ACT Aspire Java web app

[gregleeper]

Hello all! Long time lurker, first time poster.

Our district decided to give the ACT Aspire test starting in the fall of 2014. We have had to overcome several obstacles with the test and our 1:1 Macbook Air deployment.

We set Safari preferences for all of the settings that needed to be in place through configuration profiles. That has worked well.

The lightspeed mobile filter terminates the connection from the end user's computer when the test begins. To fix this we have the students run a policy that uninstalls the mobile filter through Self Service and caches it to be installed in the evening after school lets out. This works fairly well, although having students follow directions creates challenges for the teachers. We've had lightspeed working on this issue for a month or so. I'm definitely not confident they will have it done by April, our next testing window, as they have not released a mobile filter that works with Yosemite yet.

The problem that I am running into now, I believe, is from JAMFHelper. The Aspire test works through Java and totally locks down the computer. A few students have received an error message saying that the testing app is no longer the active window.

This is the line from the log that I'm seeing: 2015-01-19T17:18:35.288Z com.pearson.testnav.TestNavMain.showLostFocus INFO AppKit Thread[id=12] Lost Focus Process name=========jamfHelper

This happened with 4 out of 12 students last hour. I checked the Policy logs and no policies were executing during that time for each computer. It happened three times to one computer, twice to another, an once on the other two. Running Casper 9.62 and Mavericks on each of these computers. Students are running Java 8u25. This same problem happened during our October testing too with Java 7.

Any help as to how to overcome this or what may be causing the Java app to think that JAMFHelper is trying to take over would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading my long post!

[mbuckner]

Hey, Greg. We are doing testing with TestNav, too. I just noticed that the mobile filter is killing my testnav sessions. Instead of uninstalling it, I'm planning to unload it and reload it (launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.lightspeedsystems.mobilefilter.plist). How are you installing it in the evenings?

We haven't seen your other issue (the JamfHelper issue). Could something other than a policy be causing it? Recon, maybe, or the regular policy checkin? TestNav is very picky - anything that causes the testing session to lose focus will kill it. We normally have the issue with adobe updates - usually adobe reader.

I hope you find out what is causing your issue. If you do, please post here so I can avoid similar issues :-) We've been successful in the past (on 10.6.8), but this is our first time to test on 10.9.

Mark

[gregleeper]

Hi Mark. Lightspeed actually got back to me Wednesday with a mobile filter that fixed the issue. I will email you the link to download that if you want to test it out. Not sure when Lightspeed will release it on their community site or if they have already.

I contacted Pearson about the log error that I was seeing and they suggested that students turn on Do Not Disturb before begging the exam. They said any type of notification can kill it.

We've decided to suspend Aspire testing on computers for this year because it has so many problems. Most of them have to do with the lack of an intuitive interface on the proctor/teacher side.

[gregleeper]

@mbuckner I tried to email you that link but your spam filter stopped me.

[mbuckner]

Yeah, that happens. Plus, I don't always check my spam (too many to dig through). Could you send it to my other email? hydra12@gmail.com

Thanks!

[sburrows]

@gregleeper any luck finding a solution to your jamfHelper issue?

We are currently testing and students are getting kicked out of the test. Logs are saying lost focus process Java Applet.

[gregleeper]

We decided not to continue with this test for now so I haven't checked it out any further. When we were pursuing it Pearson recommended students turn on Do Not Disturb in the Notification Center.

[RobertHammen]

There's another thread on here about Pearson testing apps and Java, and one of the culprits was iTunes Helper:

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=13505

[mtward]

Do you by chance have any SMART software installed on your student machines? Specifically LaunchAgents/Daemons? Usually the student machines don't need this software to launch at all, and it totally borks the ACTAspire TestNav software if running.

Last Fall we ran the ACT Aspire testing very successfully with Firefox and Java 7U25. I'm now starting the process of getting the spring testing sessions ready. Trying to figure out packaging Java 8U45 since the payload is now a .App and not pkg it can't be added to Casper Admin directly from the Oracle dmg.

[gregleeper]

We didn't have any SMART Software installed on our student machines. I'm thinking a lot of it probably had to do with iTunes helper as Robert posted.

You should be able to deploy that Java update through Casper even though it is an app. If you secondary click the Java installer app, choose show package contents, you should be able to browse to the pkg installer that you'll use. Have a look at @rtrouton's workflow. https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/oracles-java-8-update-40-has-been-updated-again-to-java-8-update-40/

[mtward]

Ah, OK - that'll do it too.

Yeah, I figured out what the problem was when tried to use the .pkg inside of the .app.. I was attempting this right when they were in the middle of pulling 8U45 and replacing with the signed version. The .pkg I extracted out of the .App failed when deploying via a policy. Now its working with the current release.

However.. they must not be able to make up their minds because I just downloaded the .dmg again and there is a dang .pkg there instead of a .App. Ridiculous.