[ipad] Apple Caching Server - Mac Mini - iPads not updating...

[Koldov]

Seems to be more of a Mac problem rather than iPad specific, but as my knowledge of both is limited to say the least I wasn't sure of the best place to post.

 

We have a Mac Mini sitting on the network and although it has never really needed a huge amount of effort (getting it to work in the first place was a struggle iirc) it has kind of sat there and been forgotten about...

 

I'm pretty sure it did quite a bit of caching initially (figures were up in the GBs so I thought it was doing its job OK) and then once we got a load of new iPads I just presumed it would carry on regardless without any intervention.

 

We have 30 older iPads now (on 12.5.5) that are just used for a Breakfast Club and I noticed some of them have managed to update to 12.5.6 (because 'Automatic Updates' is on in the iPad settings I guess).

 

So I tried to set off the others with Meraki which failed (as it always does - although saying 'Success' in the 'Systems Manager' portal), then I tried to do it manually. This also failed but gave the message "Unable to Check for Update - An error occurred while checking for a software update - Cancel/Try Again".

 

I can update them manually with AC2 on the Mac Mini (downloads iPad iOS, unzips and installs), so I'm not convinced it's anything to do with filtering/firewall.

 

But here's the strange thing... I did remember I had changed the DNS servers I.P. and had not updated the setting on the Mac Mini... I changed them and rebooted it but nothing miraculous happened unfortunately, so I'm not sure that was the problem.

 

So, digging further into the 'Sharing' settings and 'Activity Monitor' shows that it appears the Mac Mini has completely forgotten it was ever a Content Caching server.... The 'Content Cache' storage used is: None and the data served is also none (all 0 bytes - although it only goes back 30 days)...

 

There doesn't appear to be any way to change the update settings now on the iPad as it just loops the message 'Checking' every time I go into that setting. There is also nothing I can find on Meraki to enable the iPad to Check automatically.

 

I'm not entirely certain I have it set up correctly (although I haven't changed anything in the sharing settings), but a previous post (a few years ago) suggested that everything should be on the same network/VLAN but this isn't viable as the Mac Mini is obviously on a server VLAN via ethernet and the iPads are on a Curriculum Wi-Fi VLAN. This might be a red herring and I didn't want to include it, as it used to work set up like this and Apple says there are options for 'complicated' networks, not that this should really be 'complicated' how else do you get Wi-Fi iPads to update from the Cache... put the Mac Mini on a Curriculum Wi-Fi VLAN? That is no better than allowing them to update from the internet.... although I did try it briefly and it made no difference...

 

Anyway, I have it set to:

 

 

But I have tried 'Local Networks' and 'Custom Local Networks'...

[ICT_GUY]

And I am having the exact same issue

:-/

[Brimstone]

It sounds like you may need to configure a new TXT DNS record if these have changed and the 2 x networks use different public I.P.'s see below...

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/depe6ded0780/web