forum-post-v2-evidence.log MCRestrictionsPayload (allowListedAppBundleIDs) breaks Apple Watch app enumeration — nanotimekitcompaniond reports "Missing .app from directory: /Watch/" Summary Installing a Configuration Profile with com.apple.applicationaccess payload containing allowListedAppBundleIDs causes native Apple Watch apps to disappear from the paired Watch — even when their bundle IDs are explicitly in the whitelist. Log analysis shows this is not a bundle ID matching problem: nanotimekitcompaniond on the iPhone fails to enumerate the <companion>.app/Watch/ subdirectories where native watchOS app stubs live. Follow-up to https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/745585 — community-confirmed but received no official response. Environment iPhone 16 (iPhone17,3), iOS 26.4.2 (23E261), supervised Apple Watch paired via Bridge.app Profile installed locally via Apple Configurator (no MDM server required) Smoking gun Within ~5 seconds of profile install, two processes (nanotimekitcompaniond and NTKFaceSnapshotService) log identical errors for eight companion-app paths: nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: file:///Applications/MobilePhone.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../Calculator.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../Bridge.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../MobileTimer.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../Camera.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../VoiceMemos.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../MobileMail.app/Watch/ nanotimekitcompaniond[1498] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: .../FindMy.app/Watch/ NTKFaceSnapshotService[3758] <Error>: Missing .app from directory: <same 8 paths> The Watch's app icons and face complications both go through these processes, which explains the symptoms users see. iOS itself flags the payload as Watch-incompatible — but applies it anyway profiled[179] <Notice>: Payload class MCRestrictionsPayload (com.apple.applicationaccess) is not supported on any Watch version profiled[179] <Notice>: Payload class MCRestrictionsPayload (com.apple.applicationaccess) is not available on HomePod profiled[179] <Notice>: Beginning profile installation... profiled[179] <Notice>: Profile "...v2..." installed. So profiled knows the payload doesn't target watchOS — yet its side effects clearly manifest there. Tests performed Test Bundle IDs in whitelist Result v1 249 (every installed iOS app: Apple + 3rd party) Walkie-Talkie, Messages, Find My + more disappear from Watch v2 295 (v1 + every Apple extension/Nano* daemon seen in syslog: *.MessagesActionExtension, *.FindMyNotifications*Extension, *.FindMyWidget*, com.apple.NanoBackup, com.apple.NanoMusicSync, com.apple.NanoPreferencesSync, com.apple.NanoTimeKit.face, com.apple.NanoUniverse.AegirProxyApp, com.apple.tursd, com.apple.FaceTime.FTConversationService, com.apple.Bridge.GreenfieldThumbnailExtension, etc.) Identical Missing-.app errors. Same apps disappear. Conclusion: this is not a bundle ID matching issue — adding more IDs doesn't help. The system fails to enumerate <companion-iOS-app>.app/Watch/ regardless of whitelist contents. Many users in my prior thread reported trying 100+ bundle ID combinations without success; this evidence explains why. Reproduction (no MDM required) Pair Apple Watch with iPhone normally. Generate a Configuration Profile with com.apple.applicationaccess + any non-empty allowListedAppBundleIDs array. Install via Apple Configurator's cfgutil install-profile, or AirDrop + Settings → Install. Within ~5 s, nanotimekitcompaniond errors appear (visible via idevicesyslog). Native Watch apps backed by an iOS companion stub disappear from the Watch's app grid and from face complications. Hypothesis MCRestrictionsPayload applies an enumeration filter that does not descend into .app/Watch/ subdirectories when computing visible apps. nanotimekitcompaniond consequently sees those directories as missing, the Watch's Carousel (SpringBoard equivalent) hides the apps, and NTKFaceSnapshotService can't load corresponding complications. Because profiled itself logs the payload as "not supported on any Watch version", this appears to be unintended bleed-through. Questions for Apple Is MCRestrictionsPayload / allowListedAppBundleIDs officially supposed to affect Apple Watch apps? profiled says no. Is there an undocumented bundle ID pattern (e.g. <companion>.watchapp, or a Bridge.app/Watch/ prefix) that needs whitelisting to keep native Watch apps visible? Is the recommended workaround to use blacklistedAppBundleIDs instead? Should the enumeration error (Missing .app from directory: .../Watch/) be tracked as a separate watchOS framework bug? Artifacts Curated evidence log with timestamps, profile installer events, and the eight Missing-.app errors is attached as forum-post-v2-evidence.log. Full idevicesyslog captures (multiple install/remove cycles, ~2M log lines) and the .mobileconfig files are available on request. Thanks — looking forward to guidance.

