Hello Marius Iversen,

Thank you for your post, please try following script on one device and let me know if that works -

writeprivateprofstring BlockedActivityList com.android.settings/.Settings com.android.settings/.Settings
manualblacklist reset

Regards,

1. What type of enrollment they have been using? 

2. Have you configured  " Application Run Control " which blacklist or whitelist android applications?

Android+ enrollment using Zebra StageNOW on Nougat, and MobiControl Stage on Marshmallow. 

No, there is no "Application Run Control" profile on the devices, never have been either.

It's very strange. Only some devices experience this issue, even though all devices are identical in setup, and in use. Unfortunately the only way to remedy the issue, is to factory reset the device. After this, and a new staging, the settings icon is back, and we can access settings again. I've been googling around a bit and see that other are having similar issues on their private Samsungs and what not. Haven't found a good solution to the issue though. Therefore I was hoping someone else had seen the same issue, fixed it, and would share what they did.

What are you using for Lockdown? Zebra's Enterprise Home Screen lockdown utility automatically hides the Settings app by default with an MX setting and does not automatically re-enable it if uninstalled. If EHS was installed at any point then you'd need to re-enable Settings via another MX profile or Factory Reset the device as you have discovered. 

Have you tried sending a script incase the system app was suppressed?

Example:   

enable_system_app com.android.settings

Might not work but worth a shot to try before wiping more phones.

I have also noticed this on our TC51.  

We're using SOTI Lockdown. EHS has never been installed on any devices.

I've tried the enable_system_app command, but unfortunately, nothing happens.

Hi,

Unfortunatelly I will not help you but I've also noticed this kind of behaviour on TC75x AOSP Soti 13.3 but it happens very rarely and Enterprise or Factory Resets is able to solve it so I did not investigate any further. We plan to upgrade to 14.2 (or what will be available in near future) so I'll update if it still persist or not.

At least now I know other are experiencing the same issue. I'll update this post if I find a solution. Please share if anyone else have solved the issue.

I had the same experience before on Zebra devices either.

I tried to fix it by using StageNow and the following scripts.

enable_system_app com.android.settings

None of them worked.

We end up factory reset the device and re-enroll it.

It's very rare to see it, but it's good to know that i'm not the only one who experience this.

UPDATE:

I have now seen the same issue not only on Zebra TC56, but also Zebra TC51, on both Marshmallow/Nougat and AOSP and GMS. No solution yet...

Have you added Settings to the Lockdown screen?

By doing so you whitelist it by default (no application run control - although adding it there doesn't hurt)

Hi Eddie

I have not added Settings to the lockdown. I don't want the users to be able to access Settings. I have enabled "Disable Status Bar Expansion", but not "Disable Settings Changes". 

I've tried adding Settings to a whitelist, but nothing happens. 

Just to be clear. I'm talking about the actual Settings icon in Android :-) 

Hi Marius,

Wondering if you've found solution for this issue yet. I had similar issue with TC56 devices.

OS : Nougat 

Agent : 13.5.0.1688.

Regards.

Hi Amt_L

No solution has been found on my end. But I can confirm the issue persists through all OS and Lifeguard updates. The only way to fix the issue, as far as I know, is to factory default the device. 

We had there same issue here. On some of the devices the settings icon was gone. And setting the Enterprise Home screen i admin mode didn´t help. Even after an unenroll/enroll the settings icon was still gone. 

We made a Force Reinstall of the Enterprise Home screen package - which did the trick.

Hello

The following script could help you:

manualblacklist addallowed com.android.settings
manualblacklist on

This worked for me :-) thank you for help

I can confirm this works. Thanks :-)

I just tried JVMOD's solution on three TC51 devices running Nougat and it did not work for me.  Is there something else I need to do?  I am running version 13.4 and we do plan on an upgrade soon.

Thank you.

I tried on Nougat with Lifeguard20. Also - it did not work via shell in remote control. I had to send a script. Then it took a few minutes before anything changed.

You could try to restart the agent as well with the command restartagent. And if that does not work, try to restart the device itself.

Marius,

Thank you for your advice.  I sent it as a script from SOTI MobiControl.  Even with a restartagent and a device reboot, the Settings app is still missing from the app drawer.  The device I am working with is running LifeGuard build 20.

Thank you.

Try accessing settings via drag-down menu - still no luck?

Unfortunately that did not work either.  It looks like we'll have to factory reset them.  Thank you for your time Marius.

Hello Dave,

Device behavior may differ because of firmware, OS, restrictions and so on. Some scripts work for some devices because similar configuration, it may not work for you because of different restrictions.

Did you try sending following script?

enable_system_app com.android.settings

if you still facing issue let me know.

Regards,

Thank you for your suggestion.  I tried that and it did not work.

At this point, I have accepted that we need to factory reset the devices to get the Settings app back.  Thank you.