iPad not checking in

[Keithmeister550]

I've got an iPad that just refuses to check in. I've confirmed it's connected to Wifi and unlocked. I've also checked the APN in JAMF and Apple. Any suggestions?

[jpeters21]

re-enroll or if DEP enrolled I would probably just reset the device. 

[RLR]

Check to see if the MDM Profile Expiration Date has passed. You can see this in Jamf by going to the device in question > General > Scroll down to about midway for MDM Profile Expiration Date. Another way to check is on the device itself, go to Settings > General > VPN and Device Managment > Select Management Profile > More Details > Scroll down until you see Device Identity Certificate and check the date on this.

I've recently had a call open with Jamf because 100+ devices have had their MDM Profile Expire even though they're meant to renew 180 days before expiry. They haven't given me and explanation why and just said maybe we cancelled the renew command. Still waiting to hear back from them. They asked me to re-enrol all the devices that this has happened to.

[Keithmeister550]

The date is fine there. it's not due to expire until 9th December. Re-enrolling is a massive pain

[RLR]

Yep it's a pain. We sometimes get devices that get all setup and enrol correctly but stop checking in the next day. This can be a real pain at the beginning of a school year when you're enrolling 100s of devices and don't find out until later on that some devices stop checking in. It's usually straight after setup as if there's a blip somewhere to disrupt it.

[chrisdaggett]

I am experiencing this on some of my ipads. About 12-15 so far (out of ~2500). Nothing I do other than a full erase can seem to bring them back, very frustrating. 

I checked all certificates, none expired. I was able to get a single command to go through once, then it stopped. Won't update inventory, etc.. it's like the iPad just stops checking in. 

[chrisdaggett]

This started happening to rare devices for us about the same time as your post. We were all up to date at that point (15.4 something I believe). Nothing had changed on our end, no new configs etc.

Now I get these rare (about 15 maybe so far out of 2500) iPads that seem to just be stuck / not checking in. They have internet, I've even tried ethernet (which I use to unlock passcodes on student devices when they try too many times). I've even gone as far as removing the enrollment all together and then manually reenrolling the device. (on the ones that would let me). The latest one in front of me is at the point it won't do anything, i cant even get it to accept a restart or unmanage). 

it is very annoying, having to ask students to back up things like Sketchbook that you have to export ONE file at a time *sigh*. 

[spmacomber]

This just started occurring for us, I've gotten two out of 4000 devices so far that just refuse to check in or download apps.   What I find odd is they'll request an app from self-service just fine, I see the request come up in JAMF, but it just sits there pending just like every other request.   tried on internal and external networks just in case it was us.  nope.    

I did note on the second one, inventory update started at 6:43 AM on a school day at an external IP address, and last completed command was at 7:58AM, school starts at 8:10AM, student lives 10 min away...   I wonder if something about having the network connection interrupted is the issue.    In the past I've seen single apps get stuck when the connection is interrupted requiring a delete and re-install, no biggie.   but if an interruption causes an iPad to stop communicating completely, that's a definite issue. 

This is an iPad 8 on iOS 15.6.1   other then the lack of MDM connectivity, the iPad is acting fine. It stopped communicating two weeks ago, I'm only hearing about it now because the student is missing an app for a class and it won't download from self service.   (this also makes me fear there are far more than just the two out there in use right now) 

[bfrench]

We are also noticing this.  Have been monitoring a smart group that show iPads that have not checked into inventory for 10 days.  Seeing a few populate the group each week.  Seems to somehow be related to an app update that "gets stuck".  The only solution I have found is to wipe the iPad and reset. 

[chrisdaggett]

I have been able to get some to check back in by cancelling everything that is pending, doing an MDM Renew, reboot the ipad. Give it a few minutes after screen unlock and it will check back in and start downloading some stuff. it will get stuck again, reboot - wait. Rinse and repeat until everything is updated. 

After dealing with this countless times this year it appears to be related to a stuck app update for sure. I am wondering if its a full iPad that stops the update, then even after space is made the app is still stuck. 

Quicker to just wipe the iPad when possible. I had a student who was adamant to not lose things and was worried about getting it all backed up so I stuck with it and after about an hour of this game it was fully up to date (app wise) and checking back in normally. 

[bfrench]

Had a similar experience. Did a hard restart and it checked in and some apps updated.  But then a bunch just stuck loading and it would not update inventory again after that.

