That's great. Glad to be of help although I cant take all the credit. My co-workers figured this out. It wasn't happening to everyone so we tried to figure what they were doing differently than the people that were not getting the errors.
I entered a ticket with Pearson. They told me to go with a different browser. Idiots.
Pearson was telling us to call Oracle cause Java was crashing.
To echo what @msnowdon][/url said, that is what we have found as well. Our single biggest cause for the 3005 errors was students running Safari in full screen mode. Once we added that to the list of things to explain before the test, the 3005 errors were essentially eliminated.
I will also echo the comments of @msnowdon][/url and say that Pearson support are idiots who can only read from their script as if they were giving the PARCC test.
In my case I have a massive and distributed environment that has never been brought fully into the managed fold; as such some of the challenges are due to misconfigured distribution points or software update servers (my netops people regularly change VLANs at our sites which necessitate changing the site server's IP addresses... but the backend in the JSS doesn't always get updated along with it.)
We also have every recent and older version of OS X to support due to requirements that our organization accepts donated devices. But it's not all that bad for OS X - the Windows guys here are trying to block a pop-up but Pearson did some kind of update on their backend that uses a newer signed applet and they can't quash the "run this app" prompt for our end users. They got Pearson on the horn and were told, "Yes, our customers just accept that every user is going to have to click the 'Run this app' button once."
I tested the theory for error 3005 but wasn't able to replicate in Firefox. I agree that Pearson support are not that bright.
Had one of our guys call in to Pearson for error 3005, they requested for the logs which he submitted and we're still waiting.
We weren't able to replicate the full screen 3005 error with Firefox either, just Safari.
Yes I tried with chrome (just found out this was supported now) and Firefox and didn't have this issue with either.
Just started testing today and ran into the 3005 error on all our MBAs. I do think you guys are right and the issue is full screen Safari. We are doing more testing now and not seeing the issue once clear directions are given to not go into fullscreen.
Just about wrapped up with PARCC. Completed roughly 3,200 sessions on 1:1 MacBook Airs. Zero technical issues.
Just about wrapped up with PARCC. Completed roughly 3,200 sessions on 1:1 MacBook Airs. Zero technical issues.
You need to go buy a lottery ticket!
Suppose I could have gone into more detail regarding our deployment. Clients on 10.8.5 using Safari 6. Safari 6 ManagedPluginPolicies dictionary assigned via configuration profile. Java 8.31 with deployment properties configured and testnav applet cert being pushed down in system-level certificate store.
I have not been able to replicate any fullscreen issues on Mountain Lion. Assuming those affected are 10.9+ when all those wonderful additional fullscreen options were introduced.
Has anyone done anything about notification pop-ups, such as notifications that updates are available?
@msnowdon check out this thread that I started: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13619
We were going to use that as a log in script to turn on do not disturb, but it seems like we have been fine without it.
@msnowdon We don't receive the update notification possibly because I have all the students laptop pointing to our NETSUS server (which isn't currently running) and it doesn't see any "new update".
@msnowdon Yeah same here, we've haven't done anything in particular to stop system notifications and it has not been a problem. I actually tried to get one to pop up while in the test software to make sure it wouldn't cause any problems. It either is showing behind the test window and not kicking you out or it is somehow enabling do not disturb.
Thanks. One less thing to configure.
@Sandy @CGundersen
I've been getting some complaints about iTunes interrupting TestNav, but haven't seen it myself. Do you think this is iTunes Helper? Or something else? What did you end up doing? Thanks!
@jagress We just ended up restricting iTunes.app (Restrict exact process name, Kill process) and scoping the restriction to our Smart Groups that have a TestNAV User Account created. Seems to be working pretty well and iTunes interruption complaints have largely gone away ... complaints that iTunes is not working are up a bit though. 
As an aside/fyi, we pushed out a Firefox-based TestNAV user DMG this year as we had good success with it last time around. However, this year there was a select media file that would not play for sophmores ... other media files were fine. We found that those students did not experience the issue using Chrome.
@jagress
Maybe notification center prompting for iTunes update or media keys on keyboard?
I'm sure F8 was occurring for us. In our case, I don't believe we were having issues with notification center, but I'm liking the thread mentioned above:
https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13619
Any itunes related for us has been students pressing the F8 key and that occurrence was minimal (less than 10 total students from 3rd grade to 8th) that I've heard of. We just completed the elementary and middle school today. Tomorrow starts the High school training so we'll see if they start pressing random keys.
@CGundersen when you say "Firefox-based testnav", do you mean just firefox with pre-configs (popup blockers, security exceptions, etc) ?
The media files, were they videos? There was one student that said that there was no audio while the "video" played, the tech and teacher checked it out and it states on the bottom/top "there is no audio in this slides".
@Johnny.Kim That is correct. Basically a pre-configured local user account deployed via policy to designated Smart Groups. A configured/tested/Pearson-approved (for what that is worth ... ) browser placed in /Users/username/Applications
I believe the file in question was just audio and we've only experienced the issue with the one grade level. Also, no issues during prep/practice tests. Moving to Chrome (for those students) resolved the issue. Ticket with Pearson, but yeah ...
Last week Oracle released their Java 8 update 40 build 25 as a .app that tried to sneak ask.com into the mix...
After the uproar this caused, Oracle released a new Java 8 Update 40 build 26 which reversed the previous .app to a .pkg.
I am thinking I do not need to push this new one, but am not 100% on whether X-protect will recognize a build # as not up to date....
When Oracle did their last unscheduled build update, it was Oracle that was forcing the update on us.....
Anybody already sussed this out?
I do not want to send anything non-critical this close to testing......
Sandy
FYI: Oracle is now prompting to update Java 8 update 40 to Java 8 update 40...
Yippee......
@Sandy
Oy. It looks like the root cause is something similar to the "update Java 8 update 31 to Java 8 update 31" issue from a couple of weeks back.
