[ipad] iPad cannot locate itself, therefore cannot set time automatically through SWGfL

[kennysarmy]

iPad cannot locate itself, therefore cannot set time automatically through SWGfL

 

We can't get any of our school iPads to set their time automatically!

 

We initially thought it was a smoothwall issue but we've now bypassed that using an old Netgear WAP and connecting a test iPad to it - we can browse, check emails, get on the app store but when we try and set the time - it never sets it.

 

When we go on the "Maps" app and attempt to find our location it never sets it.

 

Are the two things related?

 

Has anyone been able to successfully get this working going through the SWGfL or similar?

 

I've installed the Amsys Service Test App which does a general outbound test and everything is open!

 

Any ideas?

[ITJS2015]

I would look up apples domain ports and enter them within your smoothwall environment.

 

Does it work going off tethering off from a mobile ?

 

I would check that first to see if it isn't an ipad problem itself

[kennysarmy]

I would look up apples domain ports and enter them within your smoothwall environment.

 

Does it work going off tethering off from a mobile ?

 

I would check that first to see if it isn't an ipad problem itself

 

 

But we've already bypassed the smoothwall

 

We just tried using one of the technicians iPhone and the phone signal is quite weak for him in this area but no, when the iPad was tethered to his phone it could not determine it's location - should it be able to?

[ITJS2015]

Your phone is no restricted as your smooth wall will be for certain ports. It will work if you get a good signal somewhere near a window, I assume your building has quite a lot of steel which will weaken the 3g signal.

 

I'm confident it will work, do you run vlans ? is your server unrestricted access for windows updates etc? I would maybe give your ipad a static ip address on the server vlan scope and see if connects that way aswell. It will determine that if you have a port restricted somewhere which your student or staff devices goes through

[Yosty]

Have you checked that Location Services is on, on the iPad itself?

I only say this because you are now able to skip this step using Apple Configurator 2.

I've done this once.

[kennysarmy]

Your phone is no restricted as your smooth wall will be for certain ports. It will work if you get a good signal somewhere near a window, I assume your building has quite a lot of steel which will weaken the 3g signal.

 

I'm confident it will work, do you run vlans ? is your server unrestricted access for windows updates etc? I would maybe give your ipad a static ip address on the server vlan scope and see if connects that way aswell. It will determine that if you have a port restricted somewhere which your student or staff devices goes through

 

We each took an iPad home last night, neither will work on our network and both instantly set the time correctly when on our home wifi.

 

I'm confident it's a port on the RM firewall that is blocking it - but they believe the issue to be internal on our network - even though every other Apple service seems to work.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Have you checked that Location Services is on, on the iPad itself?

I only say this because you are now able to skip this step using Apple Configurator 2.

I've done this once.

 

Yes, we did check this - thanks.

 

And by taking a few home to test we've proved the issue is not with the iPads themselves.

[ITJS2015]

I take it there managed via AP2 ? Have you tried formatting them to factory settings and to try it that way to see if they work with the automatic time zone ?

[kennysarmy]

I take it there managed via AP2 ? Have you tried formatting them to factory settings and to try it that way to see if they work with the automatic time zone ?

 

If we factory reset the iPads they exhibit the same fault.

[ITJS2015]

Have you tried a static ip on your server Vlan ?

[Brimstone]

Location services are being blocked on your network, list of ports Apple Services below

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203609

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202944

[kennysarmy]

Location services are being blocked on your network, list of ports Apple Services below

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203609

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202944

 

The only place this can be being blocked is on the SWGfL Firewall and they tell me they've unblocked every port we need.

 

RM have asked me to change the upstream proxy on our Smoothwall from smartcache.swgfl.org.uk to proxy.swgfl.org.uk

 

But this appears to have made no difference...

Edited July 15, 2016 by kennysarmy

[ITJS2015]

Do you have unfiltered access on your server vlan ?

[kennysarmy]

Do you have unfiltered access on your server vlan ?

 

?

 

We're not going through the smoothwall which provides our filtering and we've turned off all the filters on RM SafetyNet

[kennysarmy]

Just to update.

 

RM/SWGfL have configured a spare port on our router so we can test bypassing our network and smoothwall.

 

We've plugged an old Negear wireless AP in to their router and configured a static IP on our test iPad.

