Ventura; Apple Setup does not create account if system is shutdown during Apple Setup

@pbenware1 I can't find when it changed, but at some point Jamf's creation of the hidden admin account was no longer guaranteed to happen after the user account is created in Setup Assistant. That might be what's triggering the behavior you're seeing.

@bcrockett Thank you for the pointer.  After much trial and error, I think it could be related to the Data Transfer/Migration Assistant step; I'm not done with my testing yet but that is the only step where I can replicate this issue consistently.

More info- Seem to have confirmed that the Transfer Information step is the culprit here, tested across multiple models.  Seems also to have been a change related to something in Ventura 13.2, but can't confirm that.  I do know it was not in the most recent Monterey release.  Also had a report of this issue occurring on a 2017 Intel iMac, suggesting it's not related to Apple Silicon (sort of expected that).

I've run into something similar though in my environment it appears randomly without requiring a shutdown. It's tough to tell if it's actually working but my current attempted fix is to delay a configuration profile that blocks Time Machine until after setup is complete. So far, the delay seems to be helping. 

I only used shutdown myself as a way to consistently replicate the issue.  It is still not clear to me if the field intentionally shutdown devices, or unintentionally let them sleep or drain the battery.  Evidence of that nature has been pretty thin.

We are running into the same issue,  it is extremely frustrating,   we are reconfiguring the setup steps in our preconfig.  Will post if it worked or not.  

I've had it happen seemingly randomly, although in my case it's been two different scenarios...

The first, much as you describe, with the new user not completing the local account setup and (most likely) letting the Mac go to sleep/run out of battery.

In the last couple days, I've also had two machines where Setup Assistant crashed after all the profiles were downloaded and installed, but before it even gets to the user creation screen. Just quits to the login screen with a user/password prompt. Looking at the system in Jamf, there is only the jamfadmin management account, and no other local users.

And it's the same prestage config we've used for years. Even made a new one, with the same settings, as recommended elsewhere, but no change. Will have a try with reenabling some of the setup steps.

Yes, we have seen the exact same scenario, on laptops and desktops.  We have opened a ticket with JAMF to see what they have to say,  since it is seemingly random!

There is a known bug reported on this issue:

Thank you for posting this in Community Forum. We were having some unexpected shutdowns in the last couple weeks. The laptop would boot to our hidden admin account or an empty username/password login page. I've applied the workaround and it is working great after several tests. 

Yes, confirming *not skipping* location and transfer sections of initial user setup have stopped the issue with machines ending up in a user-less state for us.

Less than ideal of course. Want the migration item in particular to be skipped in our main prestage config.

Still seeing this issue in Ventura 13.4 where I get to the login screen but no account has been created and I can't log in - have tried all the steps above with no luck.

Hi @nasc 

Have you attempted to turn them off one by one? I can't speak to your environment but if you have some screenshots of your pre-stage enrollment area perhaps we can help? Mine just needed the unticking of the Transfer payload, in order, to work. Sorry that you continue to have issues! 

Hi all,
we experience this behavior the second time as we are with JAMF.
Now it began early this week. It would be nice if it could be fixed once and for all..
Showing "Location Services" and "Transfer Information" fixes it temporary for us too.
Ventura 13.5.1 is installed on the MacBooks.
Opening a case with JAMF.

I'm now seeing this issue with macOS Sonoma installs, on at least 2 computers; one brand new MB Air 15" that shipped with Sonoma and a 202 iMac 27 that was wiped with a fresh Sonoma installed on it.  The Jamf Prestage has *all* of the steps enabled, so my last workaround doesn't apply anymore.

We have been having this issue for a while. I read some other posts saying that if your prestage is creating a local administrator account that has the same name as the Jamf management account there will be issues. The Jamf Management Account was primarily used for Jamf Remote which is no longer supported. I couldn't find any deeper clarification on how this account is utilized. We just changed the name of the Jamf Management Account to "jamf". After doing this our computers stopped crashing during enrollment and showing a login screen with no user accounts. Only make this change if those two accounts use the same username, we had "tech" as both the local administrator account and the Jamf Management Account.

Try this:

Change the name of the Jamf Management Account

Jamf > Settings > User-Initiated Enrollment > macOS

Edit the username to be different from the local administrator account created in your prestage enrollment.

The iMac, at least, was connected via ethernet.  Not sure about the MBAir, as its in another persons hands.  The iMac is one of my test units.

We stopped creating shared admin accounts in the Prestage well before this issue came up for us, and even when we were creating them, the names were very different.

Seeing same issue on my side as well.  New MB Pro M3,  pre-stage has no skips, after the user clicks on Agree for terms and services the systems goes to a login screen, user never given opportunity to create account.

One of the device can be wiped back to Ventura and everything works normal on Ventura

Potentially these issues are resolved in Jamf Pro 11.1.1

• [PI111014] [PI109336] Enrollment for computers no longer fails when user-initiated enrollment and PreStage enrollment settings are configured with identical management account credentials.
• [PI111120] The user account creation step of Setup Assistant for macOS is no longer incorrectly skipped when a PreStage enrollment is configured to skip the "Transfer Information" and "Location Services" steps.
• [PI111481] [PI103338] The user account creation step of Setup Assistant for macOS is no longer incorrectly skipped when a PreStage enrollment is configured to both create a management account and enable FileVault.
• [PI113195] The user account creation step of Setup Assistant for macOS is no longer incorrectly skipped on computers with macOS 14 or later when user-initiated enrollment settings are configured to create a management account.

PI113195 is the bug I was hitting.  

Yeah, I was hitting PI111120 and more recently PI113195 myself.