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I am the administrator on my account but I am unable to automatically update software

"Your Mac is running the latest software update allowed by your administrator - macOS Catalina 10.15.4 (19E287)"


I am the administrator on this computer, but can not figure out how to get it to update.


MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015)


Help?

MacBook Air 13″, 10.14

Posted on Aug 11, 2020 7:51 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 12, 2020 6:33 AM

The MDM profile is what is controlling the updates restrictions.


If this computer belongs to a company, then you should not remove it.


If you bought it second hand, then removing it will simply release all the restrictions it placed on it.


You either remove it, or you live without being able to update the macOS version until whoever controls the MDM and is by definition managing the computer allows it.


The real question you need to answer, is why is there an MDM profile on your computer. As said if it belongs to your office, then you have o right to remove it.


If it was bought second hand, and someone forgot to correctly wipe it, and remove the MDM profile then that is something you should consider doing, to make sure there's nothing else left over from whoever owned it before you.


MDM profiles are not installed by default, so unless you manually installed it yourself, then there's no reason for it to be there if you own the computer yourself.



13 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 12, 2020 6:33 AM in response to Rachelsent

The MDM profile is what is controlling the updates restrictions.


If this computer belongs to a company, then you should not remove it.


If you bought it second hand, then removing it will simply release all the restrictions it placed on it.


You either remove it, or you live without being able to update the macOS version until whoever controls the MDM and is by definition managing the computer allows it.


The real question you need to answer, is why is there an MDM profile on your computer. As said if it belongs to your office, then you have o right to remove it.


If it was bought second hand, and someone forgot to correctly wipe it, and remove the MDM profile then that is something you should consider doing, to make sure there's nothing else left over from whoever owned it before you.


MDM profiles are not installed by default, so unless you manually installed it yourself, then there's no reason for it to be there if you own the computer yourself.



Aug 15, 2020 8:05 AM in response to John Galt

Wanted to post an update in case it is helpful to anyone else.


  • I backed up through Time Machine on to an external Seagate hard drive
  • For some reason, once I did that, my system said there was a new update to 10.15.6 and it allowed me to update (it did not do this before.
  • Once it finished I went to Profiles and deleted the MDM Profile which in turn then automatically deleted the other profiles.
  • System is now fine and there are no Profiles and I am the Admin (by myself) on my laptop.


Thank you to all that assisted me.

Aug 12, 2020 6:51 AM in response to Phil0124

Good info. When I left the company (which had Kinetix installed on all its laptops) they assured me they had removed everything and allowed me to keep the laptop. Last year I had to reach out to Kinetix and past employer to get Kinetix totally off. Kinetix said they had removed everything, but obviously not.


It's strange, but automatic updates have been occurring since 2018 and this is the first time i've had this problem.


Just to confirm, if I remove the MDM profiles I will be able to update the software, correct?

I am the administrator on my account but I am unable to automatically update software

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