Preview does not match actual output

Wow, that's really strange. Is the top one the preview, or the bottom one?

Date iCal shouldn't be doing anything different between Preview and actual output, besides adding a few headers. In fact, here's the exact code that adds things to the output, which don't appear in the preview:

    // These steps shouldn't be run when doing a Preview on the View config page.
    if (empty($this->view->live_preview)) {
      // Prevent devel module from appending queries to ical export.
      $GLOBALS['devel_shutdown'] = FALSE;
      
      drupal_add_http_header('Content-Type', 'text/calendar; charset=utf-8');
      
      // For sites with Clean URLs disabled, the "path" value in the view Display
      // doesn't actually get applied to the URL of the calendar feed. So, we
      // need to manually instruct browsers to download a .ics file.
      if (!variable_get('clean_url', FALSE)) {
        $path_array = explode('/', $this->display->display_options['path']);
        $filename = array_pop($path_array);
        drupal_add_http_header('Content-Disposition', "attachment; filename=\"$filename\"");
      }
    }

It's just two headers, and a flag for the devel module.

Is it possible that you're seeing this difference between preview and output due to a caching issue? I'd suggest clearing your cache and trying again.

It may be possible that something from the 1.x version of Date iCal got left behind when you upgraded. Uninstalling and deleting your date_ical folder, and then re-installing could potentially help.

As for the problem with the body field, please do open another issue.

Hmmm, is there any chance that you've got a module installed that outputs different text (maybe alternate labels?) depending on which user is logged in? The only thing I can think of that might be causing this discrepancy is that the preview is created using an administrative account (with all the permissions that entails), and the regular output is created by the anonymous user.

Wow, thanks! I don't really know anything at all about GitTip, though. How do I join the Drupal community?

OK, let's dig into some serious debugging here. I think your best bet is to implement a few of the alter hooks that Date iCal offers, and see where the discrepancy is occurring in the rendering process.

First, install the Devel module. Then, add this function to a module on your site:

function MODULENAME_date_ical_post_render_alter(&$rendered_calendar, $view) {
  dd($rendered_calendar);
}

Like all hooks, replace MODULENAME with the name of the module, and then clear your cache to let Drupal pick up the new hook.

That dd() call will output the final rendered text of the calendar to the file /tmp/drupal_debug.txt. So run the preview once, then download the feed normally, and check to see if the two copies of output in that file are different.

If they're the same, then the discrepancy can't be Date iCal's fault, because that hook is run just before it sends the final data to Views. Something else must be messing with the output afterwards. Because of the nature of this discrepancy, though, I find this unlikely. But we need to test it first to rule it out.

If they're different then something earlier in the process is messing things up. In that case, replace the first hook with this function:

function MODULENAME_date_ical_fields_html_alter(&$text_fields, $view, $context) {
  dd($text_fields);
  dd($context);
}

Then clear your cache again, and delete /tmp/drupal_debug.txt to make room for the new output. Then run the Preview and then normal output again, and inspect the file. You should see two arrays printed out for each of the events, once for each each of the two test runs. If the first set of arrays differs from the second, then something in the render process that comes before Date iCal is messing with the output. This seems like the most likely scenario to me.

Now, if the outputs from these debugging steps are still the same for both Preview and normal output, then there's one more hook to try:

function MODULENAME_date_ical_feed_event_render_alter(&$event, $view, $context) {
  dd($event);
  dd($context);
}

Once again, clear your cache and delete /tmp/drupal_debug.txt. Then run both Preview and normal output. This output will look similar to the previous test.

If this test shows a difference, then this is a bug in the way the Date iCal Fields plugin converts text to iCal compliance. Though I have no clue at all how it could be different between Preview and normal output, unless the previous test is also showing different output.

Did you find/solve the problem? I'm going to be out of town for the next week, so I'd like to close this ticket now, if your issue has been resolved.

OK. Then please know that once you do have a chance to test it, I won't be able to respond until at least Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

Did you ever get a chance to test this?

I'm closing this ticket due to several weeks of inactivity. If you're still having an issue, please feel free to re-open it.

Reference to http://drupalcode.org/project/date_ical.git/commitdiff/a0ce67d.