Hello all,
Just come to reimage my first computer lab of the year.
Figured 'this lab now has M4 Mac mini's in it... that means I can use the Wipe Computer MDM command', as this is essentially doing an 'Erase all content and settings' - something I have previously done manually.
8 of the devices wiped, reactivated, then started up just fine.
The other 12 have SOS orange blinking lights on the front - apparently in DFU mode because something broke.
I don't normally have to do this DFU business, so I'm connecting a USBC, loading Apple Configurator 2... and I'm going through the motions.
After downloading and attempting to install, it failed presumably because my Macbook is on Sonoma, and it wants to be on Sequioa - now waiting for macOS to update.
What a hassle! Is this a known bug?
Hard to imagine I messed something up here. Ya press a button, enter a code... device wipes itself.
Anyone been in this situation care to mutually vent frustration with me on the forums?
JAMF 'Wipe Computer' command put 12/20 M4 Mac Mini's into DFU mode
+26I have never seen this, as far as I am aware you must hold the power button on the device to trigger DFU mode. I have had devices in the past boot in to recovery rather than reloading the OS because something is off with the recovery partition but never DFU mode.
+13We use the below setup. Just have to downoad the correct ipsw for your device and run a few terminal commands. It does require xcode.
https://ipswfiles.com/
https://www.bkurtz.io/posts/macvdmtool/
+11If there is an issue with escrowing bootstrap token, I have seen devices went to recovery mode or DFU mode.
My advise, before sending wipe command make sure securetoken is good, and bootstraptoken escrowed properly.
Thanks for all your contributions everyone.
I managed to get the lab all up and running by the end of the day.
On these mac mini's it was the 'middle' of the 3x USBC ports that was the DFU port.
Can't confirm if you have to use a specific port on my macbook too... I used the one in the guidance and it worked. There was a site that instructed which was the DFU port for each model/year of device - don't have the link to hand.
I used Apple Configurator to perform a restore.
I downloaded the firmware file from here...
https://expandmacmini.com/apple-configurator-dfu-mode-installation-guide/
I presume similar to the user who posted above.
I had seen that any device Big Sur onwards could do the restore, but I saw a couple of messages in AC configurator that made me think I needed to update my macbook from Sonoma to Sequoia. The awkward message presented itself again afterwards so I thought I would somewhat report this behaviour here for others.
I found the devices that were in a 'self made' DFU mode had difficulty connecting to my macbook and performing the restore. I had to remove the power cable, hold down the power switch, then reconnect it 'fresh' so to speak.
Another device was seemingly causing me grief... turned out I hadn't plugged my USBC cable into the right port, so it froze at the start of the restore (seemingly working).
A note to others, to expect a motherload of 'Allow' device to connect messages before and at the beginning of the process. If you don't see them, check the USB port on the mac mini.
I can also confirm that I tried a 'Revive' first, this only fixed recovery, but the base OS partition/snapshot wasn't accessible, so had to repeat the process with the longer restore.
Interesting note from A Collins. I'm pretty sure bootstrap tokens etc are all escrowed automatically into JAMF during an inventory update. It's not something I've ever configured over the past... 6-7 years. The devices have been happily active for 5 or so months so it was curious behaviour.
I will be doing the same again today... only this time I'm going to be doing 5 at a time. I'll check they get past the recovery activation step. before moving to the next set. If any of them have issues, I'll just have to remote into them and manually perform Erase and restore. I can't afford to lose time on this stuff.
I may report back...
A little more feedback.
I used the 'Wipe computer' command on 2 more labs and then speculated that the problem was caused by me.
In the first lab, I'd sent the command on each computer, then whilst they were restarting, I removed the devices from our JAMF cloud instance.
I know you shouldn't have to remove devices, however in the past, leaving devices in JAMF has resulted in 'Device Signature Errors', which are a nuisance.
I figured the same protocal needed to be followed so removed them during the wipe.
The next two labs I did were Mac Mini 2023 M2 (non pro/max). These seemed to get on just fine with the process. There were a couple of stragglers mind you. One needed DFU mode. More or less thought I'd cracked the problem (leave devices in JAMF, they'll get replaced).
I moved onto my last lab for the day... more M4 mac minis... and low and behold 3/22 suceeded. What a polava!
Majority of these devices are just going to have to sit 'borked' for the next couple of days. Furthermore, fixing that lab is going to take up time which I could've spent preparing other work.
So the hypothesis of it occurring because the devices were still in JAMF is a no goer... baffling.
One last note:
With my 2020 Macbook running Sequoia (it has 2x USB ports) -> Apple Configurator 2.
I've connecting up a USB-C multiport adaptor.
I have 3 machines Restoring at once.
1x from macbooks USBC
1x from the multiports PD30watts USBC
1x from the USBA 3.0 port (USBA to USBC).
Looks like you can't use drag and drop of a pre-downloaded IPSF file to multiple listed devices in AC2.
But just group select and hit restore and allow it to download/apply the current one available. Doesn't take long.
Grabbed longer cables now so I can sit above the desk and carry on working :)
Not as cross about it now.
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