Calendar items don't show up in Calendar and don't have start and end dates

[sglab]

Hello everyone!

I hope this is correct forum for my questions. If not, please point me to the right one.
Here's my situation. We have processed data - extarcted contents and metadata - for our clients using some application. Data is PST files. During post-processing analysis of metadata, we have found that some of the Calendar items have invalid values in fields [bold]<AppointmentStart>[/bold] and [bold]<AppointmentEnd>[/bold]: [red]"12/29/1899"[/red]. When opening these items after extraction from PST, they would open in Outlook with current dates for start and end of the meeting. When searching for these items in Calendar in source PSTs, they get listed in search results but their start and end dates appear as "None" and items are not displayed in Calendar itself. When analyzing these items in other application - NUIX's ProofFinder -, we found out that they do have start and end dates in properties [bold]<Mapi-Cal-Start-Time>[/bold] and [bold]<Mapi-Cal-End-Time>[/bold] - not sure if these are correct MAPI properties or if they just named like that in ProofFinder.
So, here's a couple of questions: what are these items? Why don't they have start and end dates when looked at in Outlook?

Maybe some of you encountered something like that and investigated this issue. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards.

 

[SkipVought]

hi,

Seems as if you are talking around some issue(s)???

We have processed data - extarcted contents and metadata - for our clients using some application.

So what are you implying?

1) That you have extracted data from some Outlook calendar or from some other unnamed source?

2) That some unnamed application is the vehicle for the extract?

3) Where did the extracted data from the unnamed source get extracted to? Interestingly, a DATE with a value of numeric ZERO, would appear in MS Access as 12/31/1899 and -2 would show up as 12/29/1899.

When opening these items after extraction from PST, they would open in Outlook with current dates for start and end of the meeting

I don't understand this at all. Supposedly, data extracted from Outlook (.pst) would not be able to be opened in Outlook. Outlook opens the .pst.

???????

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[mintjulep]

So, putting a few things together, and making a few guesses and assumptions:

"12/29/1899" is a string as you have written it.

Strings often evaluate to numeric zero when you feed them to a field or property that is expecting a number.

If you try to create an appointment in Outlook where both start time and end time is zero then the meeting duration is zero. A meeting of zero duration doesn't exist.

So check data types.

 

[sglab]

Hello SkipVought and mintjulep,

I knew there would be some confusion to what I described. Let me try to explain myself:

1. We have extracted data from PST files that do have Calendars along with regular mail items;
2. I don't know what "unnamed source" means exactly;
3. When we process PST files, our application saves all the PST items in MSG format along with their respective metadata saved in database - SQL Server;
4. Fields that I mentioned in initial post are of Date data type - not string - and they display the values that I posted: 12/29/1899;
5. When Calendar items, that were saved as MSG files, get opened by double-clicking on them, they open as Calendar items would if they were opened from Calendar in Outlook but they display current dates for Start and End;
6. When I open source PST file in Outlook, then open its Calendar and do a search for say, subject of the meeting, I get these items listed in the results of the search, but their Start and End dates appear as "None" and I can't see these items in Calendar itself.
7. I hope that explains situation a little better or, as good as I possibly could.

Thank you for taking time to read this.

 

[SkipVought]

The point regarding the 1899 date is that dates are stored as NUMBERS and what we see is a Format of that number in various applications.

If your application does not treat data extracted from date fields properly, then you will see 1899 dates where there really are none!

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[sglab]

Thank you, SkipVought for explanation on this date representation concept.
Right or wrong, but these 1899 dates are actually like flags for me when I analyze extracted data. What I was more interested in - because we have to give our client some sort of explanation - is how could there be item(s) in Calendar that don't have dates? What are these items? Are they like phantoms? I have tried to create appointment or meeting with no dates - Outlook wouldn't let me. At the same time, items like that do exist in the Calendar.