Google Admin Console : Erase Local Data

[fiza]

For those using shared Chromebooks do you set "Erase Local Data" in the Admin Console?

We are getting some Chromebooks where disk space is critically low.

According to Google "Erase Local Data" should not be the default and is not suitable for most deployments.

[paulkerton]

For those using shared Chromebooks do you set "Erase Local Data" in the Admin Console?

We are getting some Chromebooks where disk space is critically low.

According to Google "Erase Local Data" should not be the default and is not suitable for most deployments.

 

We do yes.

Previously, it was recommended to use Erase Local Data when with shared devices, so I don't know why they've changed that advice. Chrome OS doesn't seem to handle older profiles as gracefully as Google think.

 

The thing is, I can understand it if its an assigned shared device between 3 or 4 people, but when its a lottery and students might only get the same device once every 6 months or so (if they're lucky) then I'd stick to erasing local data.

The only time we don't do this, is in 1:1 setups.

[fiza]

We do yes.

Previously, it was recommended to use Erase Local Data when with shared devices, so I don't know why they've changed that advice. Chrome OS doesn't seem to handle older profiles as gracefully as Google think.

 

The thing is, I can understand it if its an assigned shared device between 3 or 4 people, but when its a lottery and students might only get the same device once every 6 months or so (if they're lucky) then I'd stick to erasing local data.

The only time we don't do this, is in 1:1 setups.

 

Thanks Paul - Does Erasing data not affect the "recent users" list when trying to find out who last used the Chromebook?

[ThatBoringBloke]

As above we have this set on student Chromebooks. Staff have their own allocated one, so its not set.

[paulkerton]

Thanks Paul - Does Erasing data not affect the "recent users" list when trying to find out who last used the Chromebook?

It can yes, but that is the balancing act.

I am actually looking at turning it on for certain carts, once they're back in their right places post bubble, to do a bit of testing and see what happens. Our carts are a bit of a wild mess currently!

[Primus]

Something has changed recently and I've got a ticket open with Google support.

 

We've never ever had the erase policy turned on and over years and hundreds of Chromebooks we've had zero issues. Now all of a sudden we're seeing them fill up like crazy and I've got hundreds at 100% full.

 

I'm also frustrated as it turns out in Chrome 90 they moved the default save location for screenshots/screen recordings to the local storage - previously it respected the download location which we forced to Google Drive - I can't understand why they'd do this, it's a backwards step from having everything save into your Google Drive. Especially given how little onboard storage Chromebooks have and how students won't necessarily use the same Chromebook each time.

[j224]

We've never ever had the erase policy turned on and over years and hundreds of Chromebooks we've had zero issues. Now all of a sudden we're seeing them fill up like crazy and I've got hundreds at 100% full.

Same here. We've not had the erase policy turned on and never had a problem until very recently. One Chromebook says the user data is taking up 20GB disk space, but using the 'Clear User Profiles' option doesn't seem to do anything. It's still showing 99% disk space full.

[Primus]

Anyone else experiencing this please log it with Google support. They're having difficulty grasping what is plainly obvious.

 

One of their requests today was I wipe a device and then log in with 25 different accounts to see when it got full - even after I proved to them today that once it's full you can't get logs off so it would be pointless as they couldn't get the diagnostic logs.

 

The chap yesterday on the phone spent 40 minutes telling me it was expected behaviour - despite the fact we've run hundreds for years and never had a single issue and nor have we changed anything.

 

As support experiences go this has been very frustrating which is annoying as they're usually good with Google.

[j224]

Yes, I'm feeling the same way. I've been given instructions to wipe the device then collect logs on days 1, 2 and 5 and take photos/screenshots of the disk management page to show what is using up the space.

 

The engineer claims that the user profiles were hardly using up any space, but when I looked before wiping the device, they were using 20GB! The system was using the rest and it was 100% full so couldn't save any logs.

 

Like you, we've been using them for many years without a problem!

[Primus]

I've pushed back very strongly, we're enterprise customers and obviously paid for the management licence for each Chromebook but they seem to forget that and treat us like users of a free service expecting us to do huge amounts of leg work to diagnose an issue they've introduced.

 

If I had to hear the first guy say "expected behaviour" one more time I'd have lost it and trashed my phone I think.

[Primus]

What model are people seeing this with?

[j224]

What model are people seeing this with?

Toshiba Chromebook 2 (original), Samsung Chromebook 4, HP 14 G6.

[Primus]

Ours is mainly Dell 3100 - Google once again going off half baked - they thought it was a device specific issue, even though I found an example of an HP model we have with the same issue!

[dmj]

We have some (150 ish) shared devices and have been using 'erase local data' since they arrived several years ago.

The only downside I've noticed is that the logon takes longer to build out the profile - but it's still quicker than our windows so nobody seems to mind.

