MMM-CalendarEXT2 - Calendar Read Failing When Time Value Is Missing from ics file

[edd189]

I get the following error displayed to the terminal: [CALEXT2] calendar:US Holidays >> invalid date -time value: “2022-01-01T::”

I am using the following url for holidays: webcal://www.calendarlabs.com/ical-calendar/ics/76/US_Holidays.ics

Built-in module calendar can parse this calendar fine. MMM-CalendarEXT3 can as well. Unfortunately I cannot migrate to EXT3 due to it having an issue casting to a Chromecast device.

MMM-CalendarEXT2 is able to parse my public iCloud calendar just fine. Here are data pulls from a few of the ical entries.

Working fine (public iCloud):
BEGIN:VEVENT
CREATED:20230608T001752Z
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230621T164500
DTSTAMP:20230608T001759Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230621T154500
LAST-MODIFIED:20230608T001757Z
SEQUENCE:0
SUMMARY:Kids dentist
UID:19BDE42A-D1C5-469A-9F4C-DF0A9C4B7C7C
END:VEVENT

Failing (US Holidays):
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:New Year’s Day
DTSTART:20220101
DTEND:20220101
LOCATION:United States
DESCRIPTION:Visit https://calendarlabs.com/holidays/us/new-years-day.php to know more about New Year’s Day. \n\n Like us on Facebook: http://fb.com/calendarlabs to get updates
UID:636a37c4d8b361667905476@calendarlabs.com
DTSTAMP:20221108T110436Z
STATUS:CONFIRMED
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
SEQUENCE:0
END:VEVENT

It seems to be that EXT2 is confused when there is no time component to the DTSTART and DTEND fields. I tried to look through the code, but don’t understand how to tell it to ignore if no time entry is made (ie, an all day event). Easy fix?

[edd189]

@sdetweil

I went with an sh script. I run this every morning at 3am. Does the trick by fixing the calendar file (appends a made up time to the end where its missing) and saving locally. I had to point CX2 to a local file instead of the webcal link, but that is no problem.

The worst part was that the two calendars had slightly different formatting. The US Holidays had some sort of hidden return character at the end of the string, and it took me forever to figure out how awk should deal with that.

#!/bin/sh

#download files
curl “https://www.calendarlabs.com/ical-calendar/ics/76/US_Holidays.ics” --output us_holidays_raw.ics
curl “https://api.team-manager.gc.com/ics-calendar-documents/user/6e0678b2-2e99-44ce-9e3a-e32ac9ff6e78.ics?teamId=secret_id_string&token=secret_id_string” --output baseball_raw.ics

#clean files
awk ‘{if(($1 ~ /DTSTART/) && length($1)==16) {print $0"T050000Z"} else {print $0}}’ dirtdawgs_raw.ics > baseball_awk1.ics
awk ‘{if(($1 ~ /DTEND/) && length($1)==14) {print $0"T195959Z"} else {print $0}}’ dirtdawgs_awk1.ics > baseball_awk2.ics

awk ‘{if(($1 ~ /DTSTART/) && length($1)==17) {print substr($0,1,16)“T050000Z”} else {print $0}}’ us_holidays_raw.ics > us_holidays_awk1.ics
awk ‘{if(($1 ~ /DTEND/) && length($1)==15) {print substr($0,1,14)“T195959Z”} else {print $0}}’ us_holidays_awk1.ics > us_holidays_awk2.ics

#copy and delete temp files
/bin/cp us_holidays_awk2.ics us_holidays.ics
/bin/cp baseball_awk2.ics baseball.ics
/bin/cp us_holidays.ics /home/edd/MagicMirror/config/us_holidays.ics
/bin/cp dirtdawgs.ics /home/edd/MagicMirror/config/baseball.ics
rm us_holidays_awk1.ics
rm us_holidays_awk2.ics
rm baseball_awk1.ics
rm baseball_awk2.ics

exit

[sdetweil]

@edd189 calext2 is discontinued… see calext3, which gets its data from the default calendar module… (you configure it, but eliminate the ‘position’ setting so it doesn’t show

[edd189]

@sdetweil As stated in the original post, “Unfortunately I cannot migrate to EXT3 due to it having an issue casting to a Chromecast device.”

[sdetweil]

@edd189 missed that…

anyhow… I think you are stuck… , and will have to fix it yourself

unless the original author chooses to help.