[FieldTech]

As a field tech with limited access inside JAMF School, I had the same problem with an iPad that stopped checking in for a few weeks after it was set up and in use for over a year. I tried hardwired connection, hard restart, reset all settings without erasing but no luck. My fix was to reboot the iPad into restore mode and then use Apple Configurator on my MacBook to Revive the iPad. The iPad did an update from iPadOS 15.7 to 16.1.1 in that process but it started talking with JAMF School again after it was complete. At that point I could send the Erase Device command that I needed to do in the first place.

[Swel1215]

We are experiencing the same issue. 7th gen iPads on 15.6 . . . randomly stop checking in. It seems to be happening with our 2nd and 3rd-grade students. We are using Jamf Pro. Has anyone responded to Jamf regarding what is causing this and a possible solution?

[bfrench]

In our case sometimes updating the device allowed it to start checking in again.  Others needed to be wiped and enrolled again.

[Bergmann13]

This is happening for us also. There doesn't seem to be any order or rule to which iPads stop checking in. 

[Napoli86]

Add another school district to the list of customers who have experienced this problem numerous times on several iPads. Probably a dozen or so out of 500. I had not had any time to really troubleshoot it. I did believe and still do, that it is a communication issue after enrollment. iPads that enroll and do not roam to different access points seem to have much better luck, so I had started telling people not to enroll it until they were somewhere they thought they would be for a few, to allow some time for the Auto assigned apps to download and install. 

[spmacomber]

I agree it's a communication issue, but I know for sure it's not during the enrollment stage, at least here. I enroll all devices in a controlled environment on a dedicated access point and network. I do this specifically to avoid enrollment issues due to poor connectivity and/or roaming glitches. We've had additional iPads come up with this check-in issue operatically over the school year. We're seeing last check in dates as early as a few days to a week prior to IT being notified of a student having an issue.  I believe it's communication/network drop at some critical stage during normal iPad check in.    I dug into the timing on one device that stopped communicating, check in started just before the student left home for school, connection was cut off in the middle of the process when the student left home to catch the bus.   So maybe it's an iP issue, if it starts its check-in from one IP, but gets cut off. Then when it re-gains connectivity it tries to complete the check-in but it's communicating from a totally different IP and this causes some failure that prevents any further communication?   Guessing this might be something on the iOS side, as an OS update clears the issue. 

[nnewport]

We have been seeing a similar thing for months now.  I've had two cases open with Jamf about it and a few weeks into the case a new iPadOS version comes out which seems to fix it temporarily, but then it creeps back up again.  Just got off the call about two more devices with the same issue.  What we observe is that the devices get stuck on the App Install list command and never run any more APNS/MDM commands.  I have no idea what is causing it.  Just wiping the device and setting it up doesn't always fix it unless you also delete the Jamf record.  Most times updating to the newest version of iPadOS fixes it for a little while.  It's becoming a major issue in our district.  We are probably pushing 100 devices that have had this issue over the last few months.  

Have all of you put in Jamf support cases?  It seems like they have not heard of this issue except for us when I've had the cases open.

[opeura]

Exactly same issue here and same remedy - deleting jamf record in addition to wipe - started to notice it the end of April 2023

Jamf said "PI108400 - Blank Device Identity Certificate causing devices to no longer communicate with the Jamf Pro Server"

but I need to confirm with them - how do I know for sure - it is that issue

Any luck for you?

[mstydel]

We have roughly 500 iPads out of 1400 so far that are stuck installing apps or waiting, and won't receive any MDM commands (and another probably 1500 iPads that could be affected yet and we don't know yet).  It's becoming obvious that we are going to have to wipe them all over again, but we don't want to begin that process without a cause.  Otherwise, what's to say it won't happen again.  We do take iPads from on ssid to another while they finish their app downloads, is this the cause?  Most that are doing this haven't done a single thing since we finished the enrollment (no inventory check-ins or app update commands have gone through), put them back in their carts, and took them to a different area to finish up (with a different ssid).  Our other suspect is Lightspeed Relay is installed on all of them and could be causing this, but without any way to send MDM commands to a device that's stuck installing apps/not taking MDM command we can't really remove it to troubleshoot that.  Some won't even load webpages.  We are also hesitant to start over because we did do a few while troubleshooting and found right in front of us suddenly they no longer receive MDM commands mid-setup.  When this is happening the circle near the wifi symbol doesn't spin indicating there are apps trying to download, I even deleted a built in app and went into the App Store to get it back and it doesn't spin.

