iPad Air 2 and iPadOS 13.1.2 - Cautionary Note
Mat Newman October 14 2019 02:07:51
Image courtesy of arsTechnica
I don't often write about Apple stuff, but an extremely unpleasant situation arose for me over the weekend that caused a significant amount of angst and an unnecessary amount of time trying to resolve.
It all began on Sunday morning when I woke to a nice little notice on my Apple iPad Air 2 that a new update had been automatically downloaded and installed and that I was now running iPadOS 13.1.2.
"Nice" - mused I, with a thoughtful smile - Now, what is iPadOS 13.1.2, and what new features does it hold for me?
Well, I couldn't find those details, because my iPad wouldn't connect to my WiFi.
Several prompts for my WiFi password had me bemused, as I have had the same complex password on my Hot-Spot for years.
And then I started receiving several prompts from Apps on my iPad that had background updates enabled, which also had passwords associated with them (the most obvious being my corporate and private email Apps).
Several attempts - at again - entering the correct password left me wondering what on earth was going on.
And then I discovered that every app on my device that required a password would instantly crash when I attempted to open them. Unfortunately, this also included the installed Safari and Chrome browsers.
Uh ... OH!
Very quickly searching for symptoms on the internet, I came across this article on the Apple forum, describing exactly the symptoms that I was suffering.
Some more research, and I suspected that the root cause of this issue had something to do with the iOS password manager.
The article I referenced above mentioned connecting to an open WiFi network, and then installing the iPadOS 13.2 beta could possibly resolve my issue.
So I configured my Phone as an open WiFi, and managed to successfully connect to that without a password.
All good so far.
Now, attempt to open either of the Browser Apps installed on my device to proceed to step 2, access the Apple Beta Site, and configure my iPad for the beta.
Nope!
Neither of my installed Browsers would start (instantly crashing!), and I could not access the App Store to download and install an alternative.
If you're wondering about that weird Social Media post I made yesterday, with a link to the Apple beta site - well, now you know. I managed to open a couple of Apps that have their own embedded browser, but unfortunately; I was able to access the Apple Beta sites, but when I got to the step that required me to download the Apple Settings configuration profile, it failed with a "File Not Recognised" error. Apparently Apps with embedded browsers don't recognise iOS configuration profile links. :-(
All of the above had taken several hours at this point, and I was feeling rather frustrated ... when a little bit of MAGIC occurred!
I received an update in my "Notification Centre" telling me that iPadOS 13.1.2 had been installed, and I should tap it to see what was new.
Feeling rather unhappy at this point, I did exactly that, and swiped through the few pages describing the new features. The MAGIC happened on the last of these screens, which included a button to "Find out More", which I dutifully tapped, and it opened Safari - much to my surprise - and took me to the Apple iOS 13.1.2 page (remember, attempting to access Safari to this point had resulted in an immediate crash!).
I IMMEDIATELY navigated to the Apple iPadOS beta page, registered, successfully downloaded the Settings Profile, and after a few minutes, was able to access the software updates and download the 13.2 Beta.
A little while later, my iPad restarted, and after entering a few passwords again, I was successfully up and running.
So, if you have an iPad Air 2, and have installed iPadOS 13.1.2 with the same problems that I encountered, I hope this little guide helps get you back up and running without a complete wipe and re-install of your device.
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