 100% performance SLA.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
BigCanOfTuna 17y ago
I agree with the others. There are too many variable to the situation to simply assume that you can't trust Google. Now, I don't doubt that have dropped emails as you suggest, but at a rate that is worse than Exchange or any other calendaring applications? Perhaps your title should be "Google Calendar is not perfect" and we could all respond with "What is?"
- cool-RR 17y ago
  Dude, have you read my comments to all the people below? This is ALL GOOGLE. The alerts go from my Google Calendar to Gmail, and I read them from the browser.
drhowarddrfine 17y ago
Well, I've been using Google Calendar for several years now, too, and have always received my alerts, afaik.
- peregrine 17y ago
  Same here never had an issue.
kirubakaran 17y ago
That IS scary. I too rely on Google Calendar completely. Thank you for the alert. From now, perhaps I'll check the 'agenda view' first thing in the morning every day.
prakash 17y ago
Kiko resurrection?
zmimon 17y ago
The nice thing about Google Calendar is it supports iCal and various other standard protocols to get your calendar out. You can even import it to Windows Calendar. So you are not limited to relying on Google for updates, just set up synching with any service or application that supports iCal and configure that application to give you alerts.
azsromej 17y ago
I've had problems, but only with recurring events; I wasn't getting reminders for those so I made them one-time events and dragged them to a future date upon notification.
subd 17y ago
Be double sure and set up an SMS & email reminder & confirm that Google calendar forgot about it altogether, or just that something went wrong with the email somewhere
senorpedro 17y ago
use rememberthemilk.com its very reliable, also it can remind you via IM or SMS
chanux 17y ago
30boxes does good enough for me.

16 points by cool-RR 17y ago

cool-RR 17y ago

Also, I would be very happy to hear a recommendation about an alerting service that you can trust.

JamieEi 17y ago
Um, Outlook does a pretty good job.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  Release the hounds.
- abyssknight 17y ago
  That it does, and with Exchange (gasp) its amazing what you can do. Vendor agnosticism is a virtue. Remember that. :) I <3 exchange, but I'll agree its expensive.

macemoneta 17y ago

Email is not a guaranteed delivery protocol. Messages get dropped if any server in the path has a problem. With 80+% of email being spam, it's also possible that an aggressive filter on your ISP or an intermediate machine is selecting the messages incorrectly. Treating email as a reliable protocol does not make it so.

cool-RR 17y ago
No ISP involved -- It's all in-Google.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  If it's all in-house Google, there's no reason why they can't develop some sort of guaranteed delivery protocol, just for internal use. That would be a huge boon to a calendaring app with notification.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    I think about 5 googlers just got yanked from their fun 20% projects into a meeting room. Yes, of course!
roundsquare 17y ago
It may not be guaranteed, but how many emails do you have dropped every day? If someone is missing an a day from some source, I'd think that its not a problem with the servers along the way but a problem with the source or destination.

gizmo 17y ago

Use the SMS notification feature. It's free and in my experience 100% reliable.

cool-RR 17y ago
Been using the SMS alerts for years as well - It's much LESS reliable than the e-mail alerts for me, with SMSs being dropped all the time, but this is probably because of my phone company which is in Israel, so I won't hold it against Google and this is why I did not mention it at all in this complaint.

k0n2ad 17y ago

There are too many points on the path where something could go wrong. Given that this is the first time that I am hearing about Google Calendar being a problem, I doubt it's the actual problem. What email service are you using?

cool-RR 17y ago
It doesn't even let you specify an email address -- It just sends to your associated Gmail account.
newsio 17y ago
I use Google Calendar alerts and have regularly noticed late email notifications (up to an hour or two), but never failed deliveries. I use Yahoo mail.
- cool-RR 17y ago
  Possibly you don't use it as heavily as me, I have maybe ~5 reminders a day.

vgurgov 17y ago

are you using gmail mailbox for that??? i also had issues with local mailbox but gmail+googcal pair works fine for me.

cool-RR 17y ago
Yes, Gmail. What do you mean, "works fine" for you? In more than 95% of the time it works fine for me too, I'm just concerned about it not being close enough to 100%.
- blueben 17y ago
  Yes, I can see how this might trouble you. I mean, you've paid good money for a 100% performance SLA.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

BigCanOfTuna 17y ago

I agree with the others. There are too many variable to the situation to simply assume that you can't trust Google. Now, I don't doubt that have dropped emails as you suggest, but at a rate that is worse than Exchange or any other calendaring applications? Perhaps your title should be "Google Calendar is not perfect" and we could all respond with "What is?"

cool-RR 17y ago
Dude, have you read my comments to all the people below? This is ALL GOOGLE. The alerts go from my Google Calendar to Gmail, and I read them from the browser.

drhowarddrfine 17y ago

Well, I've been using Google Calendar for several years now, too, and have always received my alerts, afaik.

peregrine 17y ago
Same here never had an issue.

kirubakaran 17y ago

That IS scary. I too rely on Google Calendar completely. Thank you for the alert. From now, perhaps I'll check the 'agenda view' first thing in the morning every day.

prakash 17y ago

Kiko resurrection?

zmimon 17y ago

The nice thing about Google Calendar is it supports iCal and various other standard protocols to get your calendar out. You can even import it to Windows Calendar. So you are not limited to relying on Google for updates, just set up synching with any service or application that supports iCal and configure that application to give you alerts.

azsromej 17y ago

I've had problems, but only with recurring events; I wasn't getting reminders for those so I made them one-time events and dragged them to a future date upon notification.

subd 17y ago

Be double sure and set up an SMS & email reminder & confirm that Google calendar forgot about it altogether, or just that something went wrong with the email somewhere

senorpedro 17y ago

use rememberthemilk.com its very reliable, also it can remind you via IM or SMS

chanux 17y ago

30boxes does good enough for me.