Triggering kickstart policy whenever changes to Nudge configuration profile are made

[ksoliman]

My organization sometimes has users open up tickets whenever I a new minimum OS version in our Nudge configuration profile due to the software update window never loading its contents, thus not allowing users to update and badgering them with Nudge notifications. I've created a kickstart policy that runs sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.softwareupdated; softwareupdate -l 

This has fixed the issue of software update not loading its contents, but I was wondering if it was possible to trigger this policy whenever I make changes to the Nudge configuration profile. This way the kickstart command would run after changes are saved in the configuration profile.

[sdagley · Accepted solution]

@ksoliman While kickstarting sofwtareupdate isn't an uncommon "fix" be aware that Apple discourages using it with macOS 13.3.1 and later. I'm not convinced softwareupdate is truly fixed as of macOS 13.3.1, but in the interest of heeding Apple's advice I now use a Nudge notification that advises the user to restart their Mac if they're not seeing the expected update if the Software Update panel and that has pretty much eliminated all of the "I don't see an update" tickets.

[ksoliman]

@sdagley This is a good idea, however -- and somewhat unrelated to this issue -- we use kickstart to also keep devices checking in because when software update cant load updates it causes our 15 min check in cycle to hang. I know theres an option to disable software update info during inventory collection, which would eliminate check in/inventory collection issues and our need for kickstart, but my org has deemed it a necessary option to have enabled. While it may not be best practice, it has helped avoid devices from going dark in Jamf Pro. But this could be something we can implement instead of kickstarting for updates. Thank you!

[sdagley]

@ksoliman I have had the check for available updates in a recon disabled for such a long time I forget to mention it as another reason for kickstart so thanks for calling that out.

[howie_isaacks]

In the past, I advised users to not only restart their Mac, but also de-select the option to reopen windows when logging back in. Another thing that sometimes works is to use Command + R in the software update window to make it refresh.

[TrentO]

Just to add on an alternative here which might be of interest. My org recently adopted using MDM-Watchdog which basically automates this process completely. It ensures that both the mdmclient and softwareupdated are not stuck and restarts them if needed based on the logs being produced.