Blocked USB file transfer

[weberda]

We are struggling with some user reports about blocked USB file transfer functionality on their Samsung A52 / A54 devices enrolled with corporate-owned work profile.

Microsoft released a blog post about this issue here.

Known Issue: Some management settings become permanent on Android 14 - Microsoft Community Hub

We stumbled across the one-time hint about "do not upgrade non-Samsung devices to Android 14" in the advisory. Did not find any other information whether Samsung is also affected or not, but as we only have Samsung as corporate devices this seems also to apply to Samsung devices. After factory resetting the device and a fresh enrollment the USB file transfer is working as expected / configured!

*15th March: please note: this post has been moved and been made into a new topic and new title

[jasonbayton · Accepted solution]

Be aware also Google changed out the default behaviour of usb when left unconfigured, which aligns with the experience you're describing. 

https://bayton.org/android/android-enterprise-faq/usb-data-access-amapi/

[davidguillaume]

I have been informed that Samsung devices are not affected as they identified the issue before releasing the Android 14 update and implemented a fix, unfortunately nothing publicly available.  

[weberda]

😮

uh interesting... it's hard to investigate as i can't reproduce the issue on my device after factory reset but users are complaining about the missing functionality. All of them told us that they have used the usb file transfer for their photos before and sometime in between this has stopped working.

Ugly situation... "to be able to file transfer your photos again, you have to factory reset your device. please be aware your photos will be lost after the reset" 🤔

[davidguillaume]

I would suggest double checking the policies and looking at the DEBUG logs on the device, then escalate to your EMM provider if necessary

[weberda]

Device Policy App on an affected device (A54):

deviceConnectivityManagement: {"usbDataAccess": "USB_DATA_ACCESS_UNSPECIFIED"}

On my factory reseted and fresh enrolled device (A54):

deviceConnectivityManagement: {"usbDataAccess": "ALLOW_USB_DATA_TRANSFER"}

100% sure it is the same policy and groups for those two devices...

[Lizzie]

Hello @weberda,

I hope you are doing well. 

Thanks for highlighting you are experiencing this. I've had a look and we do currently have an newly opened ticket for something very similar to what you are mentioning here and our engineers are currently reviewing it. On this grounds I currently think this is unrelated to the service announcement you posted in. 

I hope you don't mind, to make it easier to find, I've moved your posts and made them into a dedicated topic, which will make it easier for others to find and update. If you would prefer a different title, just let me know and i'm happy to update it. 

To add, if you could also report this via your EMM please, so your information can also be captured on the ticket, that would be fantastic. 

Thank you again and I'll keep an eye out for updates to share with you. 

Lizzie

( @davidguillaume, thanks also for your useful replies here, FYI on the above 🙂 )

[weberda]

@Lizzie Thank you!

We were able to solve this issue by re-saving the config with the same values.

We are using Microsoft Intune as our EMM, maybe this is only related to Intune! We found out that the policy values we grabbed by MS Graph API differed ("null" value instead of "true/false"). After our dummy edit the values changed from "null" to true/false and the Android restriction has been updated after the update and USB file transfer was restored on our device fleet.

Maybe this helps!

[jasonbayton · Accepted solution]

Be aware also Google changed out the default behaviour of usb when left unconfigured, which aligns with the experience you're describing. 

https://bayton.org/android/android-enterprise-faq/usb-data-access-amapi/

[weberda]

Yes but no! 😉
IMHO: it does not explain why the policy value in the json data of Intune falls to "null" values instead of true. The usb file transfer has been enabled for years. A test policy on the same Intune tenant stated "true" values, the production policy was configured to "null" which defaults to DISALLOW_USB_DATA_TRANSFER as you have noted in your documentation.

We did not change any values in the Intune admin UI, just hit "edit" and then "save". 

[jasonbayton]

No sure, I'm not commenting on Intune's ineptness to handle basic policy values, only the reason why it would be affecting you now recently since this opened referencing the Android 14 bug in the split out to a new topic 🙂 

[kc]

We are experiencing the same issue with Intune.  I believe it is related to what Jasonbayton is talking about.  The settings in the Intune portal are Block or Not Configured.  I think that is why the default value is "null."  

Are you saying you used MS Graph to modify the Device Restriction Profile explicitly to "true?"

So, you went around using the Intune Portal?

[weberda]

No I did not change values by using graph api. I wondered why test devices were able to use usb file transfer but production devices did stop working. 

I used Graph API to compare the values in the graph api response because the admin UI showed „not configured“ for both. But the results on the devices differed. 

After the dummy edit they values were the same and functionality came back on the devices so I closed our case with MS. 

[LFagni]

Hi @weberda , I tried on my tenant too and I confirm that the trick worked, but only for devices already enrolled.
I tried factory reset a test device where the trick fixed and after the new enrolling is still not possible to enable USB file transfer.
Unfortunately is not possible to force Intune to "Allow" it, I can only choose between Block or Not Configured

Am I correct or did you find a way for fix it permanently?
I fear we've to wait until Intune will apply a change on their part.

[kc]

I've asked MS to change the options to "Allow" and "Not Configured."  But, I'm getting some strange response from them that Intune is working as designed, and MS is leaving it all up to Android.  Maybe the "right" customer has to ask....

[jasonbayton]

Someone in product hasn't been paying attention to the change, and support will be none-the-wiser either. 

@Lizzie is there a partner rep you can point to this thread so they sort themselves out? 😁

[Lizzie]

@jasonbayton, I think we may have posted at the same time - yeah, I'm relaying this back internally. Thanks for checking. 

[BAfH]

Good morning,

we have the same issue for all our samsung devices.
This KME device installed die Android Device Policy in the version 103.40.6
I have a support call with samsung and microsoft.
so far no solution.
What really surprises or disappoints me is that this announced change is not available in Intune in a timely manner.
What a pity

[jasonbayton]

You'll get used to it 🙃

[weberda]

Oh… I did not re-enroll a device yet to see what the results are. I only confirmed with affected users that the usb file transfer is back working a day after our dummy save in Intune. 

will go through it tomorrow and see what happens… thanks

[LFagni]

@weberda I've to change my previous answer, seems like that just after the enrollment the USB file transfer is disabled but after a while it started working, so seems that was just a delay due to the policy sync.
Try if you can but I'm confident that the dummy edit is enough for have it working.

[Lizzie]

Thanks everyone for your updates here, this is super helpful. I'm highlighting this back to our team internally, but please do continue to speak with your EMM about this directly. 

As soon as I hear more, I'll update here. Thanks again. 

Lizzie

[Lizzie · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

@weberda, @BAfH, @LFagni, @kc,

I hope you've all had a good week.

Just wanted to come back to you. To clarify the change mentioned by @jasonbayton above was updated by Microsoft Intune. I know there was a bit of uncertainty mentioned so just wanted to confirm this. 

From our own testing, as you mentioned Weberda, it appears toggling the "USB File Transfer" policy setting from "Not Configured" to "block" (save), then back to "Not configured" (save) will enable USB file transfer. I believe Microsoft are working on an update to iron this out. 

If you continue to have difficulties though, please do contact Microsoft Intune directly and they can advise you further. 

Hope this helps and do keep us posted if you can.

Thanks again,

Lizzie