PI-007928 (iOS App Catalog updates broken in 10.18.0)

Just ran in to this. App on iPad wont work because it's not new enough. Looked at the JSS and the app is a few versions behind.

If I click on Force Update is that supposed to update it on the iPads, even if its not showing the correct version on the JSS Mobile Device Apps page?

Clicking Force Update did not work for us. We had to manually delete each app that was not up-to-date and re-add it with the scopes.

@jphillips No need to delete apps and re-add them. Just edit the app(s) and update the version. After that, your devices should get the update next time they submit inventory. You can use the script I linked to above to compare app versions in your Jamf instance to the app versions in the App Store.

@RyanSK I believe the Force Update button sends an MDM command out to all devices with that app installed telling that device to update that given app. I don't think it matters if the device has the current version of the app installed or not. It's basically a reinstall all button.

This issue still exists in 10.19.0. It also appears that this issue prevents automatic disabling of apps when they are removed from the App Store.

I added a link (top post) to a second script that will update app versions for you.

This issue still exists in 10.20.0

We received the following information yesterday:

Thank you for your message. I'm really sorry you have this problem. Yes, we know the problem with apps. The reference number for this is: PI-007928. Now you can only update the apps manually via UI or API. The resolution comes with Jamf Pro 10.21. We released version 10.20 last night.

Please fix this!

+1 for these scripts, thanks @cbrewer , worked like a charm.

Have to be kidding me that a core part of iPad MDM has been broken for so many releases. Apps need to be updated... and Apple even makes this easy to do through MDM. The fact that Jamf's code for checking updates breaks so often, yet the community can script a fix is frustrating.

This is causing us more issues than normal now especially because we use a lot of the google apps that are getting updated due to the current situation. The apps are not updating themselves to get the new features that are being released. I've managed to manually change some of them but is causing a lot of headaches for students/parents/teachers. I feel the IOS side of Jamf gets left out quite a bit. For example, it took a while for them to implement the bluetooth restriction which other MDM providers had from day one. With every new update comes a new bug.

Wow thanks @cbrewer that script is great. As someone who is not very savvy with such things - once I figured out Homebrew and jq it worked like a charm.

I'm running into an issue with script. I think it might have something to do with the script checking the mobile app id and stopping when it sees an app isn't assigned to that id. For example, appid1 = Self Service, appid2 = blank, appid3 = Jamf Reset. Because appid2 is blank and doesn't exist I believe the script is ending early.

@RLR The script doesn't iterate thru apps by assuming all app ID numbers are there. It's using the API to get all current apps from /mobiledeviceapplications. The apps that the script sees should be the same list of apps you see in your Jamf Pro server.

@cbrewer Thanks for the quick reply. Terminal is telling me 1 apps processed but when I open the CSV file I don't have anything in there. I have 500+ apps in Jamf. Not sure what it might be.

Edit: ignore my posts. Was my api account not having correct permissions.

when i run this im getting back a result -bash: !": event not found
this is on the 1st run app and csv is empty using a admin account with full access

This issue is fixed in Jamf Pro 10.21.0.

@cbrewer I had no issue running your first script earlier this year but now all I get is:
This may take a while depending on the number of apps in your jss
Checking 1 apps...
(23) Failed writing body
1 apps processed... It seems that the apps are once again not updating as we expect them to :(
Have a ticket in with Jamf

@bfrench

Big Sur introduced a change to xpath. See here.

I updated the script so it works in Big Sur.

Thanks - that fixed part of the issue - however still getting
Checking 1 apps...
1 apps processed...

ugh just got it to work - darn typo

Just received this from Jamf

I can confirm that you're hitting a separate product issue,
PI-007928: Jamf Pro Does Not Issue App Updates To Devices When New Versions Are Clearly Available.

Can someone please tell me the steps to run this script? I would like to know what apps need to be updated. The issue seems to still be happening where Apps are not updating again. 

How is this still a problem 🤦🏻‍