We’re running into a problem when deploying certain .pkg installers via MDM on macOS 15 and above. The installation fails with the following error message:
“The app is running and we don’t have the context to quit it, failing install.”
Context:
The .pkg is being pushed through an MDM solution (not installed manually).
This happens consistently across multiple macOS 15+ devices.
The target app is often already running when the MDM tries to install the update.
Unlike a manual installation, the MDM does not appear to have the ability to quit the running app before proceeding.
Questions:
Is this a known change in macOS 15 where MDM-delivered installs no longer have permission to terminate apps during package installation?
Are there recommended best practices for handling app updates via .pkg through MDM in this scenario?
Has anyone implemented a workaround—such as pre-install scripts, user notifications, or policies to quit the app before running the installer—that works reliably on macOS 15?
Is Apple planning to update MDM behavior or installer APIs to address this, or should admins expect to handle quitting apps entirely outside of the MDM installation process?
Any insights from Apple engineers or other developers/admins who have encountered this would be really helpful.
Explore the intersection of business and app development. Discuss topics like device management, education, and resources for aspiring app developers.
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We’ve run into what looks like a gap in how forceAirDropUnmanaged is enforced on iOS devices.
Setup:
Device: iOS 17.x (unsupervised, enrolled in MDM)
MDM Restriction: forceAirDropUnmanaged = true
Managed Open-In restriction also applied (block unmanaged destinations).
Verified: from a managed app, the AirDrop icon is hidden in the share sheet. This part works as expected.
Issue:
When two iOS devices are brought close together, the proximity-initiated AirDrop / NameDrop flow still allows transfer of photos, videos, or files between devices. In this path, forceAirDropUnmanaged does not appear to apply, even though the same restriction works correctly in the standard sharing pane.
What I’d expect: If forceAirDropUnmanaged is enabled, all AirDrop transfer paths (including proximity/NameDrop) should be treated as unmanaged, and thus blocked when “Managed Open-In to unmanaged destinations” is restricted.
What I observe instead:
Share sheet → AirDrop hidden ✅
Proximity/NameDrop → transfer still possible ❌
Questions for Apple / Community:
Is this a known limitation or expected behavior?
Is there a different restriction key (or combination) that also covers proximity-based AirDrop?
If not currently supported, should this be filed as Feedback (FB) to request alignment between share sheet AirDrop and NameDrop enforcement?
This behaviour introduces a compliance gap for organisations relying on MDM to control data exfiltration on unsupervised or user-enrolled devices. Any clarification or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Tags:
Privacy
Apple Business Manager
Device Management
How can we receive the iPadOS 18.6.1 update on an iPad? We have configured the MDM update days policy to receive recent, but not the latest, iPadOS updates; however, we are only able to get versions 18.6.2 and 18.6. Is the availability of iPadOS updates dependent on the iPad's region?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
We are experiencing a critical issue where VPP app installations are consistently taking an excessive amount of time, leading to significant delays in asset association. We are deployionThis is a systemic problem that affects all VPP apps, not just an isolated case.
Apps:
39470db7-e475-4269-9709-c80641657027 =>
com.zimride.instant
d0876900-2579-463e-99f1-b7c85ef5c5e8
com.microsoft.azureauthenticator
Troubleshooting:
We have performed extensive troubleshooting and can confirm the following:
VPP Token: The VPP token has been successfully renewed and is currently active and valid.
License Availability: We've verified that there are sufficient VPP licenses available for the apps being deployed.
Device Status: We've attempted the following on the affected devices:
Restarted the devices.
Switched to different Wi-Fi networks.
Uninstalled and re-installed the apps.
App Status: The issue is not limited to a single app; all VPP apps are failing to install.
License Revocation: We attempted to revoke and reassign licenses for some devices, but this did not resolve the issue. The app was not pushed, and the pending status remained.
Troubleshooting:
Through our internal investigation, we have determined that the core issue is that the Asset Association Status is consistently taking excessive time. This seems to be preventing the app installation queue from processing.
We have observed a significant delay in the processing of events within the Notification Channel. The time between the event being created and a response being received is excessively long, indicating a potential backlog or issue. We have included a few recent examples below for your reference:
Event ID: 39470db7-e475-4269-9709-c80641657027
com.zimride.instant
Created Time: 2025-08-26 01:02:04
Response Time: 2025-08-26 01:34:05
Event ID: d0876900-2579-463e-99f1-b7c85ef5c5e8
com.microsoft.azureauthenticator
Created Time: 2025-08-25 21:16:29
Response Time: 2025-08-25 22:21:07
We would appreciate your help in the following areas:
Resolution: Could you provide any known solutions or workarounds for an asset association status that is taking excessive amount of time'?
