Guided access woes.

[rpain]

Hi folks - any ideas how we can stop guided access being set on our ipads by one (but maybe more) of our students? Basically they go into settings, enable it, sets up a pass code and then lock the device. I can only seem to recover them by completely resetting the device. I've contacted Meraki who just don't seem to understand my question no matter how obvious I seemingly make it.

 

Thanks in advance

Richard

[markwilfan]

OOOHH MMMYYY GOODDDD!!!! Just had this myself. What are these Apple type people on??? Exactly the same experience as you.

[bossman]

@rpain

 

Maybe its "Apple" themselves you need to speak to as its their OS and their settings you are attempting to control?

 

Thats why we never went IPads in our school as they are only designed as a personal device and not for networking as quoted by an actual Apple engineer "To conclude IPads are meant to be standalone devices. They are not computers and are not designed to be used as part of a network."

 

This was and actual e-mail reply.......

 

Apologies as this does not solve your immediate problem but may turn you towards a different device which can be managed better as a network device...for the future...

[markwilfan]

I actually find iPads pretty easy to manage but sometimes IOS updates introduce something like this where some baffoon has not thought about how it would work in the big wide world

[bossman]

@markwilfan

 

Yes they are.....until as you say "Some baffoon has not thought it through!"

 

Good luck and I hope you get it sorted quickly...............until the next time another baffoon doesn't think it through?

 

Have a good weekend

[markwilfan]

hahaha I know what you are saying @bossman . My Windows 10 deployment is still not going ahead for very similar reasons

[markwilfan]

Perhaps the baffoon is me then, I can't find this in Profile MAnager @3s-gtech. Any pointers?

[markwilfan]

@3s-gtech did I just see you back pedal furiously?

[3s-gtech]

I deleted my post as I'm doubting my own brain. Poor thing is a bit worn. Anyway, you can disable GA on the iPad itself, I'm just looking to see if you can then lock off that part of Settings using PM. Possibly not. It would help you if you can just disable GA locally for now though.

[ThomL]

Used to be able to jump out of guided access by doing a hard reboot (home + lock buttons) didn't really help much but got the iPad back to function for students without the need to rebuild ... been a while since i touched this stuff... this probably isn't relevant anymore

 

**EDIT***

 

It appears i got the terminology incorrect - its a soft reset not a hard reboot - makes no sense to me, surely this is the same as holding the power button in on a laptop/desktop forcing it off (hence the hard part) and its to get the devices to reboot. unless this button combo isn't killing power in the same 'cold' way then i suppose it makes more sense. blarg whatever, it's Friday and I don't have to deal with iPads at work

Edited April 20, 2018 by ThomL

[Brimstone]

1. Perform a soft reset on the iPad (home and power button)

2. Goto Settings>General>Accessibility>Guided Access>set password

 

You don't need to know the existing passcode to reset it.

 

You might want to start using Apple Classroom so teachers can control and see what is going on the iPads in class

[markwilfan]

Thanks @3s-gtech . I can't see how you can even disable it.

@ThomL hard reboot just pops back into GA grrr

 

There is a ""clear restrictions passcode" in Profile manager but doesn't seem to do anything

[ThomL]

@markwilfan that sucks, it has been a while since I had to deal with the things so I'm just gonna wish you good luck

[3s-gtech]

Thanks @3s-gtech . I can't see how you can even disable it.

I haven't been very helpful! It's under General / Accessibility / Learning - Guided Access.

[Scifigirl]

if you use the MDM to remove the passcode doesn't that get rid of GA allow you back in?

I know you cannot use GA without a passcode set.

 

It does here but we use lightspeed.

[markwilfan]

No clearing restriction passcode doesn't work for me with profile manager.

 

Soft resetting doesn't work apparently unless they have a passcode on the device. These don't as they are shared.

 

Just blasting it away works for us which is a pita

@3s-gtech I found the settings but no way of disabling

[Brimstone]

You are confusing a restrictions passcode with a guided access passcode, they are different things.

 

You have to reset the iPad to remove the restrictions passcode.

[simpsonj]

We're having the same issue here, with Lightspeed MDM. I've tried:

 

• Resetting the iPad (Hold down Power and Home)
  
• Using the MDM software to clear the passcode
  
• Reset and wipe the passcode
  
• Clear restrictions password
  
• And a full wipe of the iPad
  

 

and the 'Time Expired' screen is still staring at me

[simpsonj]

Just to update my own post, I left wiping the iPad as a queued action, which it conducted overnight (presumable when Guided Access wasn't in effect).

 

Still haven't found a way of preventing it from happening again though...

[simpsonj]

I've now got two iPads with Guided Access set, and no time frame for the device wipe to kick in.

 

[simpsonj]

Okaydokey, hopefully this might help someone in the same boat:

 

1, Find the Guided Access afflicted device in Lightspeed

2, Clear all queued activities

3, Enable Lost mode

4, Hard reboot iPad

5, Fingers crossed, Lost mode will kick in. If not, reboot iPad again.

6, Once in Lost mode, I've found that the Guided Access will eventually turn itself off. You may need to keep entering passcodes until it turns off, but I suspect it's more of a waiting game.

7, Turn off Lost mode in Lightspeed.

[rpain]

Just found out the solution (works for us anyhow). We use Meraki and can set a device to run in single app mode. It can then be locked in Meraki and when you then unlock it it sends you back to the home screen :-)

 

Basically it seems that the mdm single app mode feature takes priority over the guided access lock.

 

Hope that helps.

Richard

[simpsonj]

Thanks Richard, I'll give that a shot next time!

[gsk]

Just found out the solution (works for us anyhow). We use Meraki and can set a device to run in single app mode. It can then be locked in Meraki and when you then unlock it it sends you back to the home screen :-)

 

Basically it seems that the mdm single app mode feature takes priority over the guided access lock.

 

Hope that helps.

Richard

 

I've just had this problem with students setting guided access passcodes. Using either MDM or Configurator 2 and enabling single app mode and then disabling single app mode releases guided access.

[Bev]

You can block access to settings and/ or restrictions using Meraki. Edited June 28, 2018 by Bev