 

STILL the DATE/TIME will not set automatically.

 

They claim they've opened all the necessary ports...

 

I've rebooted the iPad !

 

If I take the iPad home and connect to my home wi-fi it syncs time straight away !

 

Arrgghhhh

[kennysarmy]

Still awaiting a fix from RM on this......

 

Can anyone please advise if the iPads on their school networks can set the time automatically?

 

If you open the MAP app and click the find me blue arrow bottom left does it position you correctly on the map?

 

If you turn off location services can you still set the time automatically?

 

I'm struggling to find out if Ipads using pure NTP to set their time or if it's somehow tied in to finding it's location first...

[ITJS2015]

Can you put a static IP into the ipad with the correct details but does it also detect your domain on your ipad as mine does going through a proxy through a council

[kennysarmy]

Can you put a static IP into the ipad with the correct details but does it also detect your domain on your ipad as mine does going through a proxy through a council

 

The test iPad is on a static IP address as advised by RM/SWGfL - I can browse perfectly well.

 

What do you mean does it detect my domain?

 

Current setup is RM Router < patched to > Netgear WAP < wirelessly connected to > iPad

[Steve21]

I may be wrong, but I thought using wifi you could only detect if it you're near public hotspots that are registered so it knows the location?

 

if you're in the middle of a school with no public hotspots around I thought it wouldn't detect it ever? :s May be wrong but would explain it too

 

Steve

[kennysarmy]

I may be wrong, but I thought using wifi you could only detect if it you're near public hotspots that are registered so it knows the location?

 

if you're in the middle of a school with no public hotspots around I thought it wouldn't detect it ever? :s May be wrong but would explain it too

 

Steve

 

In which case we'd never get the iPads to auto sync their time?

[Steve21]

In which case we'd never get the iPads to auto sync their time?

 

In terms of BST etc? Should work if you set their timezones manually, but if you mean in terms of automatically finding the location etc too I'm not sure :s Once it knows a location it should use NTP etc as normal, but if it hasn't found a location yet I'm not sure it'll know what to pull. (Again though that's only a theory).

 

If you manually set the timezone does it pull it down? Or didn't you want to do that at all?

 

Do you have anywhere on site that's within wifi range and near houses to pickup a BT hotspot etc?

 

-Edit - One other thing I'd suggest you test if you haven't, is turning on Mobile Data (even if you don't have a SIM in it) as that sometimes enables extra features.

 

Steve

Edited August 11, 2016 by Steve21

[ITJS2015]

Does it work on dhcp

[Brimstone]

Just another thought here but are your devices filtered by their MAC address...?

[kennysarmy]

In terms of BST etc? Should work if you set their timezones manually, but if you mean in terms of automatically finding the location etc too I'm not sure :s Once it knows a location it should use NTP etc as normal, but if it hasn't found a location yet I'm not sure it'll know what to pull. (Again though that's only a theory).

 

If you manually set the timezone does it pull it down? Or didn't you want to do that at all?

 

Do you have anywhere on site that's within wifi range and near houses to pickup a BT hotspot etc?

 

-Edit - One other thing I'd suggest you test if you haven't, is turning on Mobile Data (even if you don't have a SIM in it) as that sometimes enables extra features.

 

Steve

 

Hi thanks for your reply.

 

If you manually set the time zone once the iPad has been setup it seems to set the time OK, but the location is never found.

 

Our issue is we are setting up iPads out of the box and joining them to our Lightspeed setup and it would really help if the correct time/location was set as the iPads are turned on for the first time.

 

I'll have a wander around the site later, it's unlikely but there may be a corner of the school that's near enough some houses to pick something up.

 

Cheers

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Does it work on dhcp

 

All our non-test devices are working off DHCP - we only went static with the test iPad so that RM could run some traces.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Just another thought here but are your devices filtered by their MAC address...?

 

Nope, they're not.

 

Regards

[kennysarmy]

RM are still investigating this.

 

I've just set up for them a spare Netgear Router and it's plugged in to a spare port on their router, it's all setup with the IP address and details they advised and both a test laptop and iPad can access the Internet - but the iPad still cannot set the Time Zone automatically.

[kennysarmy]

Would be great to confirm or otherwise if other schools on the SWGfL or other grids can get their iPads to set the Date/Time and Time Zone automatically?