Best Practices: Are there any recommended best practices or additional parameters we should be checking with the MDM that might influence the queueing of VPP app assignments?
Queueing Parameters: Could you provide insight into the parameters or conditions that can affect the queueing and processing of VPP app installations on Apple's servers?
Please let us know if there is any additional information or logs we can provide.
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Tags:
Business and Enterprise
Apple Business Manager
Device Management
Hi everyone,
I’m working as an IT engineer in the cruise industry and need to troubleshoot passenger complaints about Apple’s new RCS messaging feature (introduced with iOS 18). Could someone help confirm which domains and ports iPhones use when they send RCS messages? For the fortigate and palo alto firewalls I need specifics: domains (or subdomains) that need whitelisting and the ports involved.
Any official or community-sourced info would be super helpful—thanks in advance!
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
We have created provisioning profile from apple developer account for our iPadOS app, the expiry date shown in the profile is 20-Aug-2026. However, when when I build the app with this provisional profile the expiry date shown in the app is 6-May-2026. My Certification expires on 2027. I see a embeded.mobileprovision profile inside the app, and it has an expiry of 6-May-2026. I did a clean build, cleared unnecessary profiles from profile folder, created a new provisional profile and tried, but nothing seems help.
We have a few apps, and no other app has this issue, only those two apps have this issue. As the expiry date the shorten, we also need to special handle these two apps, Will you please help me to resolve this issue?
Thanks.
Hey everyone,
Is it possible and how to get Managed Apple ID (email) programmatically for user signed in to ipad through shared IPad feature ?
It would be good to have MDM independent solution, I mean API call to MDM service is not acceptable for us.
Maybe API call to ASM or ABM, or get that somehow on iOS device end... any advice ?
Thanks in advance,
Dima
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
General
Hello!
I’m testing certificate issuance using a locally running Smallstep step-ca ACME server with the device-attest-01 challenge.
I’ve created a custom MDM profile for this purpose. When I install the profile, the certificate is issued successfully, but it is not saved to the Keychain as stated in the documentation. I can only see the certificate via mdmclient or in the Wi-Fi settings dropdown menu.
Is this expected behavior, or are there additional settings that need to be included in the MDM profile?
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Hi everyone,
I’m working as an IT engineer in the cruise industry and need to troubleshoot passenger complaints about Apple’s new RCS messaging feature (introduced with iOS 18). Could someone help confirm which domains and ports iPhones use when they send RCS messages? My firewall team wants specifics: domains (or subdomains) that need whitelisting and the ports involved.
Any official or community-sourced info would be super helpful—thanks in advance!
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
General
Hi There
Our app is used in the hospital field and receives remote APNS via the Notification Service Extension.
We found a scenario where screen is on, our app is in background, if a "Critical" notification is displayed as a banner at the top of the screen, subsequent normal notifications will be suppressed and no sound will play. Only after the user swipes away the critical notification will the normal notification appear and play a sound.
is this as expected? I could not find any document on such case from Apple.
Thanks.
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
General
New devices coming to this year is named as iPhone 17 ....
Why we care not going for iPhone 26. .... ?
if it is named as iPhone 26... in line with new version policy, it will be easier to relate in all perspective.
When I try to sign in Managed Apple ID in supervised device there appears a prompt stating that "Apple ID" is a work account.This account must be signed in as a work account on this device.When I click continue it takes to VPN and device management tab where MDM profile already exists.
Note:The managed Apple ID has a ICloud subscription for it.
When I remove the subscription for the Apple ID and try to sign in, it works.
Kindly help on this or advise on any additional steps required to enable sign in for managed Apple ID in this scenario
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Tags:
Apple Business Manager
Device Management
During VPP app installation, the app-device asset association event took longer than the usual maximum of 30 seconds to complete, regardless of the number of app licenses involved.
We are trying the renewal the apple Enterprise program. It asks set of questions after that it shows the below message
"Thank you for your request to renew your membership in the Apple Developer Enterprise Program. We’ll review your submission and get back to you shortly to let you know if we can process the renewal or if another program better serves your organization’s needs."
