Bug in "web calendar" (aka ICSx) : impossible to delete a subscribed calendar "More than 5 redirects"

Hi,
Using the browser online GUI to the murena calendar, I added a “public holidays calendar” from the list directly offered in the interface (provided it seems by thinderbird).
After a while, I started getting “Synchronization error - More than 5 redirects” notifications repeated at high frequency (every sync attempt) on my /e/os phone linked to my murena cloud account. I deleted the faulty web calendar via the browser GUI. But the errors kept coming on my phone.
It took me quite a while to locate where these web calendars are configured on the phone, but finally nailed them under Settings → Accounts → [username]@murena.io → My Account → Additional account settings [looks like DAVx5 from here onwards] → again [username]@murena.io → Webcal tab → [three dots in upper right] → Sync calendar list → [three dots after web calendar] → Delete → the thunderbird provided calendar effectively is removed from this list.
But the error notifications keep coming up, so another alternative attempt was :
Settings → Accounts → [username]@murena.io → My Account → Additional account settings [looks like DAVx5 from here onwards] → again [username]@murena.io → [burger three line menu in top right] → Calendar manager → this provides the list of subscribed calendars, including the “Holidays in France” from www.thunderbird.net tagged in red with "More than 5 redirects"which I unsubscribed from via bith the web GUI and via the “DAVx5-like” settings on my phone above. When I click on the calendar tagged in error, the phone goes back to the “DAVx5-like” home menu entitled "Account management’, sometimes first issuing an error overlay saying the app is systematically stopping.
I wanted to provide some screen shots, but seems not allowed for new users.
Any help appreciated if I’m doing something wrong, or workarounds if the bug is confirmed.

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/OS the deGoogled mobile OS and online servicesphone

I’m getting exactly the same set of problems recently for holidays in England & Wales, also from a Thunderbird source, https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics. It looks like this entire family of URLs really is issuing redirect loops…

wget trace
$ wget https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
--2024-09-19 23:03:02--  https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
Resolving www.thunderbird.net (www.thunderbird.net)... 2606:4700:20::681a:21b, 2606:4700:20::ac43:4a52, 2606:4700:20::681a:31b, ...
Connecting to www.thunderbird.net (www.thunderbird.net)|2606:4700:20::681a:21b|:443... failed: Network is unreachable.
Connecting to www.thunderbird.net (www.thunderbird.net)|2606:4700:20::ac43:4a52|:443... failed: Network is unreachable.
Connecting to www.thunderbird.net (www.thunderbird.net)|2606:4700:20::681a:31b|:443... failed: Network is unreachable.
Connecting to www.thunderbird.net (www.thunderbird.net)|104.26.3.27|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics [following]
--2024-09-19 23:03:03--  https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
Reusing existing connection to www.thunderbird.net:443.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics [following]
--2024-09-19 23:03:03--  https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
Reusing existing connection to www.thunderbird.net:443.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics [following]
--2024-09-19 23:03:03--  https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
[...]
--2024-09-19 23:03:03--  https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics
Reusing existing connection to www.thunderbird.net:443.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/autogen/UKHolidays-EnglandWales.ics [following]
20 redirections exceeded.

I look on https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/calendar/holidays/, and it seems that the England and Wales holidays are no longer there and they’ve issued new calendar files for 2024-2027. I only have the choice of “United Kingdom” now, which (as an aside) is a real shame, because having the Scottish and NI holidays in there was always confusing. Anyway, clicking on any of the calendars in that page’s list (including https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/FrenchHolidays.ics or https://www.thunderbird.net/media/caldata/autogen/UKHolidays.ics) produces the “.../autogen/autogen/autogen/...” redirect loop fault as seen above in the wget trace.

I’m also seeing the problem in Evolution on a Linux desktop.

Faults in play

So the first thing to note here is that there really is an upstream fault here at thunderbird.net, and we can’t use the Thunderbird calendars any more. You’ll have to find an alternative calendar provider, just as I must.

There are associated problems with /e/OS, however: I too have seen the DAVx5-like app crashing when I try to access a calendar via Settings→Accounts→me@murena.io→My Account→Settings→top-left hamburger menu→Tools→Web Calendar Manager. Something’s amiss here.

So, how do we unstick ourselves?

It seems like once a bad calendar enters the system, it can’t be removed from the phone, and will just stay there creating fault notifications on a daily basis.