[edd189]

@sdetweil said in MMM-CalendarEXT2 - Calendar Read Failing When Time Value Is Missing from ics file:

and will have to fix it yourself

I know, that’s what I’m asking for help with here. :)

I don’t understand in the code where the call to the ics file occurs. If I can find it and just append 0’s where no time exists, I believe that will solve it.

I found this in CALEXT2_Event.js. Any idea if this is where the call is made?

const now = moment().locale(locale);
if (this.useEventTimeRelative) {
  let status = "current";
  if (this.mEnd.isBefore(now)) status = "passed";
  if (this.mStart.isAfter(now)) status = "future";
  const timeDom = document.createElement("div");
  timeDom.classList.add("relative");
  timeDom.classList.add(status);
  timeDom.innerHTML = this.relativeFormat[status]
    .replace("%ENDFROMNOW%", this.mEnd.fromNow())
    .replace("%STARTFROMNOW%", this.mStart.fromNow())
    .replace("%DURATION%", dur.humanize());
  if (typeof this.dateFormat === "string") {
    timeDom.innerHTML
      .replace("%STARTDATE%", this.mStart.format(this.dateFormat))
      .replace("%ENDDATE%", this.mEnd.format(this.dateFormat));
  }
  time.appendChild(timeDom);
} else {
  let sd;
  let ed;
  let st;
  let et;
  let sdt;
  let edt = null;
  if (typeof this.dateFormat === "object") {
    sd = this.mStart.calendar(null, this.dateFormat);
    ed = this.mEnd.calendar(null, this.dateFormat);
  } else {
    sd = this.mStart.format(this.dateFormat);
    ed = this.mEnd.format(this.dateFormat);
  }
  if (typeof this.timeFormat === "object") {
    st = this.mStart.calendar(null, this.timeFormat);
    et = this.mEnd.calendar(null, this.timeFormat);
  } else {
    st = this.mStart.format(this.timeFormat);
    et = this.mEnd.format(this.timeFormat);
  }
  if (typeof this.dateTimeFormat === "object") {
    sdt = this.mStart.calendar(null, this.dateTimeFormat);
    edt = this.mEnd.calendar(null, this.dateTimeFormat);
  } else {
    sdt = this.mStart.format(this.dateTimeFormat);
    edt = this.mEnd.format(this.dateTimeFormat);
  }
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(sd, "startDate start date"));
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(st, "startTime start time"));
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(sdt, "startDateTime start dateTime"));
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(ed, "endDate end date"));
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(et, "endTime end time"));
  time.appendChild(makeEventTime(edt, "endDateTime end dateTime"));
}
return time;

[sdetweil]

@edd189 its in the node_helper.js

    url = url.replace("webcal://", "http://");
    try {
      response = await fetch(url, opts);

approx line 90

[edd189]

@sdetweil Well, this is quickly becoming a bugabear!

The error is passed all the way from ical.js (found here: https://github.com/kewisch/ical.js) via a call through iCalExpander (found here: https://github.com/mifi/ical-expander) on node_helper.js line 137.

Line 1107 in time.js (sub-module of ical.js):

static fromDateTimeString(aValue, prop) {
if (aValue.length < 19) {
throw new Error(
‘invalid date-time value: "’ + aValue + ‘"’
);
}

This seems odd to me. I’m working with two different ics files and both of them present a problem for these four lines of code. But my computer, iPhone, and other MMM modules handle the ics file fine. Is this ics.js not used by other calendar modules? Did the accepted format for an ical file change at some point since CX2 was developed?

Acceptable format of an ics entry lists the time as an optional component: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5545#section-3.8.2

Time to dig more into their methods I suppose…

[sdetweil]

@edd189 if the time is not specified, the event is a full day event.

spec hasn’t changed, but the ics providers have changed their data, outside the spec.

MS in particular has started using the custom timezone feature, and mapping all the events to their custom(overlapping with IANA based standard timezones)

all this breaks a bunch of stuff…

only the calendar modules use the ics parser. ext2 had its own. MM default uses node-ical

[edd189]

@sdetweil Looks like the ics.js branch being used by CX2 had a report on this issue around a year ago with no fix. :(

https://github.com/kewisch/ical.js/issues/515

[sdetweil]

@edd189 yep, stuff gets old, people get tired, or move on… or it becomes too much work to keep it up to date