Devices won't work after Migration Assistant

[michael_schwarz]

Hello all,
we have the problem that some of our users when they received their new device, want to import a TimeMachine backup from their old device and do it with the help of apples Migration Assistant. After the successful transfer, the device no longer connects to Jamf and displays the following error:

There was an error.
Device Signature Error - A valid device signature is required to perform the action.

Only a "sudo jamf -enroll -prompt" helps but for this I have to know as admin that the error exists. Does anyone have an idea to work around this problem? The affected devices do not check in anymore and do not update the inventory either.

[scottlep]

New device has to be re-enrolled. Each device has an identifier that specific to that piece of hardware. Using Time Machine backup or Migration Assistant would have copied info about the old device leading to the device signature error. Best practice if using TM/MA might be to removeFramework from old device before running TM/MA, then enroll new device after migration is complete.

[jtrant · Accepted solution]

As above, block Time Machine or remove the MDM profile and management framework before using Migration Assistant. You will also need to be aware that many other applications such as AV, backup clients and licensed software use the same UDID (Unique Device Identifier) model and will stop working after a data transfer.

Personally, I blocked Time Machine long ago and our users need to perform a manual data transfer to their new machines.

[sdagley]

@michael_schwarz As @jtrant and @scottlep noted, this is a known and expected issue if a user runs Migration Assistant. You definitely want to create a Restricted Software configuration for Process Name "Migration Assistant.app" with "Restrict exact process name " and "Kill process" enabled. For the Message you could use something like "Using Migration Assistant is  not supported for managed Macs".