Mac OS Server 3.1 upgrade causes Profile Manager not to start

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We’re running a Mac OS X 10.9.2 server with Mac OS X Server 3.0.3. We only run Open Directory and Profile Manager on this server.

Today I upgraded our server to Mac OS X Server 3.1 and rebooted. After the reboot Open Directory came up but Profile Manager would not load. When I launched the Server Manager and went to Profile Manager I either got “Error -1” or an error about the configuration not being readable.

After a bit of research I came across a post by andydvsn1824 on the Mac OS Server Forums with the solution that worked for me. He had an extra step in his solution that I didn’t need to perform and I’d wanted to repost the solution here in case something happens to the original post and so it’s in a nice step-by-step layout.

  1. Launch the Server Manager App
  2. Turn off any running services. In my case I shutdown Open Directory
  3. Close the Server Manager App
  4. Open Terminal and perform the following to backup and remove your current Profile Manager settings:
    # Become root
    localhost:~ user$ sudo su -
    
    # Navigate to the Server Library and backup your current Profile Manager files
    localhost:~ root# cd /Library/Server
    localhost:~ root# tar -cf ProfileManager.tar ProfileManager
    
    # Delete your current ProfileManager files
    localhost:~ root# rm -rf ProfileManager
  5. Minimize Terminal
  6. Open up the Finder and go to ‘Applications’ and delete ‘Server’
    Note: Don’t worry your settings will be preserved. In fact you should get a message telling you so
  7. Close Finder and empty the trash
  8. Re-open Terminal and extract the backup we made of the Profile Manager files
    # Become root if you are not already
    localhost:~ user$ sudo su -
    
    # Navigate to the Server Library and backup your current Profile Manager files
    localhost:~ root# cd /Library/Server
    localhost:~ root# tar -xf ProfileManager.tar
  9. Launch the App Store
  10. Click ‘Purchases’
  11. Click ‘Install’ next to OS X Server
  12. Once the installation is complete close the App Store
  13. Launch the Server Manager App
  14. You should see Server Manager launch, request you accept the EULA and then run through a progress bar. Once this is complete I then started Open Directory and once that had started I started Profile Manager which started properly, was upgraded and retained all of my existing profiles and devices.

In retrospect you probably don’t need to delete the ‘ProfileManager’ directory and then restore it but definitely take a backup.

There also appears to be an issue with newly enrolled devices filling log files on your server. The recommended solution, which only works for 1 month, is to run the following command:

localhost:~ user$ sudo psql -U _devicemgr -d devicemgr_v2m0 -h /Library/Server/ProfileManager/Config/var/PostgreSQL -c "UPDATE devices SET last_update_info_time = dm_current_timestamp() + '1 month'"

 

Apple is supposedly working on a patch (3.1.1?) for the logging issue and I assume the upgrade failure.

 

Sources

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