Forum Discussion
Zero Touch MDM Phones Randomly Factory Resetting
Hello
We have been having an issue over the past few weeks/months where Android devices are randomly resetting.
The phones are zero touch enrolled and managed by Intune via COPE, we apply configuration and compliance policies to these devices. One of these configurations enforces a device wipe after so many failed pin code failures. This is the only known wipe configuration set on the devices.
We have exhausted the configuration side and do not see a root cause other than user error, however this is not really likely given it takes some effort to actually do this. From googling online, we can see that this may be an issue relating to the play version not updating correctly, is this still an issue?
These devices are a mix of newly enrolled and also old enrolled devices. They have also been setup with Wi-Fi.
Thanks
2 Replies
Hi ReeceG,
the link you provided is about devices not correctly detected by ZT during enrollment but later and because of that getting the expected default wipe because it didn't went through ZTE.
But as you state newly and old devices getting factory reset randomly, I'm pretty sure it's not linked to that issue because the old ones should have shown this issue already long time ago.
We also use ZTE and haven't seen such behavior currently but we also don't use COPE neither Intune.
You should get in close contact with your users to ask if they ran into the wrong pin/password wipe or however it happened.
I also recommend as you have COPE, to rethink the automatic wipe but think about better protection policies for the work profile on them which makes the wipe maybe obsolete or atleast enhance the tries a bit.
And think of following szenario:
You have a COPE device, so with private data on it and this wipe policy. Your kid is now playing around with it (entering password several times wrong) without you notice - BAM device gets wiped and your entire personal data is gone (and ofc the work data which i hope has a cloud "backup" as well). Would you be happy about that? And now think about the employees.
Own opinion:
To be honest, i personally never would use a COPE device with automatic wipe assigned, then i would prefer BYOD or even none because even my kid won't play around with it, just a defective touchscreen can cause this to happen (i worked in a repair center and know what this can cause) and i don't want to loose (personal) data because of something like that.
