Unable to download apps on iOS7

[gchivers]

Hi,

 

On 18th September we had issues with our firewall which required it to be reset. Since then we have been unable to download apps on our iPads (iOS7). Initially we thought it was the firewall, however today I tested an iPad that had iOS6 on it and the apps downloaded fine. It seems that the fact the firewall went wrong the same day apple released iOS7 (also the same day we connected a lot of iPads to Apple configurator which forced out the update).

 

Has anyone had this issue? We are stumped, we cannot pin down if it is the firewall or iOS7 or both. I have tested a few of the iPads at home and apps download without issues. desktops and macbooks download apps fine.

 

Any help appreciated!

Edited October 25, 2013 by gchivers

[edd_murphy]

Hi.

 

We have noticed the same issues within the Worcestershire BB network.

 

Are you a school connected to an LA WAN?

 

If so, here is our theory....

 

Apple launched a new service just before the launch of iOS7 called Apple Caching Server 2. This gets installed onto any MAC server on a network. This MAC Server then registers with Apple as that networks local caching server. So any requests from an iOS7 device to apple, get re-directed to the registers Apple Cache Server on that network.

 

In our instance we have some 260 sites connected, each with their own firewall. So if one sites MAC Server registers with Apple (gets logged against your external IP Address) then all other internal iOS7 devices get re-directed to this box. In our case this can't happen as the site in question is on a low bandwith connection and we don't want all devices going there.

 

We would be better suited to get a Caching Server sat at the core of our network that all devices in our connected sites can talk to.

 

Its an Apple issue/problem and they don't seem to be very forth coming with a fix.

 

Hope that helps!

[gchivers]

Hi edd_murphy,

 

That is a brilliant bit of information. We have been doing a workaround by using Configuration Manager to install apps. We would have never thought our Mac Server could be part of the problem as I didn't see it in any way related to iPads.

 

We do have a connection to the LA WAN, however we do have our own external IP. I will do a bit more research on this. Thanks, I really appreciate this piece of information!

[gchivers]

We have updated our Mac Server to Maverick and updated to server 3.0, all went well without issues. We have turned on the caching server and some good news, our MacBook seems to now be downloading apps. We have also discovered two other Apple caching servers on the network. We only have one on site which suggests there are two others on the WAN.

 

Unfortunately iOS7 still will not download apps. Does anyone have any idea how I can track down where the problem lies, there are so many factors but Apple do not make it easy to figure out where the problem is!

 

Cheers

[uke]

Does anyone have any further info on this?

In my LA there are several schools that have a mac server set up for caching, but all schools in the LA go through the same external ip address. This has caused a problem which has meant that no school in the LA can now download any apps over wifi. Can anyone help with suggestions?

Thanks

[gchivers]

Hi,

 

On our WAN there are 3 mac servers (I know where one of them is) and at the time of the iOS7 release we updated our mac server so we could use the caching service. This did not allow us to download apps directly to iPads but it did allow us to download to iTunes and we used Apple Configuration Manager to distribute the apps. When using iTunes the download only worked 1 in 3 times, it seemed that Apple was sending data to any one of the servers so we only had a one in three chance of our cache server receiving the data. It wasn't brilliant but it worked.

 

After speaking to another school with a mac server the suggestion was that whoever manages the external IP should have one single caching server which serves the entire WAN. A week ago, we discovered that we were able to download apps again, so whether someone at our council made a caching server or whether Apple released a fix I do not know. But what I can say is, a caching server worked for us.

 

Do you by any chance have VLANS? As this I believe can cause issues.

Edited February 5, 2014 by gchivers

[Brimstone]

Does anyone have any further info on this?

In my LA there are several schools that have a mac server set up for caching, but all schools in the LA go through the same external ip address. This has caused a problem which has meant that no school in the LA can now download any apps over wifi. Can anyone help with suggestions?

Thanks

 

The only people that can solve this problem would be your LA, having all sites sat behind one external I.P. is asking for trouble and they need to update their infrastructure.