Clear Activation Lock not working

[JenT]

I'm having trouble wiping a managed iPad in the JSS under Management. My error message states the following:

404 - Device not found or activation lock bypass is invalid.

The device is communicating with the server, and it is listed as managed. iPad Air- iOS 11.1
JSS version 99.101

Any ideas?

[nigelmarrion]

I am seeing this on JSS 99.101 with devices running iOS 11.0.x & 11.1. Also the Activation Lock Bypass code no longer works!

[danhorwood]

I just came to post the same issue with JSS 9.101 and devices on iOS 11. Luckily for us our departing students have still been around to enter their Apple IDs, though this won't always be the case. We plan to upgrade to jamf pro 10 in the next week or so, so we'll see if that resolves this issue for us.

[Keith__Myers]

Same here with JSS 10.0.0-t1508873342 and iOS 11 iPads.

[Sandy]

huh. I called Apple ED support today on another issue (unable to see student files in iCloud Drive).
One of the main prompts was for Activation Lock issues....
I was surprised at the time, now maybe not so much....

EDIT:
JSS v JSS 9.101.0-t1504998263 and iPad 11.1.1
I have not found this to be the case in my limited testing so far, but the behavior might be a bit different....It does not remove the device from iCloud>Find my iPhone when Activation lock is cleared, but does allow activation to proceed normally and does allow a new Apple ID to activate and sign into the device. If you're testing this you do of course have to update inventory after turning find my iPad ON, and before wiping, or you will not get the Clear Activation Lock box.

[Keith__Myers]

I am still having the same issue and we are running 10.0.0-t1508873342. This is a problem if students leave without clearing their iCloud accounts. Please have this up and running soon!

[jorrig]

Same issue here, second device in one week, anyone heard any resolution?

[Jconary82]

Same over here. Running JSS 9.101 and iOS 11.1. Every 3 or 4 devices will not accept the bypass code and they are starting to pile up.

[mpittcasd]

I'm seeing this same issue. Just upgraded from 9.9x-something to 10.1.1-t1513360285 and experienced it on both versions with different iPads. It would be really nice if this feature would work consistently since we can't always get a hold of the students that left or get into their Apple accounts now that 2FA is basically forced on them.

I'm not sure if it's related but the few that I go into use the Activation Lock Bypass they don't take the password. This seems to be more miss than hit anymore.

[Keith__Myers]

Posted in here in December, Still nothing from JAMF... please resolve this bug...

[ryan_bender]

Ditto here... 9.101.0 and iOS 11's

[usd113]

I am having this issue as well, anyone found a resolution?

[thejenbot]

Bump - jamf version 10.1.1-t1513360285...
I guess the temporary resolution is to not use iCloud unless you're using MAIDs...

[joalah]

I am also seeing this on the iPad 5th gen - software is up to date iOS 11.2.6 - hope they fix this before I have to wipe 1000 devices this spring...

[thejenbot]

there are many, many, many discussions on this and everyone is asking the same question. the more people are commenting and keeping these at the top of the discussions list/in the feed, hopefully if there are 4 about the SAME THING someone at jamf will GET ON THE BALL. especially since i don't see ANY MENTION of activation lock in the list of known issues. this is apparently a known issue to everyone but jamf...

[mbeckett]

I'm seeing an alarming number of devices with this issue now, and we're running 10.2.2-t1520356605. It would be great to at least see some acknowledgement of the issue, if not a timeline for a fix.

Is this a Jamf problem, or an Apple problem?

[Sandy]

The last time i called Apple edu support 1-2 weeks ago, activation lock issues-had been added to the support phone tree...possible clue? Hmm

[mbeckett]

Let's hope! This is a critical failure of a key part of the MDM feature set. It deserves prompt attention, by whomever needs to fix it.

I've got hundreds of devices to wipe in a few weeks (thousands in a few months), and it's going to bring us to our knees if half of them are left activation locked!

[JKoopman]

Throwing my 2 cents in on this as well. We encounter the bypass error on an almost daily basis and I'd say 75% or more of our supervised iPads are unable to clear Activation Lock through the MDM or by entering the code manually. Either a 100% working bypass or the ability to prevent Activation Lock from ever being enabled on managed devices in the first place is needed, because every summer we have an influx of around 1,000 iPads needing to be wiped and even 10% of those being unable to bypass Activation Lock is an enormous hassle.

[mpittcasd]

I think the answer to this from Apple is always going to be managed Apple IDs, but I don't think that's really feasible in most situations. We've looked into it every year when we do our iPad distribution because of either Activation Lock issues from the previous year or Apple ID creation issues at the start of the new one. This is especially troublesome now that Apple is pushing for 2FA which I'm pretty sure all of our students set up when prompted regardless of what we tell them.

In the past I've sent our serial numbers of locked iPads to Apple to have the Activation Lock cleared. This process is fairly simple and if the iPads are in your DEP you shouldn't need to send POs which is nice. The only issue I ran into with this method was if you don't wipe the iPad immediately it will re-lock itself after a few days.

[dnikles]

I unlock iPads frequently enough that I wrote a script to automate grabbing the bypass code from jamf and putting it into itunes to unlock the ipad https://github.com/dnikles/removeActivationLock
My success rate is I believe better than what JKoopman sees, but not by much. Definitely more failures than successes using the bypass code. I usually wait until I get a decent amount of activation locked devices then send them to apple in a spreadsheet. What usually happens is several days later they tell me they need photos of some specific iPads from the batch, then a few hours later tell me they are all unlocked (without receiving the photos they asked for).

