Watch out for Apple Configurator 1.4, supervision mode and restores through iCloud

[Olson]

I had to replace a student's iPad last Thursday, the day IOS7 was released. I came back plugged it into AC 1.3.1, it updated the iPad to IOS7 (ugh), but kept erroring. AC 1.4 came out at 10 PM that evening, no more errors, but no supervision profile was on the iPad after I restored the student's iCloud backup. If I reconnected to AC and refreshed, it dinged and looked like all is well, but still no Supervision profile. If I restored using AC 1.4, and just set up as a vanilla iPad, the supervision profile is there. I've also tried this with different iPads and restoring with different student AppleID's, but no Supervision profile.

I'm hosed, all of our students back up to iCloud, but I have no way to restore and supervise them using Apple Configurator 1.4 so that I can manage the iPad AND use Casper. I tried to use a "IOS custom version" feature in AC 1.4 to install IOS 6.1.3, but that did not work, the install failed with these messages:

Unable to install iOS 6.1.3. Unable to restore device (ECID=30099083D2F, Location=24100000) with the firmware found at file://localhost/Users/studentsyncstation/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.configurator/UnpackedFirmware/iPad2,1_6.1.3_10B329_Restore.ipsw/.

Error details:
Failed to copy preflight options during recovery mode restore. Code 3194
Domain com.apple.MobileDevice.MobileRestore

I have a case open with Apple and contacted them about an hour ago. I was told that "Apple Engineers are aware of the problem and it will be addressed in a future release of AC". That's helpful, and of course, I have a few more students that needs to restore their data to their iPad.

I don't know if this is just our kids, or a wider problem. But, just be aware.
I'm concerned that my only option is to hand out unmanaged iPads. UGH.

[jimlee]

@Olson But when you plug the supervised iPad to the Configurator, does it still show up under the Supervise field? Does a simple refresh put the Supervision Profile back?

[Olson]

It does show as supervised, but refreshing does not to add the supervision profile.

[Nick_Gooch]

We are in the same boat, except we don't even have to restore an iCloud back to have them become unsupervised. 90% of our students that have updated have become unsupervised. Configurator 1.4 just error's when trying to update/refresh them.

Side note: Our Apple rep said the supervision profile isn't really necessary, what is necessary is that it says "This iPad is supervised by..." under Settings > General > About. Which isn't the case for most of our students that have updated to 7.0.

[Olson]

Hmmm, just got an email from Apple guy. I hope it's good news.

[Olson]

Does having the supervision profile cause the "This iPad is supervised...". By the way, when I supervise a device with AC 1.4 and let it restore as a plain vanilla iPad, I still see the "Profiles" section with a Supervision profile in the Settings > General.

The email from the apple guy tried to tell me how to supervise the device after restoration from iCloud, but I did not understand his directions. I think a 5 minute phone call would help. I asked but no call yet.

[peineke]

The response given to me by Apple this morning that confirmed your findings but said they had no fix yet. So I hope that they tell you one, becuase this is going to be a pain.

[Nick_Gooch]

I have a couple devices that are supervised without a supervision profile. They say it only in the about section and I can send supervised only commands to them. If I plug them into configurator the profile is added back. Almost all of my other devices appear to be totally unsupervised.

[Lame33]

We have the exact same issue and have had the same response from Apple.

Unless they launch an OTA Supervision tool, how is this going to work? This update just gutted weeks of manual setup we did over the summer.

Are they expecting us to manually reconnect hundreds of devices back to our one configurator workstation during the school year?

[jcdebrocke]

I am having the same issue. Whether the students updated to iOS7 on their own or if I try with configurator, there is no supervision and now cannot use Casper focus with those devices. When I called Apple they told me that simply refreshing in configurator should work to supervise them. But it does not.

[jcdebrocke]

I am having the same issue. Whether the students updated to iOS7 on their own or if I try with configurator, there is no supervision and now cannot use Casper focus with those devices. When I called Apple they told me that simply refreshing in configurator should work to supervise them. But it does not.

