iOS 12 - Issue with pdf documents moving from "iBooks" to "Books" and opening

hfricke
New Contributor

We have multiple students who can no longer access their pdf documents and previously downloaded textbooks now that they have moved to iOS 12. Once they upgraded, "iBooks" disappeared and "Books" appeared. All of their pdf documents and textbook show up in the new "Books" app. However, when they click on one of the documents or a book to open it, they get this warning: "Cannot Open Document. Unable to Open NameofDocumentHere."

All of our students have Managed Apple IDs. We never had any issue prior to iOS 12 letting them save or copy items to iBooks.

Any advice?

5 REPLIES 5

cdenesha
Valued Contributor II

I just tried this and did not experience a problem. Jamf Pro 10.5, Managed Apple ID. Book assigned to student through Jamf and VPP. Upon upgrade from iOS 11.4.1 to iOS 12.0.1 the assigned books still opened. One was already on the device and another had to download - both worked.

I did not have any PDFs loaded.

I did not have any Annotations, which get saved to iCloud Drive.

Does it work for some students and not others? When you say Assigned textbooks, were they free VPP books assigned to them?

hfricke
New Contributor

I don't have a problem with books I've pushed and purchased via VPP....

It's documents teachers send them via another app (eBackpack or TeacherEase). They can usually hit the sharrow and choose "open in Books/iBooks" in order to move the pdf or ePub to a location in which they can "read" it at all times.

hfricke
New Contributor

They can move the items to "books" but the items won't open.

cdenesha
Valued Contributor II

I am not having any trouble downloading a PDF from the web and using the sharrow to copy to Books. When I do the same for an ePub it is a PDF which is sent to Books. The PDFs are viewable. Might be malformed documents? Are they still opening ok in iOS 11? Have you tried iOS 12.0.1?

hfricke
New Contributor

Issue Solved:

You must update Jamf Pro to the latest edition. I was on the version just previous to the most current one which wasn't fully compatible with iOS 12.

Then, if a student has already upgraded to iOS 12, they follow these steps:
Delete Books app.
Delete Self Service app.
Re-inventory device so self-service reappears.
Install Apple Books from Self Service.
Books and pdfs re-appear - able to download and open now

If a student hasn't gone to iOS 12 yet...I recommend deleting iBooks and then running the update.