Calendar keeps losing custom event to launch a program. Is this a bug?

I had a daily event set up in calendar that runs a particular program. Recently it stopped running this (possibly after an upgrade?). Took me a few days or weeks to notice (because it happens automatically). I go into the event and see no alert is set.

I create a new event and add my custom alert to open a file that is a program:

and then when I click back into the event I can see that no alert is present!

Is this a new bug or am I doing something wrong?

I am on OSX El Capitan 10.11.5 and Calendar Version 8.0 (2092.3).

Solution 1:

You are using a calendar that is connected to iCloud. Since iCloud calendars do not support file opening events, it cannot save to iCloud and then it cancels. Make a new LOCAL calendar that is not on iCloud but based on your own computer, then you can do a file based event on the computer based calendar.

Solution 2:

I had the same problem - couldn't figure out how to create a local calendar, because any I created got moved to the iCloud section. The fix in my case was to go to iCloud preferences, uncheck Calendar syncing, then go back to the Calender app. Now I could create a local (i.e. On My Mac") calendar. Furthermore, this calendar persisted as On My Mac even after I went back to iCloud prefs and turned Calendar syncing back on.

Don't forget to select your newly created On My Mac calendar when you create the event that launches a file!