[nnewport]

It sounds like all of us have a little different issues.  We never had any issues with webpages loading.  We are still experiencing the issue where devices stop getting MDM commands.  We have hundreds that appear to be in the same state.  When they reach that state, we do notice the App List part of the inventory update gets stuck.  We've had multiple cases open but haven't gotten anywhere because after lots of troubleshooting, a new iOS update comes out.  After installing the new update, the device works fine for a while, until it happens again.  It's caused us not to be able to push updates this summer because the commands get stuck.  We just started school today so I imagine we will be having to open another case very soon when we start having to wipe iPads again just to get apps downloaded.   

[mstydel]

I will open a ticket with support and see where we get.  Typically we always have some iPads with stuck apps that we just say to delete and they'll come back after the next inventory update, if you need it sooner let us know and we'll have it do inventory now.  We start school tomorrow, and did these ~1400 iPads in June so it's kinda disappointing to not have them ready.  These are K-4 iPads and kept in carts, so starting 3 years ago we leave them on and plugged in all summer so they can do app updates more leisurely, our 5-8 iPads are not cart-ed so they get setup in the summer, hauled away from us to finish their installs, then shutdown until school starts and the student turns it on.  With K-4 having kept themselves up to date throughout summer, only 5-8 will be trying to install all the waiting app updates on the first day then.

[JWay]

I was just about to wipe the iPad and tried just resetting the network settings on the iPad and it started to populate with apps.  

[mstydel]

We've tried this as well, actually in the beginning as we were hoping that would fix it to avoid having to start wiping, but no change.  I think it may have started to populate with apps because it probably reset the current state of the app downloads, whether from the reset or just the restart?  I can get it to start moving by canceling or deleting apps but it usually doesn't last long before it stops again and I have to wipe anyways.  We're to the point where we don't bother to troubleshoot as it just takes time before having to wipe in the end anyways.

[spmacomber]

I can pretty much guarantee changing SSIDs will break things.    I've even found just moving the iPads far enough to switch APs on the same SSID will cause app loading issues This was years ago before the check in issues and  deleting the broken app and requesting a reinstall from self service fixed it in most cases.    To prevent issues during configuration I work off a dedicated wifi AP, fully set up the iPads and then shut them off when they're done (summer time so they get shelved until they're deployed so power off is primarily to prevent battery drain).   couple weeks ago I did 300 in over 12hr period 0 issues.Total of 600 wiped and configured this summer, majority stay as returned by the student over the summer and handed back to the same student in the fall as we don't have the manpower to reset and clean all 4000 of our iPads every summer! 

[mstydel]

That's what we're leaning towards vs Lightspeed issues.  We also do a dedicated AP with a unprotected SSID (don't want to type the password and also lets all of the devices know an unprotected SSID we could turn on during the year if something happens that they can't connect to the normal password protected SSID), then after they get to the home screen we load them back into carts and plugged in (K-4) or just onto a cart (5-8) and move them elsewhere to finish, which takes them off of the one SSID and AP and onto the building SSID and the now nearest AP.  K-4 then stay running and 5-8 we send a shutdown command to after a couple hours and we've spot checked a few for completion.  We've done this for several years with minimal issue, so sounds like we're going to have to change that.

[mstydel]

Well, we've wiped two iPads probably a dozen times now.  There is nothing that indicates Lightspeed is causing it, it happens with or without the config profile excluded, so at this point its completely random.  It looks like for now we're going to have to start wiping and watch each set for a while before we move onto the next set, and do them where they are staying so they don't have to transfer SSID's or ap's.

[spmacomber]

Sounds like you are getting a lot more errors then we usually see, I think the randomness must be attributed to there being a particular crucial communication between the iPad and JAMF that when interrupted causes the issue. I'm interested to see how you do leaving these iPads in place until fully set up if that solves it.  (more evidence it is indeed occurring when communication is interrupted).  

[mstydel]

Seems to be about the same likeliness that they will break even when not moving them.  If we pull say 6 out of a cart of 24, after the first wipe 4 of them will break after a few minutes, then after wiping the 4 a second time, 1 will still not work and need a 3rd wipe.  We have a ticket open but haven't heard anything back yet.  We've let teachers know unfortunately the iPads aren't ready and we're working on it.  But if the 1300-ish in 5-8 have the same issue its going to be a long few weeks.

[bfrench]

When you wipe them are you also deleting them from Jamf?

[mstydel]

During the summer we delete all student devices as we're working on them so they unscope from all apps, keeps them from "loading up".  Staff are the only iPads we don't delete.  Right now we are deleting the ones we're fixing as well.

[nnewport]

Sorry if you've said this already, but are you deleting the records out of Jamf prior to setting them back up again?  If not, try that.

