Chrome OS 75 / Managed Guest Sessions

[Patrick-Austin (MN) Public Library]

Chrome OS 75 pushed to my Chromeboxes this morning now I can't get the File app to open, nor does the in-browser pdf viewer open for pdfs.  Anyone else experiencing this or have a solution?

I see that Google Admin now shows "Managed Guest Sessions" instead of "Public Sessions"--what had been hinted to for a while.

[Duncan Hall]

My test box started having that problem when it hit Version 75, so I froze the rest of my fleet at 74.  My test box is now on Version 76, and Files still doesn't open.  If you put one onto the "Unstable" update channel, you can wait for that one to start working, and then put the whole fleet on "Unstable".  Then, it's just a matter of waiting for the "Stable" channel to be fully operational so you can move them back.

If you do find a solution though, please share!

[Patrick-Austin (MN) Public Library]

Yeah, I had to do that when OS 73 was pushed and had problems.  So, frustrating, especially for those of us (including many schools) who do mass deployment.  Thanks for the response and let's hope we get an update for the update soon.

[Reinhard Engels]

This bit us as well. Really irritating. We're scrambling now to lock everything we can at 74 but sounds like it's mostly too late.

Is it possible to downgrade OS? Say be unenrolling and then re-enrolling? 

We will definitely be locking most of our fleet to a known good version going forward after this last spate of issues (headphone jacks not being recognized on our flips in 73, now this in 75).

Let's keep each other informed here if/when this starts to work again...

Reinhard

[Duncan Hall]

During v73 (which made us reset and re-enroll chromeboxes between each Public Session), Google Support told me that I could roll them back by creating a recovery image of the previous version using the Chromebook Recovery Utility, and then reset a Chromebox and recover it from the image on a usb drive.  However, I could never get it to work.  You could probably ask support for a version 74 image to attempt to reset it from and the instructions (it was a somewhat convoluted process).

[Michelle Mears]

This site explains some of it, but I think they are working on the rest.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=976550 

[Michelle Mears]

Has anyone else seen the security warning that all activity and passwords are viewable by us (the managers of Managed Guest Sessions).  My patrons are having a cow over it.

[Reinhard Engels]

We're seeing this message too -- and it is freaking people out.

We don't see it on all devices, though. I'm not sure if it's a side effect of certain apps being installed with certain rights, or has to do with the model of chromebook (perhaps both?). We're seeing it on our asus flips, but not our acer 14s. I'm going to try removing some apps and see if that cures it... (I'll let you know).

Thanks for the bug report! I've starred and subscribed...

Reinhard

[Michelle Mears]

Just found this online.  Now I need to know how to fix it.

"The device administrator has access to all activity, including passwords and communications."

Users will see this message when they sign in to a managed guest session if their device has any of the following advanced settings:

• Non-whitelisted extension. For more information, Which extensions are whitelisted?
• Root or MitM certificate.
• Proxy used to initiate secure connections.
• Website-sharing or system-security policies.

"The device administrator may be able to monitor your activity."

Users will see this message if auto-launch is not enabled and the device doesn't have any of the advanced settings listed above.

[Seth Erickson]

I contacted Google on this. They're working on a solution, or a way to customize this message. Some of our patrons were very suspicious of the new message - especially the privacy-conscious ones!

Basically, the new message is mostly likely there because the apps/extensions you're using are outside of the new "whitelist" of trusted apps/extensions. I did an experiment and removed all apps except the ones that were whitelisted, and the new warning went away when I tried to log in again.

This page lists all the whitelisted apps. I expect this list will grow as Google verifies that apps are trusted and don't mess with users' data.
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/3017014?hl=en

Thanks

-Seth

[Daniel Zeiger]

Bug report is here: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=976550

Looks like they are close to a fix and will be pushing to 75 stable #2

In the meantime some of my OUs/sub-domains have reported luck using 3rd party extensions to view/print PDFs

Downgrading is possible. Enter recover mode on the device (https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1080595?hl=en) and use the recovery utility while specifying the correct image for your device (click gear in upper right to select local image) downloaded from here: https://cros-updates-serving.appspot.com/

Hope this helps.

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	Daniel Zeiger, IT Sys Admin Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Ste. 580 | Atlanta, GA 30345 (404) 235-7143 | dze...@georgialibraries.org georgialibraries.org | galibtech.georgialibraries.org
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[Michelle Mears]

Google pushed out a fix for PDFs and file folder access, but we are still getting the security pop-up message even though I turned off all apps and extensions I thought except for white-listed ones.  Anyone else find a solution for this?

[Patrick-Austin (MN) Public Library]

Not yet--I was trying all sorts of settings yesterday to see if I could get rid of it, too.  I also would welcome suggestions.

[Angie Vincenti]

Has there been a fixed to this pop up message? We are getting the message and patrons are asking…

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[Michelle Mears]

I have not seen anyone post about the security message in Managed Guest Sessions so I don't believe there is a fix or option for this text display.

[Reinhard Engels]

We haven't been able to get rid of it. Turned off all apps and extensions (not just the non-whitelisted ones) and still the message appears.

It's bad. Patrons are suspicious about chromebooks to begin with, this freaks them out big time.

Glad at least pdfs and Files app is working again.