Weird design stuff

If there’s a bad upstream calendar redirect, then for some reason /e/OS sees the redirect loop on the phone, and issues notifications about it. I was assuming that it was just syncing from a hidden NextCloud calendar that caches the data from upstream, but evidently not!

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You can delete holiday calendars from the cloud account Calendar app: Login – Murena, and also add good ones.

However, on the phone account subscription side, things are terrible. I tried this, and it made things worse.

About deleting webcal subscriptions: I thought I got somewhere from the “Web Calendar Manager keeps restarting” notification bubble when trying to access a subscription in Web Calendar Manager. The notification offers the ability to view the app’s info, but you can also go to

  • Settings → Apps → See all (number) apps →
    1. Top right three vertical dots menu → Show system
    2. To right Search icon, type “Web Calendar manager” and choose it from the list

From there, issue a

  • Force Stop
  • Storage →
    • Clear cache
    • Clear storage

I think this will work to remove all subscriptions, including inaccessible and dead ones.

However, doing this seems to upset the Account Manager very badly. I’m now getting “Service detection failed / Check logon credentials” from the Accounts Manager, even after re-entering my password. I think I’ll have to remove the enture murena account and start again from scratch :rage: just because of a dead upstream webcal subscription.

Moral: I don’t recommend clear cache/clear storage on the Web Calendar Manager unless you really have to.

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Sorry to read you’re hitting the same wall. It does show we’re not to blame, there’s a bug, possibly in the /e/os implementation of the ICSx subscriptions.

This turned out to be because I have 2FA turned on, haha. The primary account password won’t work in this context: it needs a fresh app password.

I did just this, deleting the main username@murena.io account along with Contacts (username@murena.io), Webmail (username@murena.io), and Calendar subscriptions entries from Settings→Accounts. (News can stay there: my NextCloud News installation uses a separate app password :slight_smile:)

I added a suitable calendar for my country from the UKgov website to my Murena cloud account’s Calendar app before this (New Calendar → New subscription from link (read-only)), and gave it a nicer name than what it picked. Upon creation, everything should now work again. Yay!

If you’re like me, and forget that 2fa means app-specific passwords, you may wish to look at https://murena.io/settings/user/security (link testified to make you think, do not trust me blindly!) and do a bit of account maintenance. That’s also how you issue new account passwords.

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Seems like a work around then, would you recommend deleting the murena account, or first just trying the “clear cache” darn cool idea ?

Oh goodness no. The experience could definitely be improved here, and there’s a real /e/OS bug in the Web Calendar Manager that messes everyone around when upstream subs aren’t working.

Stumbling blocks that Murena and /e/OS should care about

  • The fact that Web Calendar Manager (that “DAVx5-like app” referred to above) crashes when you try to manage subscriptions is just awful and feels shoddy.

  • It’s really easy to create extra Web Calendar Manager subscriptions, or duplicates in the Murena.io account manager app’s Webcal tab… If you do this, they can’t be removed from the manager interface, because it crashes when you try to access a subscription.

  • If an upstream subscription breaks, perhaps due to a redirect loop like the thunderbird.net ones here, it cant be removed from the Web Calendar Manager because that program crashes when you try to access a subscription.

  • It’s really easy to forget you use app-specific passwords and 2FA once everything’s been working for a bit. This may provoke users into entering their main Murena password in if they use a password safe for that (but not the app-specific passwords). That’s more of a problem with the way app-specific single-purpose passwords are intended to work, but a reminder text could be useful here.

Hard to say. What worked for me is

  1. Clear cache and storage in Web Calendar Manager
  2. Remove and re-add your entire Murena.io account :sob: (with a new app-specific password for 2FA users, perhaps)

I don’t know if doing 2. alone would make 1. happen.

For anyone trying to reproduce: I think neither NextCloud Calendar itself nor the murena.io account manager allow you to subscribe to one of those bad thunderbird.net calendars right now, given how broken they are.

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Ok I tried just item 1 in above list (just cleared both cache and storage for Web Calendar App, and forced it to stop), then I went back the /e/murena account manager, went to the third tab “Webcal / old agenda smth”, three dots → sync, then activated the working subs I want

Now it works, no need to delete the /e/murena account, now the crazy broken ghost thunderbird hols webcal is gone, no more notifications !

Getting this vague feeling there is a message about how difficult it is to get holidays :rofl:

(btw the webcal app it is forked from is ICSx5, the DAVx5 is the one behind the /e/ account manager)

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