You sure you have the right thread jutz? That doesn't seem all that relevant here.

Have an update. Apple has acknowledged and replicated the issue and are currently investigating it.

iOS 7.0.2 dropped. Nothing in the change log mentioning a fix for this issue, but I wonder.

Already tried it. Still takes them right out of supervised mode.

Has anyone tried updating from 7.0 to 7.02? Does the supervision profile stay then? I updated our middle school devices today and would hate to lose the supervision profile again.

I upgraded from 7.0 to 7.0.2 on three iPads today and all three remained in supervised mode. So if you upgraded to 7 with Apple Configurator you should be safe to do the OTA update to 7.0.2. Still no good going from 6 OTA though.

JBrummer,

All of these updates were done by individual students OTA. When I get my hands on one, I plug into Configurartor and restore from my backup, re-add 2 profiles (they weren't deleted, I just have to reinstall or they will be left off). Then the device is recognized as "supervised" in both JSS as well as profile.

Looks like the move from 7.0 to 7.0.2 actually is taking them out of Supervised mode as well, except it actually leaves the supervision profile on the device, but it says nothing about supervision in the About page and I was unable to do silent installs.

This has been acknowledged as a known bug if you do an OTA upgrade and had done a restore after supervising a device. The way to remember is, did you go through the guided setup? If no, you'll lose supervision with the 7.0-7.02 upgrade. Apple has this filed as a bug as of the day 7.02 came out as the permutations weren't all understood.

So the difference is if you did a restore to get folders or a specific layout of apps, etc. We did not do that thankfully as we have students search and think the setup process is best, so we are not seeing the loss of supervision.

I have roughly 4500 student ipads which were provisioned and supervised over the summer 6.1.3. At this point I cannot push the home filter proxy profile most notably because Casper thinks the students who updated to iOS7 are unsupervised. A total unsupervised wipe is the only work around I have now. So now I'm sending devices home without any home filtering, talk about a huge problem. Apple fix this sooner than later.

Agreed @glynn - this is a bad bug. What will remain to be seen is if it can be un-broken once it's been broken by an update.

I know this was mentioned earlier, but it has been been very helpful in keeping our carts at 6.1.3. We've been using DNS to block OTA updates for iOS 7. For those of you who want to prevent any more students from updating to iOS 7 OTA (as long as they aren't taking them home), block the following URL with your web filter:

http://mesu.apple.com/assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate.xml

This will prevent the iPads from checking for software updates. We put this block in a day before iOS 7 was released and have had great success keeping our iPads running iOS 6.1.3. We plan to keep it at 6.1.3 until some of these bugs have been addressed.

~Joe

As @john_wetter mentioned, this issue appears to be tied to restoring a supervised iOS 6 backup to a supervised iOS 7 device. I tested the following today with a supervised student iPad (with no iCloud and therefore no Find my iPad):

Update OTA from 6.1.3 to 7.0.2. Confirmed there was no Supervision Profile in Settings -> General -> Profiles
Refreshing the iPad in Configurator does nothing, I cant add/remove apps or profiles
I took a backup of the device
I unsupervised the iPad and tried Preparing and restoring the backup. An error appeared stating that it was unable to supervise the iPad with the backup
I supervised the iPad without the previous backup. The iPad starts up and after going through the setup steps I confirmed there was a Supervision Profile in Settings -> General -> Profiles
I then Refreshed the iPad and restored the previous backup to the newly supervised iPad. There was no error message and it completed successfully, all the student data was back on the iPad, but again there was no Supervision Profile in Settings -> General -> Profiles.

My current theory is that this has something to do with the new 'Options' button next to 'Supervision' on the Prepare tab in the new Apple Configurator. Completing the 'Organization Name' field in there is a required step when supervising a an iPad in Configurator 1.4, this appears to write some data to the Supervision Profile which has the name of the organization and if this device is allowed to connect to other Macs or not. When you restore a supervised iOS 6 backup, it doesn't have this info and overwrites the file. You can see this by doing a 'Get Info' on a working and non-working device in Configurator. A working device has the fields 'Supervised by', 'Connect to' and 'Allow supervision with', whereas a non-working device just has the field 'Connect to'.

I think the only way this can be fixed is by updating Configurator to recognise these old settings and fix them on a Refresh. Sadly, I don't see how this can be fixed without plugging each device back into the computer they are supervised to.

Just as an FYI, in AC 1.4, I can create a backup of an IOS6 iPad, then restore it as I update to IOS7. This is the only way I can update my students supervised IOS6 iPads to IOS7 AND keep management working. Also, I've yet to successfully create a backup of a supervised IOS7 iPad in AC 1.4. So, for those students who could not wait to update to IOS7, I can't simply make a backup of their IOS7 device in AC 1.4, restore it and have management working again.

This is an AWFUL solution since it's one iPad at a time, but just another data point, and perhaps useful to those with smaller deployments. And as always, your mileage may vary.