Also, are they switching to a new SSID from a profile that is installing from Jamf?  I don't know your wireless environment, but does that profile have the random mac address turned off?  I would doubt it would have any affect on your environment unless you are doing MAC address filtering, but just something to try maybe.

[mstydel]

They do switch to a new SSID from a profile after they are setup but seems like they stick to the unprotected one we use for setup until they start switching AP's, the one from the profile must have a higher priority for it to choose it first.  We did type the password into the SSID manually for a while yesterday, the same one that comes with the profile, and still were getting the random 1/3 or so that would break after a few minutes.  We're waiting for the apps to finish installing, then if we can get a bluetooth enable command through it seems they're okay.  If they get stuck in the middle of app installs or wont take a bluetooth/MDM command of some sort after then they're broken and get wiped again.

[mstydel]

I should point out, we are using Jamf Pro.  I got to this thread from Google 😅.

[dmillertds]

Add my district to this long list - thread is over a year old! I honestly don't know why we put up with this crap. We manage tons of products from Linux to ChromeOS to Win, and NOTHING gives us anywhere near the pain Apple's $@!% does. 

Rant over. The additional problem we're facing is that they don't re-enroll cleanly, so wiping isn't really an option. They start the prestage/remote mgmt process, then "blip" they go to the generic/unmanaged setup screen. Haven't had time to try to figure that out yet, but it's not the first time or year that's happened.

The only thing I've had partial success with is to manually apply our wifi profile via Apple Configurator. For a good number that weren't checking in, that seemed to get them talking again. And for a smaller number, updating to the latest IOS worked. But we still have at least 2 grade levels where the majority are not checking in, and consequently we have an out-of-date app (i-Ready) that they are trying to use to do assessments here in week 1. Aargh. This has been going on, with minor variations, for years. I sure wish Apple would get their APNS communications "triangle" sorted.

[RayHerring]

We use Jamf School, so about the only certificate we can deal with is the APN certificate.

We have around 30 iPads not checking in, some are because the battery just went flat, easy solved.

Most however are because the Jamf Cloud certificate is unverified, and when I look at it, it's because it expired.

Best I can work out is that the certificate likely expired when the device was off-wireless (most likely flat at the time), then when the device was charged up again, it gave up trying to check-in.

Why the device is unable to get a new certificate I will never know though.

I have had some luck hotspotting the iPad to my phone, that gets it to check-in once, but then never again, even using my phone as the hotspot.

The only solution I have found so far is to wipe and re-enrol the device.

But that isn't a permanent fix for some of them, I have at least 3 iPads where I wiped them, then the very next day they started showing signs of not checking in.

In all cases, the iPads are being used by students, on the internet, with wifi (WPA2-Enterprise) working 100%.

[eizaguirre]

Same here! Does anyone have open support case numbers I can reference? It started happening to us at the end of last school year Apr-May but it's a lot more apparent now that we re-enrolled everything. Oddly enough, we refreshed a large majority of our iPads (to 9th gen) and none of those are having issues. We kept a lot of iPad 7's and those are hit-and-miss on communication, app downloads, check-ins, etc. 

[mstydel]

In talking with Apple this is an issue that has been seen since around 16.3 supposedly, too many app install commands cause things to come to a halt and nothing will continue until those app install commands are complete.  They also said this only happens with 7th gen and older, which explains in our case that our 2nd grade and 5-8th grade iPads are totally fine, they are 8th and 9th gen.  We've found you can delete some of the currently installing apps that are stuck to get things moving sometimes, but thats hard to keep track of with a dozen iPads doing the same thing and being in a different state of setup, and sometimes it still refuses to continue.  Supposedly this is fixed in 17, so we were going to try the beta on a few but with it being hit or miss its hard to tell.  We are wanting to restrict the erase all content and settings option on all of our student iPads, we unrestrict that while we work on them in the summer, but have waited as we can't wipe them from Jamf if they aren't working.  If they're stuck, you can delete the apps that are installing, send a wipe command, then restart the iPad and usually it'll let one command through when it comes online again.

[eizaguirre]

Did you open any support cases with Jamf or Apple? I have open but if we could reference each others, in addition to this thread, it might help them see the urgency. I can't wait until 17 drops and find it mindblowing that this would only affect 7th gen and older devices. 

[mstydel]

I don't, we've been working with an Apple engineer this summer on some M1 deployment stuff so I emailed him our "overview" of this issue and the console logs of an iPad from the setup screen to being stuck, and he said he as seen that with some other schools recently.