We have submitted for review for over two months now. During these two months, we have contacted the official customer service multiple times, only to be told to wait for news. Now, with only a few days left, The status hasn't changed, neither approved nor rejected,what should we do?This account is very important to our company. Thank you
I'm hoping to make certain in-house apps fail to launch by revoking the in-house certificate that they were built on. This is by way of encouraging users of these apps to download updates built on a new certificate.
How long will it take app built on a now-revoked certificate to no longer launch?
Also, what is Apple's process for checking the validity of an in-house certificate in an app built on that certificate, running on iOS devices?
I understand that provisioning profiles have built-in expiration dates, but will an in-house app that's built on a valid provisioning profile keep running even on a revoked certificate if the revocation happened before the certificate's own expiration date?
Craig Umanoff
Apple face app is used to fore video calling and chatting and voice calling AP same a what’s app tango etc…
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Tags:
Scribble
iCloud Drive
AirPlay 2
Tap to Pay on iPhone
We have applications RME and RMEUI, which are added under FileProviders section. Looking for MDM profile that can lock these entries so that users cannot disable them. Currently we are using JAMF Pro MDM to control our applications.
In Sequoia OS -> Open System Preferences -> General -> Login Items & Extensions -> Under Extensions section -> File Providers
In Tahoe OS -> Open System Preferences -> General -> Login Items & Extensions -> Under By Category/App section -> File Providers
(In the screen shot you can find RME entry)
Hello,
We are currently deploying Apple devices in our organization using Apple Business Manager (ABM) and are looking for a long-term self-hosted MDM solution.
We initially considered MicroMDM, but since official support will end in December 2025, we are evaluating NanoMDM.
I would like to confirm:
Is NanoMDM a stable and production-ready option for long-term use with Apple Business Manager and Automated Device Enrollment (ADE)?
Does NanoMDM support all essential features like:
Supervision
Remote wipe
App deployment
Configuration profiles
Are there any limitations or known issues with using NanoMDM?
Are there any other open-source or lightweight MDM solutions Apple developers recommend that are actively maintained?
We are aiming for a reliable, secure, and future-proof self-hosted MDM setup.
Any guidance or shared experience would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vijay Pratap Singh
Topic:
Business & Education
SubTopic:
Device Management
Tags:
Apple Business Manager
Device Management
Subject: Questions Regarding Signing Certificates for MDM Configuration Profiles
Dear all,
I hope this message finds you well. I have some questions regarding the signing certificates used for MDM configuration profiles.
Currently, our company uses an SSL certificate to sign MDM configuration profiles. However, with the announcement that the validity period of SSL certificates will gradually be shortened starting in 2026, we are considering alternative options for signing certificates.
Through our internal testing and investigation, we have found examples of the following certificate chains being used:
・Developer ID - G1 (Expiring 02/01/2027 22:12:15 UTC) + Developer ID Application certificate chain
・Apple Root CA + Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate + MDM CSR certificate chain
We would appreciate any insights or experiences you can share regarding the following points:
Apple Support previously advised that "certificates issued by public certificate authorities (CAs) trusted by Apple" are recommended. The certificates listed at https://www.apple.com/certificateauthority/ are typically preinstalled on Apple devices. Are these considered "trusted public CAs" by Apple in this context?
Is it acceptable in practice to use a certificate obtained from the “Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles” section on developer.apple.com for signing MDM configuration profiles? We would be grateful to hear about any real-world experiences.
If the answer to question 2 is yes, which certificate type within “Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles” would be most appropriate for signing configuration profiles?
If using certificates from question 2 is not suitable, are there alternative certificate types (other than SSL) that are valid for longer periods (e.g., more than one year) and appropriate for signing MDM configuration profiles?
Apple's official documents do not seem to clearly specify what type of certificate should be used to sign MDM configuration profiles. If you know of any helpful documents or resources related to this topic, we would greatly appreciate it if you could share them.
Thank you very much for your time and support. We would truly appreciate any advice or guidance you can provide.
We’re using the Apple Developer Enterprise Program for internal app distribution. The Apple ID is a generic one using our domain email, but the Account Holder is a real person with authority in the organization.
For the payment method, we plan to use a corporate credit card — but it is issued under a different staff name (e.g. card under Chief, but Account Holder is IT Head).
Just want to check:
• Is this setup acceptable?
• Will Apple reject the enrollment/renewal if the card name doesn’t match the Account Holder?
• What’s the best practice in this case to avoid delays or verification issues?
Appreciate any guidance or experience from the community.
Thanks!