We are not Casper users so I hope no one minds me posting here. We use Meraki and each and every issue described here has happened to us. On top of everything posted here, I discovered another issue that is huge. We have our students set up iCloud to back up their devices. Last year, with 6.1, if a student broke their device, we'd take a replacement, restore from iCloud and it worked great. It was like a clone and we were able to quickly get kids back up and running. We provisioned and supervised the devices over the summer (6.1.3)

A student came in with the first broken device of the year. When we took the new one out of the box and plugged it into the Configurator 1.4 and the Prepare tab lit up. We were unable to supervise the device without first wiping and updating to iOS 7. So we did that.

While that was happening, I took the broken device (6.1.3) and backed it up to iCloud. I restored it onto the fresh, iOS 7 iPad and there were no profiles at all on the replacement. Odd. Last year with iOS 6, the profiles from Configurator were part of the iCloud backup and reinstalled on the device. So now I had a device with all of the student work but not supervised-- or at least there was no profile there. Meraki reported the device as unsupervised and since the profiles we send out via Meraki have Supervised-only items checked off, that was not going to work.

I decided to update the Supervised, 6.1.3 device to 7 using Configurator and then backing that up to iCloud and restoring the 7 backup to the replacement. I figured it was a 6-7 weirdness thing. No dice. The Supervised iOS 7 backup was restored on the iPad but there were no profiles at all. When enrolled in Meraki, Meraki reported it as Unsupervised.

Finally, I backed up the old device in Configurator, wiped the replacement, prepared and Supervised it and then pulled that backup onto the device and the Supervision profile was there. This is not convenient at all.

On a more positive note: we collected devices from a few kids who updated OTA to 7 and on which the Supervision profile no longer appeared. When I plugged them into Configurator and refreshed them, the Supervision profile reappeared and Meraki began reporting that they were Supervised.

The backup issue is huge. All of our students are backing up to iCloud and that is essentially useless if we can't use that backup because it doesn't take the Supervision profile with it. At least we have an option with a device that just has a cracked screen. A lost device is problematic if the only iCloud backup we can restore will restore without the Supervision profile.

Finally, I backed up the old device in Configurator, wiped the replacement, prepared and Supervised it and then pulled that backup onto the device and the Supervision profile was there. This is not convenient at all. On a more positive note: we collected devices from a few kids who updated OTA to 7 and on which the Supervision profile no longer appeared. When I plugged them into Configurator and refreshed them, the Supervision profile reappeared and Meraki began reporting that they were Supervised.

Hi @ipadedtechie I've tried both of the above and neither of them bring back the Supervision Profile. Would you mind outlining your setup and the steps you used?

I took a backup of an iPad running 6.1.3, then wiped that iPad, in the Prepare tab of Apple Configurator I have Supervision On, and the 6.1.3 backup selected in the Restore drop down, after the backup is restored Configurator displays the following error:

"Unable to check supervision. The device cannot be supervised. Try forcing the device into recovery mode and refreshing the device"

I then tried Preparing without a backup selected. Then after the Prepare finished, I went to the Supervise tab and did a Refresh with the 6.1.3 backup selected in the drop down. The Supervision Profile is still not visible on the device.

:(

Hi @plawrence

I had that happen once. Your post jarred my memory. I seem to remember getting rid of that error by selecting "When in Recovery Mode" in the Update drop down in the Supervision page and then refreshing the device. I had nothing else left to try so it's a tester iPad, maybe you could try that?

I am trying to remember what steps I took to get this working. I tried so many things and one finally worked. I am almost positive that I did the following:

Updated the broken, supervised iPad to 7 in the Supervise pane of Configurator
Once complete, I selected Back up from the menu and named the backup
Once the back up was complete, I disconnected that device and plugged the replacement in
I Unsupervised it so I could get back to the Prepare tab
I hit Prepare with nothing in the Restore from Backup drop down
Once prepared, I went into the Supervision window.....

I get foggy here. I am unsure if I hit Supervise without restoring the backup and after the device was Supervised, chose the backup from the drop down and then restored, or if I chose the backup in the drop down the first time. I believe I supervised it first without restoring.

I still have the broken device that is Supervised and running iOS 7. I will try to repeat what I did today on a tester device and write out the steps as I go through. I'll post back tomorrow once I've done this.

I just tested a workflow yesterday to get iOS 6 unsupervised devices to backup and then restore to ios 7 Supervised devices. Back when we got the iPads we had no concept of management so we are pulling them all back and redoing them. The steps I tested are here, and I think are solid. Note that this pool of iPads is being managed in Profile Manager, but it should not matter. Also, be sure you have upgraded your Configurator station to 10.8.5 and your Configurator to 1.4. Also update your server to 10.8.5 and your Server.app to the latest.

