Can't quit app launched through launchd

As it says in the title, "Can't quit app launched through launchd"—or more precisely, I can quit it, but it then automatically restarts again.

Background: I prefer to use BusyCal, not iCal, but there are some calendar-ish things that have to be done by iCal before BusyCal can get the results. I figured I'd create two launchd scripts: one to launch iCal every day at 5 am, and another to quit it a few minutes later.

Here's the plist to launch (in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalLaunch.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.dori.iCalLaunch</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal</string>
    </array>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>iCal Launcher</string>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

My understanding was that I didn't need the KeepAlive and OnDemand keys, but I put them in anyway to try to stop the relaunching.

Here's the plist to quit (in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalQuit.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.dori.iCalQuit</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>osascript</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>tell application "iCal" to quit</string>
    </array>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>iCal Quitter</string>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Based on my log files, they both run just fine—but after the Quit runs, iCal relaunches.

Any ideas for things to try, or things that might be causing this?

If you don't specify <Minute> in the <StartCalendarInterval>, then (just like cron's *) it will run the job every minute.

One answer to this problem is slightly counter-intuitive.

Simplify your iCal plist file and make iCal run forever by setting OnDemand to false. Here is a file I tested by storing it as ~/Library/DontLaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalForever.plist - don't leave this file in any directory launchd looks at unless you want to launch iCal every time you log in and respawn it should you ever choose to quit iCal.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.dori.iCalForever</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <false/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Now you need a single shell script that calls these two commands separated by a sleep long enough to accomplish whatever task iCal needs to perform.

launchctl load ~/Library/DontLaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalForever.plist
sleep 600 #sleep time in seconds
launchctl unload ~/Library/DontLaunchAgents/com.dori.iCalForever.plist

.. and Bob's your uncle.