ChromeOS device issue (Google bug) - 13th April, 2022

ISSUE SUMMARY

We received scattered reports of ChromeOS devices not loading Signagelive. Players show a "Preparing app profile..." message on screen for a short while and then the device powers off.

**PAST UPDATES**

19TH APRIL @ 08:15 BST:

Please find the latest update from Google below:

Google Update
We strongly believe that the root cause of this bug has been fixed and is being rolled out globally. It is currently deployed to 90% of our servers and we are actively working toward 100%. We estimate that we'll hit 100% deployment today at approximately 5 pm PDT.

15TH APRIL @ 06:00 BST:

This is the response thus far from Google:

Google Update
The Google team is actively triaging the situation, assessing customer impact and mitigation options.
At this moment in time, we understand Chrome App launch and install failures are occurring with M87 (and likely earlier) in Kiosk mode. We also have reason to believe that the issue has been observed in user sessions and managed guest sessions. Further investigation has narrowed down this issue to force installed Chrome Apps and extensions only.
At this time, we still do not have all the details necessary for a remediation. We encourage you to follow along with the bug, and contribute as possible, and we will also provide updates as we have them.

14TH APRIL @ 22:20 BST:

Please be aware we have identified an issue with ChromeOS devices running versions of ChromeOS <87 that are not booting into kiosk applications properly and therefore Signagelive is not starting-up. The symptom is that the device is stuck on a loading screen.

This is not a Signagelive issue but a Google one. We found this bug report from Google where other kiosk / signage applications are experiencing exactly the same issue.

We believe that this is limited to devices that have passed the Auto Update Expiration date, however that is not confirmed as yet. Auto Updates is a Google policy and details until when they will support Automatic updates of the OS on each device.

Please see this list from Google detailing the policy and a list of devices along with their Auto Update Expiration date.

Please note that ChromeOS 86, whilst not that old in terms of time (it was released October 6th 2020), is very old in terms of versions as the current version is 100, which was released April 8th 2022.

Our suspicion is that a policy change in Chrome Device Management (CDM) is incompatible with either these older versions of Chrome, devices past their Auto Update Expiration date, or both, and thus causing this issue.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For current system status information about Signagelive, please check out our system status page. During an issue, you can also receive status updates by following Beamer Posts within the user interface. The summary of our investigation will be posted here when the issues has ended. If you have any concerns, questions, wish to report further issues or are looking for updates - please don't hesitate to contact our Support Team.