[Primus]

Google's own documentation says you shouldn't have to use the erase local data function.

 

Does it still show on the admin console the list of recent users as I'm sure that was one of the downsides of erasing local data?

[Primus]

Google support are once again being hopeless, having asked me to move the device to a test OU and force it to update to a beta OS they are now asking what version it was running prior to the beta going on.

 

How am I meant to know that - that's the sort of thing you ask me before you ask me to force it onto a new beta OS.

 

Is anyone else getting anywhere with it? The beta OS hasn't made any difference.

[Primus]

We have some (150 ish) shared devices and have been using 'erase local data' since they arrived several years ago.

The only downside I've noticed is that the logon takes longer to build out the profile - but it's still quicker than our windows so nobody seems to mind.

 

From Google's own documentation:

Specifies whether enrolled Chrome devices delete all locally-stored settings and user data every time a user signs out. Data the device synchronizes persists in the cloud but not on the device itself. If you set it to Erase all local user data, the storage available to the users is limited to half the RAM capacity of the device. If the policy is set together with a Managed Guest Session, it won't cache the session name or avatar.

 

Note: By default, Chrome devices encrypt all user data and automatically clean up disk space when shared by multiple users. This default behavior works best for most deployments and ensures data security and an optimal user experience. We recommend you enable Erase all local user data rarely and selectively.

[j224]

Note: By default, Chrome devices encrypt all user data and automatically clean up disk space when shared by multiple users. This default behavior works best for most deployments and ensures data security and an optimal user experience. We recommend you enable Erase all local user data rarely and selectively.

I got told the same thing in the support chat.

 

Their most recent message to me says:

 

"I can see that on of your colleagues from another school has filed a separate ticket for this same issue. An internal investigation thread was already filed with device logs collected from Guest mode after reproducing the issue.

 

Engineering has currently requested some additional information from a device placed in Developer mode, so they can confirm what is exactly taking that much space. I'm currently clarifying the steps that they want us to perform and I'll let you know once we have the exact ones."

 

We can't be the only two schools in the world getting this issue?!

[Primus]

Yeah that's me, I've got a one on the beta now but it's still the same, I can't actually now export the logs because there's so little space available on the drive. Their support has been an utter joke on this.

[WayneS]

Has anyone gotten this strange behavior corrected with Google? We have been seeing this and have had to turn on the erase all local data for all of our Chromebooks. This in turn increases the login time as all of the extensions have to be reloaded onto the Chromebook every time a student logs into it. We are seeing this with each student being assigned a Chromebook, so only one user is on the device for the entire year. To test if they had fixed the issue I had turned the Erase all local data off on two OUs that had about 58 Chromebooks in it on Friday afternoon. Today when the students got back every one of those Chromebooks were at 100% disk usage and causing issues.

[Primus]

Has anyone gotten this strange behavior corrected with Google? We have been seeing this and have had to turn on the erase all local data for all of our Chromebooks. This in turn increases the login time as all of the extensions have to be reloaded onto the Chromebook every time a student logs into it. We are seeing this with each student being assigned a Chromebook, so only one user is on the device for the entire year. To test if they had fixed the issue I had turned the Erase all local data off on two OUs that had about 58 Chromebooks in it on Friday afternoon. Today when the students got back every one of those Chromebooks were at 100% disk usage and causing issues.

 

They're still working on it - have you logged a ticket with them? If so PM me the number and I'll pass it on to the team investigating.

[mikes]

Is there a fix? all of our Chrome devices have full HDD's too since Summer - 20gb+ taken by user profiles. This has stopped copy+paste working, the students are meant to copy+paste from the web into a document but because it wants to store the screenshot on the HDD, it fails. So this likely affects all gsuite Chromebooks that are "hot-desked", there's nothing particularly special about my schools chromebook/gsuite setup.

I didn't want to force delete all local storage via policy, some students use the same chromebooks and if they had stored stuff locally, (they shouldn't be, but you never know) - I don't want to risk having a load of calls about missing stuff

Edited October 13, 2021 by mikes

[j224]

Only 'fix' at the moment seems to be to completely reset the Chromebook.

[sunny88]

I got told the same thing in the support chat.

 

Their most recent message to me says:

 

"I can see that on of your colleagues from another school has filed a separate ticket for this same issue. An internal investigation thread was already filed with device logs collected from Guest mode after reproducing the issue.

 

Engineering has currently requested some additional information from a device placed in Developer mode, so they can confirm what is exactly taking that much space. I'm currently clarifying the steps that they want us to perform and I'll let you know once we have the exact ones."

 

We can't be the only two schools in the world getting this issue?!

I too have been asked to go into developer mode on a device with the issue.

[EducateIT]

Anyone having any luck with the Disk Space issues?