[Olson]

Still, nothing from Apple. But, I had a student today, who had created her AppleID on the school iPad and it would not let her login to ICloud since this AppleID had been the 3rd one created on that iPad. There is a limit of 3 AppleID's that can be created on an IPad, odd limitation, but because of this she could not login and backup to iCloud. Not good.

I backed up her IOS 6 IPad in Apple Configurator, supervised and restored the backup to another IPad running IOS7. After the supervision and restore, there was a supervision profile on the IOS7 iPad. Woohoo. I was able to redownload the apps and her data was there. I know, this is how it's supposed to work, but I'm not having much faith with how things are supposed to work at the moment. I was able to back up to ICloud and enroll the restored IPad and all is well. (Let's say that I've not heard from the student, so for now, all is well.) I have a few srudents that I restored without management last week, I'm going to try this on those IPads.

I also noticed that I have 60-70 iPads that stopped reporting back to Casper on the 19th or 20th. I have a sneaking suspicion that students may have updated to IOS7 and that broke management on the iPad, but that's speculation for now. But, the idea of doing this, backing up and restoring each individual IPad to get a supervision profile, really??

[tdurdan]

Same issue here. Our predicament is that we have corporate owned iPhones/iPads that we provision to users and will soon have issues with these devices being activation locked when the employment relationship ends and the device is returned. Apple support initially recommended provisioning these devices with supervision enabled. So we made the change but now notice that the supervision profile gets erased on an iCloud restore. We're not actively managing the phones and we do not want to disable any features for the user. Apple's latest response is that the best practice would be to educate the users that the Find My iPhone feature should be disabled before returning the device to corporate.

[Olson]

I'm curious, how will disabling "Find My iPhone" help you?

I thought I was on to something after yesterday with AC 1.4, with being able to create a local backup of a supervised IOS6 iPad, and then restore that backup to an IOS7 iPad AND have it be supervised. But today, discovered I cannot create a supervised backup of an IOS7 iPad. Again, I tell AC 1.4 to create a backup, the program dings after a second, but no backup is created. UGH.

[tdurdan]

Well for us the initial issue we were addressing was the activation lock that gets enabled alongside Find My iPhone feature. Provisioning the device with supervision will allow this feature to be enabled and will allow Apple Configurator to erase and restore the device. However it appears that the supervision profile is getting removed if the user opts to restore from iCloud backup during the setup process.

[Olson]

Just as an FYI, In AC 1.4, I can create a backup of an IOS6 iPad, then restore it as I update to IOS7. This is the only way I can update my students supervised IOS6 iPads to IOS7 AND keep management working. Also, I've yet to successfully create a backup of a supervised IOS7 iPad in AC 1.4. So, for those students who could not wait to update to IOS7, I can't simply make a backup of their IOS7 device in AC 1.4, restore it and have management working again.

[Bevan]

Hi Tom

Did you ever find a resolution for your issue? We have the exact same problem and are finding our 130 iPads becoming bricks one by one due to Apple's ineptitude! Apple's support on this is truly horrendous.

Regards

Glenn

[Nick_Gooch]

Contact Apple Care at supervised_devices_support@services.apple.com they are in the process of helping people get their devices re-supervised.

[Bevan]

Thanks Nick, I have emailed that address and have been automatically categorised as "low" priority.

The upgrade to iOS 7 actually caused no problems at all for us in terms of supervision but when a student comes with a disabled iPad or needs a new app - its bricked due to the configurator sending the device into recovery mode and failing to install any iOS at all. We are a large organisation using a proxy server - we setup all these devices this way and it all worked fine. The Apple Configurator still works off site when not using a proxy server but as soon as I return to site the problem reoccurs. Truly appalled with Apple's support on this.

[mcdermk]

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5974

I believe this will answer some of your questions