Hi, Is there any possible way we can install enrolment provisioning profile using iOS app using User/Account Authentication Enrolment such as described in this thread: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/implementing-the-oauth2-authentication-user-enrollment-flow

Hi, Is there any possible Apple approved way or workaround if we can bypass the stolen device protection delay of 1 hour when a user try to install our MDM server's enrolment profile on unknown location? I do not want managed apple account solution. I need solution for BYOD devices not for company owned. Thank you, Software Engineer - iOS

If I have a macOS devices enrolled in MDM, with a DDM policy defined to deliver passcode settings to the device I can run: sudo pwpolicy -getaccountpolicies to see the configuration on the device. I can subsequently run: sudo pwpolicy -clearaccountpolicies Then all passcode policies applied in my declarations are cleared from the device allowing the user to set and use any password they want with no bearing on the delivered passcode settings. I have left my macOS devices for days on and off network and the pwpolicy data never returns. The passcode settings do not restore on the device until I do one of the following: manually re-push all declarations from MDM log off and log back on reboot the computer It was my understanding that DDM was meant to assess device state and self heal on its own without requiring an MDM service to re-push any commands. Based on this finding this seems broken or I may misunderstand how DDM is supposed to work. macOS version: 26.4.1

We've put in a feedback assistant request, but not sure if we will get feedback in that channel or not and also want to highlight for others. When replacing a basic passcode profile on a macOS device with a passcode declaration, the user is required to change the password after logging out and back in. Explicitly including the "ChangeAtNextAuth" key set equal to false, set required a password change after logging out and back in. Once the declaration is active and the password has been changed, future updates to the passcode declaration do not require a password change unless the existing password is not compliant. Steps to reproduce: Install a basic passcode profile on a macOS device Ensure the existing password matches the requirements specified in the profile Install a passcode declaration with the same settings as the passcode profile currently installed Remove the traditional passcode profile from the device After the passcode declaration is installed, check the local pwpolicy with the command pwpolicy getaccountpolicies and look for the key policyAttributePasswordRequiredTime Log out of the macOS device Log back into the macOS device and you are presented with a change password prompt Expected result: Simply replacing an existing passcode profile with the exact same settings in a passcode declaration should not require a password change if the existing password is compliant. Actual results: After replacing the passcode profile with a passcode declaration, a password change was required even though the existing password was compliant. Initial testing was done with a macOS VM running 15.5. Additional testing has now been done with a macOS VM running 26.4.1 and the same behavior was observed.

Hi Dear Apple experts, I am hitting a problem (observed from Apr-15, maybe earlier) for renewing ABM/DEP token from my MDM server. My renewal steps: Download public key from my MDM server Upload the public key to the ABM Device Management server instance in ABM portal, and download a new token Upload the new token to my MDM server The problem here is at step-2: If upload the public key to an existing ABM Device Management server instance in ABM portal, then the generated token will be rejected by my MDM server with error "Could not find recipient info"; However, if upload the public key to a newly created ABM Device Management server instance, then everything is good. So, looks to me, it is the token issue when renewing an existing ABM MDM instance. Could you please help take a look? Thanks, Wei