[gatesp]

3/28/18 - I tried getting an Activation Lock bypass today and had no luck in it working on the ipad. I typed the Lock Bypass code into the password field without the hyphens (and I tried with the hyphens) with no luck. What's the trick? -Patti Gates, -
Issaquah School District.

[mpittcasd]

I had a lot of trouble with it at first too Patti. You were doing it correctly without the hyphens, it is just very hit or miss whether the bypass code in JAMF will actually bypass the lock on the iPad.

[er1ca2000]

This was the number one reason we switched to DEP and an MDM. We just tested the very first one.... no luck. This is the error we are getting, too. This is really not OK.

[CSNavigateurs]

We have been suffering of this issue for 2 years now .... we are able to replicate this issue. All our devices are in our DEP and Managed and Supervised with JAMF Pro On premises (10.2.2) We noticed if a user logs into his AppleID on the device and uses to download Apps in his AppStore it works... then he disconnects his AppleID and another user connects the same device to different AppleID then the UNLOCK Activation code does NOT work anymore. I have to send a request to Apple Care to unlock the device which usually takes between 2 to 10 days. PIA and wondering why the Activation Unlock Code doesn't update on the JAMF server.

regards Danyel

[Rmoore-CESD]

I just ran across this issue on two iPads as of now. Hoping this will be addressed.

[Keith__Myers]

Just emailed Jamfsupport because I have a ticket in already about this. I stated why hasn't this been fixed yet. Hoping for a better reply this time.

[Sandy]

If Apple EDU Support has Activation Lock issues on their MAIN support tree, and they also have a mass activation lock clearing system built into their Apple Care OS Preferred Support Plan, you might be barking up the wrong tree.

[thejenbot]

I was randomly able to clear activation lock on an iPad 5th gen running 10.2.5 last week. I immediately tried again on another device - same vintage, same OS - and it failed. We are cloud hosted running 10.1.1-t1513360285...

[mbeckett]

I'm told that iOS 11.4 fixes this problem, but I'm not sure how that's going to work. If a device is upgraded to 11.4, will it somehow actively refresh the bypass code stored in Jamf Pro? Or will a device need to enrolled in Jamf Pro after being upgraded, in order for this "fix" to stick?

And yes, I also note that I'm still having problems with older devices running 10.3.3 that don't have a valid bypass code stored. That suggests that this issue isn't exclusive to iOS 11.

[nsdjoe]

Seeing this more and more often. We're on JSS 9.101.0 and various versions of iOS 11. Hope this gets fixed soon.

[rich_thomas]

@mbeckett , I can confirm that just updating the device to iOS 11.4.1 doesn't fix the issue. I'm guessing it would need to have been on 11.4 when activation lock was enabled. Total PITA.

[def]

We are also getting back a lot of iPads with Activation Lock enabled and are not able to use the Bypass Code (404 - Device not found or activation lock bypass is invalid.). Thats pretty bad atm with the new school year starting and all. Hope for a quick fix soon. Thinking about setting up even 1:1 iPads as shared iPads.

[mbeckett]

Hey Rich, that's pretty much been our experience as well. I'm filing my third activation lock bypass request with Apple right now, and something tells me this won't be the last one. On the bright side, the folks in Apple Education Support are amongst the nicest you'll find anywhere. They've been very easy to deal with.

Many of these affected devices are running pre-iOS 11, so it's clearly not just an iOS 11 issue, but hopefully once the newer devices are restored with the latest iOS, things will settle down.

[kristinlynch]

I called JAMF about this last week because the activation lock bypass code rarely works for me. They told me it's a known issue and they're working on it.

Just wondering, of those of you who send Apple the spreadsheets: do you have to call them each time to get a spreadsheet or can you use one without a case number? I hate having to call each time I need a new spreadsheet.

I wish Apple would provide a workaround for 2FA as well – at least for devices that are in our DEP. We can't use Apple Managed IDs because of how our kids need to use the iPads. Now that all new accounts don't give you the option to disable 2FA, it's become more of a hassle.

[mpittcasd]

Our engineer gave me a template to follow for these requests. I don't have the spreadsheet on this computer, but I change the affected serial numbers then send it to pv_inst_amr at apple dot com (broken up just in case so web crawlers don't grab it). It still takes a few days for them to get back to me but when the JAMF commands/bypass codes don't work I just send it to get my iPads cleared.

[thejenbot]

One other thing that drives me nuts about this situation - when you wipe devices one by one you get the warning that Activation Lock cannot be cleared and asked if you want to proceed anyway. When you wipe devices en masse, no such luck. I did a search and took action based on the results to wipe a group of iPads, and didn't get the heads up that activation lock wouldn't be cleared. It said that the command was successful and the devices erased all contents and settings...except for the fact that when trying to go through the setup assistant I was prompted for that Apple ID password. That is definitely a jamf issue...

[Mr_Einstein]

I encountered this today with multiple devices.

How is this still an issue??

[rebelati]

This was the official Jamf response I got last time I put in a ticket about this (getting the error about half the time) -

"After talking to a few experts on our end, it seems like finding root cause for this is beyond difficult. All we can really suggest is to take these devices to Apple and have the lock cleared. We know this isn't the answer that you were looking for, but unfortunately it seems to be the only answer we have."

[Mr_Einstein]

@rebelati

Fortunately, Apple is willing to do this, but it can take some time.

Activation lock removal failed on 25 out of 27 of our iPhones in the past two weeks.

Say, "Goodbye!" to our ability to insta-wipe and re-issue devices.

I hope JAMF is working with Apple to address this issue ASAP.