Incorrect "Operating System Version" displayed, compared to sw_ver and ProductVersion?

[donmontalvo]

We are seeing some computers reporting the wrong Operating System Version:

Inventory > Operating System > Operating System Version

...compared to:

$ defaults read /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion ProductVersion

and

$ sw_vers | grep ProductVersion | awk '{print $2}'

Example:

Operating System Version = 10.10
sw_vers = 10.10.5
ProductVersion = 10.10.5

Wassup with that? Anyone seeing this?

Don

[mikeh]

I saw that behavior recently when I had a bunch of machines failing to communicate with the JSS after being imaged. All of the machines in question had device signature errors. All of them were identified as "10.10". Re-enrolling the systems fixed the inventory contents right up.

I thought the mis-identified OS version was just a side-effect of the device signature error.

[donmontalvo]

Interesting, on the computers we tried to re-enrolling, each one hung up on:

Locating hardware information (Mac OS X 10.10.5)...
 verbose: Checking AD status...

Happening to 10.9.x and 10.10.x Macs, that are confirmed to be at latest patch level for that OS.

[mpermann]

@donmontalvo do you have printers setup on the computers you are trying to re-enroll? I've run into an issue where having printers setup that use certain printer drivers will cause the getPPDVersion process that seems to run during the recon phase to basically hang up the enrollment. If you look at the Activity Monitor and you see that process using a lot of CPU time you can try and kill that process and see if the enrollment completes.

[ooshnoo]

@mikeh
Glad to see I'm not the only one with that issue. I seem to have seen most of those issues with Macs who had the 9.8 client. I updated to 9.81 and haven't seen it since. But of course I do have to track down those that still d on't report and updating them manually.

[donmontalvo]

Sorry for the late response, was at JNUC2015, will follow up with JAMF on Monday and post an update.

@mpermann quick search shows each of the effected users have printers. Will try running with -verbose flag to see if that might be the problem.

@ooshnoo we are at 9.65, but we are planning update to latest JSS version, hoping to also put this to rest like it appears you have. :)

Thanks,
Don

[donmontalvo]

Circling back to this thread. 9.81 did not resolve this issue, hope to test 9.82 soon.

Also, found the cause of the recon error. Fix was to unbind/rebind the computer. Since it was unable to determine binding status.:

Locating hardware information (Mac OS X 10.10.5)...
 verbose: Checking AD status...

No fix for broken "Operating System", but we spent a bit of time setting up Smart Computer Groups using sw_vers and that is a whole lot easier than having to manually create scope each time.

For example:

• Mac OS X is 10.10 thru 10.10.9 <-- has line item for sw_ver for each iteration
• Mac OS X is 10.10.5 thru 10.10.9 <-- same
• Mac OS X is 10.11 thru 10.11.9 <-- same

Time well spent, and if/when we have a need, we can clone and tweak criteria. Currently we have 20+ such Smart Computer Groups. It makes scoping a button pressing affair. They sort together nicely, are easy to use when scoping, and are accurate.

HTH,
Don