Hi Zahra,

Are ALL devices of these models having similar problem?   How many devices are there?

What are the Android version running on these devices?  What about the version of any Samsung Knox library/libraries? ( I heard from some Samsung guys that the firmwares of many low-end Galaxy models  [including A1x and A2x]  are developed by new R&D software team in Vietnam in the last year or so, and there are many known problems, including downsizing of some Knox libraries in the firmware.  Some such devices may already be end-of-line and will not receive any firmware patches)

What are the version and build numbers of your MobiControl server?

Have you deployed any feature-control, lockdown-menu/kiosk and application-run-control profile/script policies to these problematic devices?  If so, please provide details.

From your description, the problem can be related to doze or other lower-power mode, as the device-agent gets re-connected when screen unlocked.   Although you said the timeout period is random, have you systematically measured the minimum time and mean time for a device screen to black out while the foreground is running Suf/Outlook/any other apps?  Will the screen black out if Mobicontrol device agent is in the foregound?

Finally, you said you have problem since last May.  Are you supported by technical support personnel of Soti reseller in USA (as my search of your company web-site https://www.nationalhme.com/  seems to indicate your company operates in the eastern part of USA) or directly by Soti support team in USA/Canada?

Hello Raymond,

Yes, the issue is affecting all production devices. We have 329 devices enrolled in our server.
We are running Android 10, the remaining devices are being updated when conduct regular phone maintenance.

I reviewed our account and do not see any installed Knox libraries, here is the requested information:
Android Enterprise Server Version: 14.3.1.1189

We have deployed a lockdown for our drivers, however our Managers do not have a lockdown installed and experience the timeout issue as well. We have a feature control profile and an authentication profile installed.
We regularly use this script to remove the kiosk and restore during phone maintenance.

notify kiosk on
notify kiosk off

I have worked with support on this issue and found the phone disconnects from the server and reconnects. At the time of those logs, mobicontrol reports that the authentication profile sets a new password and the file for the password is synced as shown below.

User reported timeout issue at 11:52
11:52:13 AM
Information
Custom log (File(s) were synchronized: Set Password)

11:52:13 AM
Information
Custom log (New authentication password applied)

11:52:09 AM
Information
Data Collected (TEM)

11:52:09 AM
Information
File(s) synchronized (Total 0 files synchronized: 0 files downloaded, 0 files skipped)

11:52:05 AM
Information
Data Collected (TEM)

11:51:59 AM
Information
Device (Agent) checked-in

The settings can be set to whatever and the behavior is the same. My case number C00438432 tested with display settings set to never, removed battery optimization, applied these settings by script as well and collected ADB logs during our tests and SOTI's tests. The phone can be freshly restarted, running only mobicontrol and the timeout issue will occur. We've measured the frequency of display timeouts during several tests. One showed several timeouts in the span of 10 minutes. Our current tests shows the timeout has extended past one hour effectively.

I believe this one hour timeout is attributed to the connection retry settings under group details. However this does not explain why the phone goes to sleep. We are ok with reconnecting to the server on a schedule, but forcing the device to sleep during the check in disrupts browsing in SOTI surf or other applications.

Regards,

Zahra

Hi Zahra,

From your last post, it seems that you use file-sync rule to regularly send a password file to the device and a post-file-sync script to change the password based on that file.   How often is the file-sync interval?    Have you tried disabling this file-sync rule totally and see if the screen black-out problem still persists.  If not, you might need to refine the post-file-sync script (e.g. to include delayed unlock, etc. to solve the problem).

Please also test to confirm that the screen black-out time of 10-minute/ 1-hour period is not actually related to the lockscreen timeout option in device's Setting rather than MobiControl connection-retry option in your device group Advanced-Configuration.

Finally, it is also possible that the firmware power management forces your device agent to sleep and indirectly causes your display blackout.  You could try sending the script

    elm_awaken 1

to see if it works in adding your device agent to a whitelist for apps that are exempted from such power management.  (This might not work, as you said you cannot find any standard KNOX library reported in your device settings.  You might also only be able to configure this with Samsung Knox Service Plugin app deployable via Managed-Google Play store, or might still fail due to missing KNOX library in your device firmware).  If really so, a possible workaround maybe is to use the "scheduled script" profile payload to regularly send script to the agent to restrain it from going to low-power mode, though this might have negative impact to your device battery life.