Connect with the user. Ideally, they should already have done a backup. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
** IMPORTANT ** Have them turn off Find my iPad at Settings -> iCloud and back up again. This will impact the restore to a Supervised device as Activation Lock will kick in.

NOTE: For iCloud backups, they may have more on the iPad than the 5 GB of backup space available to them for free. If so, they can connect to iTunes on their Mac and backup all their Photos and Videos, and you can turn those items off for iCloud backup in Settings -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Manage Storage -> 'This iPad'. Or they can stick with the iTunes backup method.

Configurator:

Prepare tab:
Name device
Supervision On
check 'Allow devices to connect to other Macs'
Don't restore backup ***
check 'Initial WiFi' profile (this is a profile we use with just WiFi)
click Prepare
NOTE: this will take about 5 minutes. If it seems to hang - WAIT
When done with Prepare, restart iPad (this step is to get around an iOS 7 bug where it doesn't automatically restart)

On iPad:

Begin Initial Setup (WiFi will already be active from the initial profile)
'Restore from iCloud Backup' or 'Restore from iTunes Backup' - the latter will require their Mac.
They may be prompted for an iTunes password at this step, if so Skip for now
Restore commences, iPad restarts to Hello screen.

Back to Configurator:

Supervise tab:
check two additional profiles 'Trust Profile' and 'Profile Manager'
click Apply

Profile Manager:
add iPad to proper Device Group, profiles will be pushed.

On iPad:
Swipe past Hello screen to Update Completed screen, click Continue.
If prompted, have user enter their iCloud password and then accept iMessage and Facetime prompt
When prompted for passcode - skip for now.
User will be prompted for iTunes password to download all apps again.
Get into Settings. User will be prompted for Email password. They can turn on Find my iPad again at Settings -> iCloud.
Give the iPad back to them for the remainder of the app installs.

For my previous post, I did not think to try a backup in Configurator as part of my testing. I thought of an iTunes backup on the Configurator station but did not test it because I honestly do not have time to back up all these iPads as part of the pullback and reload.

I know my testing involved unsupervised iOS devices but perhaps my method holds a nugget of help for others.

chris

Anyone have luck with today's release of 7.0.3?

Yes. I did an OTA update from 6.1.3 to iOS 7.0.3 and supervision was still present after the update. Also, Apple Configurator 1.4.1 was released today as well. I also tested an iCloud restore from one device to another and was able to keep supervision intact after plugging the new iPad back into the supervising machine. Apple Configurator does make you turn off Find my iPad before re-supervising. Everything seems right with the world again!

To get old devices re-supervised see this: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5233

Things are looking good so far, heres what I have tested:

* Updating a 6.1.3 to 7.0.3 OTA and the supervision profile was still there.

* Updating a 7.0 that had already lost the supervision profile to 7.0.3. The profile was still missing.

* Refreshing a 7.0 that had already lost the supervision profile with Configurator 1.4.1. The profile was reinstalled.

It also looks like the name of the profile has changed from 'Supervision Profile' to 'Configurator Trust Certificate'

I take back my previous post... We are still having some trouble. If a student breaks their iPad and needs a replacement we perform an icloud restore. After the restore, we plug the new ipad back into the supervising iMac and hit refresh. Instead of just putting the supervision back on the iPad, it reboots and reinstalls iOS! Thus wiping out the icloud restore. This is getting ridiculous.... If anyone has seen this please let me know. Here are the conditions in our environment:

-Broken iPad is at 6.1.3
-We make sure there is a current backup (settings -> icloud -> storage and backup -> backup now)
-The replacement ipad that we give the student is supervised with 1.4.1 and NO supervision backup just two profiles (one is a Web Clip, the other is non password protected network)
-On the replacement ipad (supervised by 1.4.1) we select the language, country, accept the terms, choose to restore from iCloud. Enter the students Apple ID information, choose the backup.
-After the backup completes, we answer a few questions.
-Once the iPad is at the home screen, we go into iCloud and shut off Find My iPad (apple configurator requires we do this before we refresh the iPad)
-We then plug the iPad back into the supervising machine, hit apply, without changing any settings, and the iPad reboots then reinstalls iOS and wipes out the students icloud restore!

UPDATE: I had not seen http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5974 where it now shows that it is indeed supervised. Casper now also shows it as supervised. Don't know why that took awhile after the inventory update. Things are looking up again.

It appears that nothing has changed for us.

My hope of 7.0.3 fixing the users that already had 7+ is gone. That was my first test this morning and it's the same story. Supervision Profile is gone, but the device still implements Casper's supervised only restrictions (Global Proxy and iMessage removal)

I updated a supervised 6.1.3 to 7.0.3 OTA and the supervision profile still disappears. When I enrolled the device in Casper, it still says it's unsupervised, but it acts like supervised device for restrictions.

Configurator 1.4.1 still reacts the same to my iOS 7 iPads. It shows up under the supervision tab and just gives an error about being confused about if it is actually supervised.

What was this supposed to fix?