Configuration of Thunderbird Lightning and Zimbra CalDAV

[boardstretcher]

Didnt know where to post this,.. Only posting to get the solution out there. Scoured the net and only found part answers or out-dated documentation.

If you would like to use Zimbra CalDAV with Thunderbird's Lightning plugin, here is how you do it.

Also, This will be of great interest of anyone getting DAV_NOT_DAV or READ_FAILED messages in the error console.

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I am using ZIMBRA. I would like to use CalDAV with Thunderbird Lightning. I can reach the CalDAV url through Firefox. But, Thunderbird Lightning error console complains that DAV_NOT_DAV - this collection is not available or not a dav collection.

Go to the password manager in Thunderbird and delete all entries. Then go to Lightning and delete all calendars. Shutdown Thunderbird.

Start Thunderbird. Create a new calendar, choose CalDav, use

http://domain.com/dav/yourname@domain.com/CalendarName

Accept, give new name. Accept. Your next screen will be an authentication prompt. This will be the only username and password that Lightning will ever use, as default, for Calendar Authentication... So choose wisely.

To further explain:: That means that you can only use one user account to view calendars. So if you have a gmail account with calendars and a work account using Zimbra... you will only be able to authenticate to, and use, one of them.

Read the next post for a possible workaround for that. However, even if the workaround works for you, your username and password are saved in plaintext. And sent in plaintext. So be careful!

Contact Mozilla if you have any complaints about that.

[omegainstitute]

I'm not 100% sure of that boardstretcher. You can feed user authentication into the URL as well. I wound up doing mine like:

http://user:password@domain.com/dav/user@domain.com/CalendarName

I've been able to add multiple users Calendar to my Lightning installation this way.

[boardstretcher]

What you are suggesting is a workaround using authentication via the URL. I found that it did not work for me.

http://user:asdfasdf@companyname.com/dav/user@companyname.com/Calendar

In firefox and thunderbird this brings up an authentication prompt, meaning that it did not read the usernameassword from the url. So, this does not allow me to authenticate.

It is nice to have that solution on the same page though, just in case it does help someone.

Hopefully some developers for Mozilla will vote for fixing the authentication issue in Thunderbird/Lightning with calendars,.. which would leave us without the need for these workarounds.

Originally Posted by omegainstitute

I'm not 100% sure of that boardstretcher. You can feed user authentication into the URL as well. I wound up doing mine like:

http://user:password@domain.com/dav/user@domain.com/CalendarName

I've been able to add multiple users Calendar to my Lightning installation this way.