Hi, We have a macOS app that uses NETransparentProxyManager (Transparent App Proxy) with a NETunnelProviderExtension. The Network Extension is configured and deployed via an MDM configuration profile. The profile is pushed through Intune MDM as a user-enrolled device (Company Portal enrollment, not ADE/supervised). The MDM profile sets up the Transparent Proxy extension as follows (sanitized snippet): <key>VPNType</key> <string>TransparentProxy</string> <key>TransparentProxy</key> <dict> <key>ProviderType</key> <string>app-proxy</string> <key>ProviderBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.example.app.tunnel</string> <key>ProviderDesignatedRequirement</key> <string>identifier "com.example.app.tunnel" and anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = TEAMID</string> <key>RemoteAddress</key> <string>100.64.0.0</string> </dict> <key>PayloadScope</key> <string>System</string> What we do in code: Call NETransparentProxyManager.loadAllFromPreferences — this correctly returns the MDM-managed profile (1 profile found) We do not call saveToPreferences — the profile already exists We call NEVPNConnection.startVPNTunnel() to connect and NEVPNConnection.stopVPNTunnel() to disconnect Problem: On a user-enrolled MDM device, when the app is running as a standard user (non-admin), every call to startVPNTunnel() or stopVPNTunnel() triggers the macOS VPN consent dialog: "VPN is trying to modify your system settings. Enter your password to allow this." Console log evidence: Failed to authorize 'system.preferences' by client '/System/Library/ExtensionKit/Extensions/VPN.appex' for authorization created by '/System/Library/ExtensionKit/Extensions/VPN.appex' (-60006) (engine 881) Key observations: Even if the user does not provide the admin credentials in the popup and cancel the window, still things work properly in the background i.e start/stop works. This does not happen for admin users on user-enrolled devices saveToPreferences is NOT called — the profile is MDM-managed and already present The prompt is triggered purely by startVPNTunnel() / stopVPNTunnel() from a standard user process Question: Is there a supported API, entitlement, or MDM configuration key that allows NETransparentProxyManager.startVPNTunnel() / stopVPNTunnel() to be invoked by a standard user process on a user-enrolled (non-supervised) device without triggering the system.preferences authorization dialog — given that the VPN profile is already deployed and managed by MDM?

Requesting com.apple.managed-keychain Entitlement for Enterprise S/MIME Cert Visibility Platform: iOS | Distribution: MDM (Microsoft Intune) | Not App Store We are developing an internal enterprise iOS app (EMS Assist, com.company.supportcompanion) for Company deployed exclusively to Intune-managed devices. Our requirement: Read S/MIME certificates pushed to the device via Intune SCEP profiles to: Confirm cert presence in the MDM-managed keychain Read expiry date (kSecAttrNotValidAfter) to warn users before expiry Distinguish between missing, expired, and valid cert states What we have tried: Standard SecItemCopyMatching query — returns only app-installed certs, not MDM-pushed certs Graph API (deviceConfigurationStates) — confirms profile compliance but does not expose actual cert expiry or keychain presence Our understanding: com.apple.managed-keychain is required for an app to access MDM-managed keychain items on supervised devices, combined with a matching keychain-access-groups entitlement and the cert profile configured as "always available" in MDM. Questions: Is com.apple.managed-keychain the correct entitlement for this use case? Does it apply to SCEP/PKCS-issued certificates specifically, or only other MDM keychain items? Has anyone successfully accessed Intune-pushed S/MIME certs from an iOS app using this entitlement? Any guidance from the community or Apple engineers would be appreciated.

Is system_profiler the recommended approach for retrieving installed application data on macOS? If not, what is the preferred and reliable alternative to fetch a consistent and complete list of installed applications?

Hi everyone, I'm running an Apple MDM service and encountering an issue where a number of devices stop receiving MDM push commands within 10 days of profile installation, even though everything appears to be set up correctly. Environment: MDM profile is installed and verified (status: OK, result: SUCCESS) Devices are cellular-enabled with no connectivity issues APNs certificate is valid (thousands of other devices are communicating normally) The command being sent to devices is DeviceInformationCommand No "NotNow" response or any check-in received from the affected devices for over a week Issue: We send DeviceInformationCommand to devices to retrieve device information and update the last communication timestamp. However, a subset of devices simply stop responding to this command within 10 days of profile installation. The last communication date is not being updated, and no response — not even a "NotNow" — is coming back from these devices. Since other devices on the same MDM setup are working fine, I've ruled out APNs certificate expiration and general server-side issues. Questions: Are there any known management points or configuration settings that could cause a device to silently stop receiving DeviceInformationCommand shortly after enrollment? What diagnostic steps would you recommend to identify the root cause on the device or server side? Are there any known bugs or reported issues related to this behavior in recent iOS versions? Is there any way to recover the MDM communication without requiring the user to re-enroll? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Issue - Falcon application is intermittently not detected using system_profiler command Use case - We are trying to fetch the list of installed applications on macOS using the system_profiler command. While this works for most applications, we are observing inconsistent behavior with the Falcon application — it is sometimes detected as installed and sometimes missing from the results, even though it is present on the system. This inconsistency is causing issues in reliably tracking installed security software. Command used - /usr/sbin/system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType

Hi Apple Community, We are using Automted Device Enrollment to Enroll macOS Devices and we used to Create AutoAdmin, PrimaryAccount using the Command Account Configuration . As a Part of Primary Account Creation while testing we see that BootStrap Token is Escrowed to MDM, and SecureToken is Created to Primary Account. The Primary Account user will enable FileVault as part of our process. As Tested internally, we seen that SecureToken is escrowed to AutoAdmin only when BootStrapToken is escrowed to MDM By device and AutoAdmin logs in then. That too After FileVault Unlock Since we Sendout the Laptop to users to setup themselves there are no chances of AutoAdmin Login to occur. And it defeats the purpose of having the AutoAdmin Account in emergency situation to login into it from Login Window. Can someone confirm if this behavior is expected and what are the expectation and recommendations from Apple on when to use AutoAdmin Account. Is there any other ways to use AutoAdmin directly from LoginWindow Before To FileVault Disk Unlock

I’m working on a product that includes TLS inspection capability. TLS inspection using a local MitM requires installing a trusted root certificate which is then used to create masquerade certificates to intercept and forward TLS traffic through the proxy. For manual installation the end user is required to authenticate as an administrator to modify the trust settings on our internal CA’s root certificate. My question concerns the options for enterprise deployment using an MDM. We want the generated root certificate to be unique to each endpoint so that if a private key is compromised it can’t be used to intercept traffic anywhere else. We can install a “certificate trust” configuration profile from the MDM but this requires a base64 encoded string of the root certificate. In effect the MDM needs to obtain the certificate from the endpoint and then send it back in the form of a configuration profile. I’m not aware that MDMs like Jamf can be configured to do this directly so we’re looking for any other mechanism to have macOS trust a locally generated certificate via MDM based on some non endpoint-unique criteria? One option might be to use an external CA with a trusted certificate to sign an intermediate endpoint certificate but this creates a significant risk if the external trusted certificate were ever compromised. Is this a common industry practice? So my question remains is there a better way to trust our per endpoint root certificate via MDM without needing to install a unique per endpoint configuration profile?

Hello, I'm working in the team with 70 i(Pad)OS test devices running 24/7, and 40 of them are iOS 18 or 26. The problem is: for enterprise apps to be tested (signed with ADEP inhouse profile) the devices over iOS 18 require Enterprise App developers to be allowed at least once with physical control on-device after reboot, which is quite burdensome because we put all the devices in the restricted area, supposed to be used from the remote. Devices are logged into Apple ID for the prevention of Activation Lock but no preparation nor management via MDM over Apple Configurator 2. Is there any binary, tool, app that can check (letting us allow devices for those developers would be even better) if the Enterprise App developer(s) are allowed for the device via terminal or VNC?

Hi Community, The Leverage macOS has with Bootstrap token is immense using the same for Software Updates, Erase Device and new Local Account Creation in System Settings While I refer From IT Deployment Guide Which States the below For a Mac with macOS 10.15.4 or later, when a secure token-enabled user logs in for the first time, macOS generates a bootstrap token and escrows it to a device management service. I even tested out the Statement using Automated Device Enrollment Workflow ( With AutoAdmin Account Only, With Both AutoAdmin Account , Primary Account ) and it Granted BootStrap Token Immediately upon login How ever with User-Initiated Enrollments it differs like below Sometimes upon installation of MDM Profile in macOS Immediately the BootstrapToken is sent to MDM Sometimes the BootStrapToken is not immediately sent, so I need to logout , login with the Secure Token enabled user for macOS to escrow BootStrapToken to MDM Sometimes Even when I followed the pointer as in 2) like logout / login from a SecureToken Enabled user the BootStrapToken is not escrowed to MDM , Which Affects the OSUpdates, Erasing Capabilities to be used precisely with MDM Protocol Can someone Please Help with the Flow for BootStrapToken Generation / issuance to MDM incase for User-Initiated Enrollment

Hello, according to reports from our users these two ManagedSettingsStore options seem to be stuck in the enabled state even after turning them off or removing screen time permissions and uninstalling the app that configured them. Is this possible? Has anyone seen it? The denyAppRemoval (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/managedsettings/applicationsettings/denyappremoval-swift.property) prevents the user from uninstalling any apps from their device when active. The denyAppInstallation (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/managedsettings/applicationsettings/denyappinstallation-swift.property) "hides" App Store, making it impossible to install any new apps. We haven't been able to replicate it yet. Does anyone know about workarounds when this happens? So far it seems like the only way is to reset the affected device.

