8.0: monthly recurring appointment with interval > 1 bug?

[jcc_colin]

Hi,

I've searched for this supposed bug and also checked change logs of patches, but couldn't find anything about this. I've been testing adding appointments to GroupWise through SOAP and every type of appointment seems to go correctly, except for bi-monthly (or multi-monthly) appointments on a certain day of the month.

Message I'm sending (from C#) for an appointment that should occur bi-monthly on every 19th of the month:

- appointment
    - start date: 19-06-2010 11:00:00
    - end date: 19-06-2010 12:00:00

    - rrule:
        - byDay: null
        - byMonth: null
        - byMonthDay: sbyte { 19 }
        - byYearDay: null
        - count: 10
        - countSpecified: true
        - frequency: Monthly
        - frequencySpecified: true
        - interval: 2
        - intervalSpecified: true
        - until: (empty: mindate)
        - untilSpecified: false

Dates I'd expect to be generated are: 19th of June, August, October, December, February, etc.

Dates that are actually generated in GroupWise 8 calendar: 19th of June, July, September, November, January, March etc.

The weird thing is that this only happens with the monthly recurrence, and only when an interval greater than 1 is selected. Bi-yearly / multi-daily etc all work fine.

Also, I've seen weirder results even, starting a bi-monthly appointment at 31st of July results in occurrences in the months of:

- July (correct)
- August (wrong)
- October (wrong, but consistent I guess...)
- December (wrong, but consistent)
- January (right, but now INconsistent)
- March (right)
- May (right)
- July (right)
- August (wrong...)
- October (consistent again?)

Is this a (still open?) bug or was there a fix for this somewhere that I missed? Or am I missing something else here? Thanks in advance.

[jcc_colin]

I can understand the last situation now by the way, not all months having 31 days of course, but still it shouldn't start with July, August... In Exchange this is solved a little different, so this confused me, but I guess this is not specified in RFC 2445, so that may not be a bug then. 🙂

[Johnny_77]

I experienced the same issue.
It seems that GW recurrence rule uses different way to calculate those montly recurrence pattern.
If the interval is n, n is an integer, say n = 3, then we will have 12/3= 4 instances in a year, which is Jan, April, July, Oct.
It will always put the start date as the first instance, then choose the month of the second instance from the above list which is the closest one in the future. In your case say the start month is June, then it picks July as the second instance.The following instances will be calculated as normal based on the month of the second instance. But this is differnt from other mail store like Exchange or Domino. My work around is to use the recurrence date by providing a list of instances calculated by myself.

[Anonymous_User]

I created a bug to look into the issue.

>>> On Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 8:56 AM, jcc
colin<jcc_colin@no-mx.forums.novell.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've searched for this supposed bug and also checked change logs of
> patches, but couldn't find anything about this. I've been testing adding
> appointments to GroupWise through SOAP and every type of appointment
> seems to go correctly, except for bi‑monthly (or multi‑monthly)
> appointments on a certain day of the month.
>
> Message I'm sending (from C#) for an appointment that should occur
> bi‑monthly on every 19th of the month:
>
>
> Code:
> ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
> ‑ appointment
> ‑ start date: 19‑06‑2010 11:00:00
> ‑ end date: 19‑06‑2010 12:00:00
>
> ‑ rrule:
> ‑ byDay: null
> ‑ byMonth: null
> ‑ byMonthDay: sbyte { 19 }
> ‑ byYearDay: null
> ‑ count: 10
> ‑ countSpecified: true
> ‑ frequency: Monthly
> ‑ frequencySpecified: true
> ‑ interval: 2
> ‑ intervalSpecified: true
> ‑ until: (empty: mindate)
> ‑ untilSpecified: false
> ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
>
>
>
> Dates I'd expect to be generated are: 19th of June, August, October,
> December, February, etc.
>
> Dates that are actually generated in GroupWise 8 calendar: 19th of
> June, July, September, November, January, March etc.
>
> The weird thing is that this only happens with the monthly recurrence,
> and only when an interval greater than 1 is selected. Bi‑yearly /
> multi‑daily etc all work fine.
>
> Also, I've seen weirder results even, starting a bi‑monthly appointment
> at 31st of July results in occurrences in the months of:
>
> ‑ July (correct)
> ‑ August (wrong)
> ‑ October (wrong, but consistent I guess...)
> ‑ December (wrong, but consistent)
> ‑ January (right, but now INconsistent)
> ‑ March (right)
> ‑ May (right)
> ‑ July (right)
> ‑ August (wrong...)
> ‑ October (consistent again?)
>
> Is this a (still open?) bug or was there a fix for this somewhere that
> I missed? Or am I missing something else here? Thanks in advance.

[jcc_colin]

OK, thanks!

As Johnny_77 pointed out though, I'll now calculate the dates myself and send those in the rdate property. That flexibility IS a big advantage over Exchange as random dates for one appointment will be implemented as well some day in our application.