USB drive invisible to our app on supervised iPad

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Created Jul ’24

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We have an iPad app which can write to user-specified locations on USB-connected storage devices. On unmanaged devices, this works just fine.

However, when the device is under MDM, although the Files app can see the external USB storage device, it does not show up in the file browser in our own app.

There's a restriction called "allowFilesUSBDriveAccess" which is set to true (the default), but there's no restriction called "allowOtherAppsUSBDriveAccess".

Are MDM-managed iPads simply not allowed to access USB drives (except through the Files app)?

Answered by ssmith_c in 798525022

I tried again with a different iPad and the same configuration - it worked as expected. When I returned to the original iPad, wiped it, re-enrolled it, and re-installed the profile, that iPad worked as expected too.

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’24

Are MDM-managed iPads simply not allowed to access USB drives (except through the Files app)?

I think this should be possible, but I also think there maybe other keys that are interferring with things. Two things to look at here:

Are you able to access USB storage through other, non-MDM apps (for example, Pages). If those apps are working, then the issue is specifically about how the system is restricting MDM apps, not "the device".
Take a look for other MDM keys that might be relevant, particularly "allowManagedAppsCloudSync", "allowOpenFromUnmanagedToManaged", and "allowOpenFromManagedToUnmanaged". I think "allowOpenFromUnmanagedToManaged" in particular might implicitly block USB drives (among other things).

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Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

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Answer 2

ssmith_c OP

Aug ’24

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I tried again with a different iPad and the same configuration - it worked as expected. When I returned to the original iPad, wiped it, re-enrolled it, and re-installed the profile, that iPad worked as expected too.

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