JAMF Remote Assist

[Shyamsundar]

Experiencing issues with the JAMF Remote Assist feature! It was effective for a few months, but now, I'm unable to access any devices remotely. Even after trying the troubleshooting methods recommended by JAMF Support, the problem persists. I've learned there's an ongoing product issue. Is anyone else encountering similar challenges?

[SmilieK]

Yep, same issues, works on most and then does not work for some at all. Have gone through tons of support calls with Jamf and our AV vendor trying to fix. We have given up even trying to troubleshoot it until Jamf makes changes on their end.

[brutskaa]

Same here. Had some successful test connections, but mostly failures. Basically giving up for now. Not reliable enough to try to rely on for remote assistance. 

[Tbaker63]

In the mean time, if your devices are on your local network, you can use the mac built-in screen share application. I have more reliable connections that way.

[brutskaa]

This is a good idea, I’ll look into this. We’ve been having very unreliable remote connections as well. If someone is off campus we can usually direct them to VPN into the local network and get them support that way

[Shyamsundar]

We don't have the devices on our local network , We have our Mac Devices across multiple regions hence we wanted the JAMF Remote assist feature 

[red_beard]

When they first rolled it out it was working some of the time for me. Now it doesn't work on any machine or scenario I've tried.

[red_beard]

Found this so just adding it to the thread

Issue # PI119310

Description

When starting an attended Jamf Remote Assist session, the connection sometimes fails and the console displays the following error message: "Cannot start Jamf Remote Assist session. Cannot connect to end user computer. Make sure the computer is online and try again."

[red_beard]

Wonderingwhat others see compared these screenshots. When I manually toggle on the Privacy and Security > Screen Sharing & Audio System Recording setting for jamfRemoteAssist then I can get Jamf Remote Assist to work.

But the Jamf video setup instructions have a checkbox that is no longer anywhere that I can find to default these permissions to on.

[dugnl]

Yea, I'm having the same issue.  Worked when I first tested it months ago. Now noticing several machines with the jamfRemoteAssist being off by default.  When I manually enable, remote assist works.  Didn't previously have to do that.

[brutskaa]

Looked at this again today. Can also confirm that it works when enabling Screen & System Audio Recording for jamfRemoteAssist. 

I tried to create a PPPC config for it, but it doesn't seem to work to enable it. 

At least it looks like standard users can enable it, so it's possible to instruct a user to go into settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording and enable for jamfRemoteAssist.

Interestingly, you can see the built-in Jamf PPPC for it (General > Device Management), with several things listed but it doesn't seem to work either.

Below is my own PPPC, the "Receive UI Events..." is input monitoring.

[azercher]

I copied this and magically I am able to remote into my test macs again. So, this works.

Thank you!!

[danlaw777]

copied what exactly?

[brutskaa]

What's been working for me (mostly) is to instruct the user to go into the privacy settings and enable that toggle for jamfRemoteAssist.

I've also been proactively enabling that toggle when setting up new computers or whenever I'm helping someone with something unrelated.

I've also been able to successfully roll out the permission changes that I was missing for BeyondTrust Bomgar remote agent, and it seems more reliable so I'm going to be leaning on that more for my primary remote tool.

[azercher]

This works if you do not limit access to this for those who aren't admins. We limit this. I have a policy to allow privacy access to Teams and other apps, but I need one for this as well.

[brutskaa]

Default macOS behavior is to require admin to enable screen sharing/recording, not a matter of actively restricting it. That's why this PPPC exists to allow standard users to approve. This seems to be the case as of Big Sur. https://support.addigy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403549601043-Privacy-Preferences-Policy-Control-PPPC-f...

[azercher]

I copied his settings for Remote Assist access and it does not work. I deployed it out and failed to deploy.

[brutskaa]

By deploy, do you mean that you were unable to connect to the target machine? previously in this thread you said that it started working for you.

[azercher]

No. I modified my package to include the settings in your post and it failed to deploy. However, I was somehow able to remote into my mac afterwards but then it stopped working again. I do not have a working method for this and need to because I have people who are chomping at the bit to get this working.

[brutskaa]

Config profile failed to deploy? The Remote Assist isn's a package to deploy.

I don't think the custom PPPC profile is actually necessary. I can't test whether removing it makes a difference at the moment, but I believe the defauly built-in one is already doing whatever it can. It just requires the user to manually enable permissions in screen sharing settings per Apple's user privacy initiatives.

Have you been instructing users to enable permissions for screen sharing? If they are able to enable screen sharing without admin prompts then the default PPPC is working.

For example, standard users are normally not allowed to allow screen sharing for Teams or Zoom, so I've recently had to build a PPPC to "Allow standard users to approve"; they still need to go into the settings and enable it, but no longer get a prompt for administrator credentials.

[danlaw777]

does anyone have the code requirement for Jamf Remote assist?