AirDrop not working on MacOS 14 Sonoma

[AndrewWilliamso]

Hey folks,

Since updating our inventory of MacBooks to MacOS 14 Sonoma, users have noticed weird behaviour with Airdrop that was working correctly on MacOS 13.x.

From the jamf-managed MacOS 14 MacBook, users can:
Airdrop TO Jamf-managed iPad (iPadOS 17.0.3)
Airdrop TO non-managed personal iPhone (iOS 16.7.1)

However, airdrop is not working in the other direction. If the other devices are not signed into the same iCloud account, the MacOS device is not even visible as an available device to airdrop to (visible to everyone settings are enabled). 
If the devices are signed into the same icloud account, the MacOS device will be visible as an Airdrop target, but actually sharing a file will timeout and fail.

All of these devices (including jamf-managed MacOS) are able to Airdrop TO a personal non-managed MacOS 13.4 device

We have no Configuration Profiles restricting use/access to Airdrop. Airdrop settings are set to 'visible to everyone' on all devices. The issue only exists in Airdropping files TO a jamf-managed MacOS 14 device.

Has anyone experiences similar since updating to MacOS 14?

Thanks,

Andrew

[DimitriK]

Hi Andrew,

We have had the same issues. Sonoma to Sonoma on macOS 14.0. I just updated to macOS 14.1 and they are showing up on my end (sigh of relief). It took a little longer than usual for them to do so. Our corporate environment, before the update, wasn't picking them up but our corporate computers were picking up non corporate macOS Sonoma devices. My only gripe is it's picking up the account name and not the hostname, perhaps because of our environment. Hopefully the update will fix the airdrop issue on your end as it has on my end. 

Regards,

DimitriK

[AndrewWilliamso]

Great stuff, glad to hear there's a solution coming! I don't yet have the 14.1 update available, but a colleague does and will test it out later today. I'll keep an eye out for 14.1 update myself and will test as soon as I can!

[AndrewWilliamso]

MacOS 14.1 update has not been a solution for my users unfortunately. 

Got some advice from MacAdmins Slack channel that reinstalling MacOS via USB .iso seems to work fine, and that the problem may be isolated to devices that updated from Ventura to Sonoma. If a fresh install of Sonoma is applied during a system wipe, Airdrop works as intended.
On the flip side I have a user with a personal macbook that updated from Venutra to Sonoma, and Airdrop is working as expected there - so maybe there is some JAMF or device management connection to the issue...

[Mati]

Hi Andrew,

probably this issue occure only on managed Macs. We are currently switching from Jamf to Mosyle and we have the same issue on all Macs updated from Ventura to Sonoma on both migrated from Jamf to Mosyle and configures as new and enrolled in Mosyle before update to Sonoma. 

The issue not occure only on new Macs updated using USB Drive before enrollment or private not managed Macs. 

So the issue is in the system not MDM. 

[jasonh11 · Accepted solution]

Hey all, there was a fix presented to me by some other Mac Admins. Go ahead and paste this into the terminal of the computer and restart it.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist NoMulticastAdvertisements -bool false

 Should be visible in airdrop right after. You can make this a policy in JAMF to fix proactively as well. 

[AndrewWilliamso]

Can confirm that this solution works! Any thoughts on possible side-effects of applying this change? ChatGPT states:

"Keep in mind that mDNS and Bonjour are designed for use on local networks and aren't meant for wide-area or internet-wide service discovery. Disabling NoMulticastAdvertisements on a local network should generally have a positive impact on the ability to discover and use services and devices on that network. However, it's important to be mindful of network security, as open mDNS services could potentially expose local services to unintended access."

[jishperado]

Not working for me

[JacksonFortune]

I have a similar issue to Andrew, but this command does not fix this issue. The client's computer is a Macbook Air M2 running Sonoma 14.4.

[arajabzadeh]

check this out > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXP6HYgnJyY

Basically what @jasonh11 said with a extra step in jamf, if you have bonjour restriction config profile