We are developing an MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution for device management purposes, and our current implementation process is as follows: 1. Configure DEP profile to obtain profile_uuid We configured a DEP profile with the following parameters to retrieve the profile_uuid: { "allow_pairing": true, "anchor_certs": [], "auto_advance_setup": true, "await_device_configured": false, "configuration_web_url": "", "department": "test define profile", "devices": ["MNWF07QD9M"], "is_mandatory": false, "is_mdm_removable": false, "is_multi_user": false, "is_supervised": true, "language": "zh", "org_magic": "", "profile_name": "Enrollment Profile - MNWF07QD9M", "region": "cn", "skip_setup_items": [ "Accessibility", "ActionButton", "Android", "Appearance", "AppleID", "AppStore", "Biometric", "CameraButton", "DeviceToDeviceMigration", "Diagnostics", "EnableLockdownMode", "FileVault", "iCloudDiagnostics", "iCloudStorage", "iMessageAndFaceTime", "Intelligence", "Keyboard", "MessagingActivationUsingPhoneNumber", "Passcode", "Payment", "Privacy", "Restore", "RestoreCompleted", "Safety", "ScreenTime", "SIMSetup", "Siri", "SoftwareUpdate", "SpokenLanguage", "UpdateCompleted", "WatchMigration", "WebContentFiltering" ], "supervising_host_certs": [], "support_email_address": "", "support_phone_number": "", "url": "https://mdmp.com/mdm/apple/enroll?shopId=1" } We sent a POST request to the /profile endpoint with the above payload, and the response returned the profile_uuid: 605FB5C274303C19189C9B99DCD3280D. 2. Assign the profile We sent a POST request to the /profile/devices endpoint, including the aforementioned profile_uuid and the target devices list in the request body. 3. Scan the device with Apple Configurator 2 We used Apple Configurator 2 to scan and enroll the target device. Issue Encountered After the device restarts twice, it fails to retrieve the mobileconfig file from the URL: https://mdmp.com/mdm/apple/enroll. We are using Nginx as the web server and have enabled access logging, but the logs show no incoming requests from the device to the /mdm/apple/enroll endpoint at all. Could you please help identify where we might have made a mistake in this process?

It seems like every time an IOS update is installed, the camera app file formats get reset to defaults. This setting is not available to manage at the MDM level. Many people need the the most compatible settings for the purpose of file sharing. So, now we have nearly 1,000 devices with a complete mix of photo and video formats. And IT has wasted MANY hours converting files for people. Feature Request: Please either stop resetting the camera app file formats or allow us to manage those settings at the MDM level. Respectfully, Robert

We are moving to Apple Business Store for our b2b customers. On the "residential" apple store side there is testflight. What process would one test an app we provide to a b2b customer when using apple business store publishing? (I don't see any sort of test flight for apple business)

Hello everyone, I am looking for technical clarification regarding potential rate limits when automating frequent iOS device resets. In my workflow, I need to reset test devices multiple times per day using the EraseDevice MDM command, often combined with the ReturnToService flag for automated setup. I understand that after a full reset, the device undertakes several critical steps to become operational again, including device activation, system app installation, MDM re-enrollment, and subsequent validation of developer certificates for internally distributed apps. Based on Apple’s documentation and my own observations, I am aware of the following domains being involved in these processes: Device Activation: albert.apple.com, gs.apple.com, captive.apple.com, humb.apple.com, static.ips.apple.com, sq-device.apple.com, tbsc.apple.com, time*.apple.com System App Installation: *.itunes.apple.com, *.apps.apple.com, *.mzstatic.com MDM Enrollment: Communication with Apple ADE servers followed by the MDM server. Developer Certificate Validation: ppq.apple.com, ocsp.apple.com, crl.apple.com My primary question is: Are there any rate limits imposed by Apple’s servers on these specific processes when performed frequently on the exact same device within a short timeframe (e.g., multiple times per day)? Specifically, could anyone provide information regarding potential limits for: Device activation requests? System app downloads post-activation? Automated Device Enrollment checks and subsequent MDM enrollments? Developer certificate validation requests? Additionally, is the list of domains above comprehensive for these processes, or are there other key endpoints involved that I should be aware of regarding potential rate limiting? Understanding these limitations is crucial for ensuring the reliability of automated device management workflows. Thank you for any insights!