Apple Classroom and iOS 13

[alexis_cazalaa]

Hi,

still have to do some more testing but just wanted to poll some Apple Classroom / ASM users here.

It seems that we can't see students appear online when they updated their iPad to iOS 13 ( or 13.1 or 13.1.2 ) 

Education payload is still synced without any errors.

[vassallon]

@alexis_cazalaa 

I heard a rumor about this from one of our Apple guys here about Apple Classroom breaking. I know no details other than that.

Needless to say this was reason enough to block updates for 30 days, but as everyone should know, if an iPad is reset or updated through iTunes/AC2 it updates to the latest iOS regardless of blocks.

I did test with a staff and student iPad running iOS 13.1 and had no issues with Apple Classroom breaking. I could see the student device just fine through Apple Classroom.

[alexis_cazalaa]

Well i keep testing and unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with iOS 13.1.2

[vassallon]

@alexis_cazalaa I just updated two test iPads I have to iOS 13.1.2 and Apple Classroom is still working for me. 

My staff iPad is a 6th gen and student is an iPad Air 2. 

[alexis_cazalaa]

i am going to create a ticket but i've just test with my own Air 2 as a teacher.

setup a student Air 2 with iOS 12.4.1 -- appeared online without any issues

Updated it to 13.1.1 and student doesn't appear online anymore 😞

Will update to 13.1.2 but not optimistic

[JMalcolm]

We are having exactly the same problem!  Please let me know if you solve it!

[sHy]

Also having the same problem with our school. Apple support mentioned that they changed the port to 3285 from 3284. We opened it up but didn't resolve it for us. 

[vassallon]

@sHy, @alexis_cazalaa  and @JMalcolm 

I have a question for all of you. Are the Staff and Student iPads in the same network in Meraki?

I ran across an issue yesterday where Apple Classroom did not work with the Staff member in a different network than the students. Once I moved the iPad into the same network, viola, it started working.

I am going to do some more troubleshooting but I believe this is new behavior and possibly a bug.

@Noah_Salzman - FYI

[sHy]

Hi @vassallon ,

Yes, student and teachers are sync from ASM. All iPads are configure on the same network.

Possibly a bug, I'm have inform support eng from Apple, so will keep you all posted.  

Let me know what you found. 

Thanks

sHy

[vassallon]

@sHy 

I have done some testing this afternoon using two iPads both running iOS 13.1.3.  

Within Meraki I can get Apple Classroom to only work when the iPads are in the same network of Meraki. If I put the iPads in two different schools, as we have each school setup as its own network then the connection for Apple Classroom breaks. 

I can even have them on two different WiFi networks, we broadcast a public open WiFi that has different restrictions than our WPA2-PSK secured networks and that works fine.

Even with Airplane mode on and these restrictions in place: (Force Wi Fi Power On: Yes and Bluetooth Modification: No) Apple Classroom continues to function.

I was also able to break Apple Classroom by pushing the command to disable Bluetooth to either teacher or student device, understandably.

I hope this helps for troubleshooting, I still think it is buggy behavior that the iPads "Must" be in the same network.

What say you to this @Noah_Salzman?

[sHy]

@vassallon 

I have tried the same iPads outside the meraki MDM setting for Apple classroom and found them to be working with no issue. Is this Meraki issue or Apple issue ?

[alexis_cazalaa]

any updates about this ?

[alexis_cazalaa]

@sHy did the same test and it also works outside MDM settings

[alexis_cazalaa]

@JMalcolm  @sHy  you guys have any follow up about this ?

[vassallon]

@alexis_cazalaa I wish I could help but we have iPads running iOS 13.2.3 and such with no issues with Apple Classroom. 

[alexis_cazalaa]

@vassallon that's both a weird and worrying thing to learn since both Apple and Meraki now acknowledged that there is an issue.

Here is Meraki's response : I've spent some time looking at this further, and I believe that our dev team has acknowledged this as a bug and are investigating the issue. There was a recent change on the Apple side of things which we also need to update on our end. It doesn't appear that they have provided any sort of ETA, but as soon as they have any updates, I will make sure to pass them along to you.

Apple's advisor, on the other side, was a bit more precise and lead me to a trusted certificates issue.

Basically it seems to be linked to that article : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210176

In my case, my classroom certs were issued after July 1st and show a period of validity of 3250 days...

I can only guess that your certificates were issued before July 1st.

[alexis_cazalaa · Accepted solution]

Problem fixed yesterday...

[sHy]

Hi 

How did you get it resolve? The meraki engineer assigned to the case still investigating the issue for me and Apple ( not their issue), so appreciate any guidance. 

Thank you

Shy 

[sHy]

Just see it working now! 🙂  thanks for pushing this to get it sorted.