Link to add ics to Google Calendar stopped working

Question

I have a link on a website to let users add an ICS feed to their google Calendar. Using this code:

http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=https://<etc>

It worked for 3-4 years but not anymore. The message Google sends me is:

This email address isn't associated with an active Google Calendar account: https://<etc>

If I enter the ics feed manually things work ok: the feed is parsed as should. No errors.

Any idea where to look to fix this?

Answer 1

I too have this problem. Did you solve it?

My tests show that it works when using URLs with http, like:

www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=http%3A%2%2Fwww.example.com%2FCalendar%2FPublic%2520Events.ics

But not with https, like:

www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=https%3A%2%2Fwww.example.com%2FCalendar%2FPublic%2520Events.ics

My workaround for this is to use http in the link, but redirect it to https in the web server. Not very elegant, but it works. The GET won't be encrypted, but at least the answer is.

EDIT: Actually, it can be a huge security risk sending the GET over http instead of https if you don't do any more authentication than via query string parameters, which can be hard for calendar feeds. Anyone who can sniff the GET can send the same request over https themselves.