"Event without start time" for Facebook Events iCal

[smi]

Hello,
i’m using ICSx5 for a long time now and very happy with it. Using Version 1.8.7std.

But now i have the problem my facebook events ical for upcoming events.
ICSx5 put out the message: “Event without start time”.

I have checked DTSTART (and also DTEND, CREATED, LAST-MODIFIED and DTSTAMP) are in the format:
20200111T152004Z

The Output for the icalendar.org/validator is:
“Line length should not be longer than 75 characters near line # 804Reference: RFC 5545 3.1. Content Lines
Line length should not be longer than 75 characters near line # 2263Reference: RFC 5545 3.1. Content Lines
Line length should not be longer than 75 characters near line # 2971Reference: RFC 5545 3.1. Content Lines
Line length should not be longer than 75 characters near line # 3566Reference: RFC 5545 3.1. Content Lines
Invalid MIME type detected, should be ‘text/calendar’ (found MIME type ‘text/html; charset=“utf-8”’) near line # 1 Reference: RFC 5545 8.1. iCalendar Media Type Registration
Success! No errors found.”

As DM i could provide the ics link iff needed.

Is there a way to import the Facebook Events ICS?

Thank you!

[rfc2822]

Hi,

@smi said in "Event without start time" for Facebook Events iCal:

As DM i could provide the ics link iff needed.

Yes, please provide the file per direct message, so that I can give it a try.

[smi]

Done.

[rfc2822]

Thanks, I’ll have a look.

[rfc2822]

I could verify that ical4j and thus ICSx⁵ couldn’t parse that line:

…
ORGANIZER;CN=XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX    \"XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX\":MAILTO:noreply@facebookmail.com
…

because CN is a parameter and property parameter values MUST NOT contain the DQUOTE character (as I understand it, not even escaped; correct me if I’m wrong). Without the ", it works.

So strictly spoken, this is an invalid iCalendar. I wonder whether this can be parsed more forgivingly with ical4j; maybe it would also be good to contact Facebook so they can correct the ICS.

[smi]

This post is deleted!

[smi]

Hello,

so the problem is that one organizer has a DQUOTE in it’s name, which gets escaped exported in the iCal and that is not allowed by RFC. Facebook does an escape and they are fine with it and ical4j is more restrictive. Nice error chain

My only question is, why the ical validator has no problem with it.

For now: i had put this event down from my facebook cal and can import it again!

Thank you very much!

[rfc2822]

@smi said in "Event without start time" for Facebook Events iCal:

My only question is, why the ical validator has no problem with it.

I have sent that question to icalendar.org

[rfc2822]

Got a reply:

Thanks for the e-mail. The validator does not currently check for DQUOTES. I will look at implementing that check in the near future, it is a good suggestion.

So this should explain it

[cogliano]

Hi @rfc2822,

Thanks for the suggestion for the icalendar validator at icalendar.org. Starting today, the validator now checks for DQUOTE characters in property parameters.

[rfc2822]

@cogliano Thanks for the update!