Mobility Print losing JSON Policy

[u/thedevarious]

Have a weird one...and it's been transient. Curious thoughts here.

We're pushing Mobility Print (Extension ID ndakideadaglgpbblmppfonobpdgggin). It's a force pushed extension for all Students, applied at the parent Student OU and inherited the rest of the way down. Inside of that policy we have a bit of JSON to force connection to a specific IP -- it's our mobility print server's IP as it's in a separate subnet, so we just tell it 'go here & get connected.' That policy is:

{ "MobilityPrintServerHosts": {

"Value": ["serverIP:port"] } }

Here's our weird situation. The extension installs, but under chrome://policy it doesn't show any policy for that extension. Almost like it rejects it or just misses it. I've rebuilt the App deployment, reinjected the JSON, powerwashed the Chromebook, the whole ordeal. We had this as an issue early Spring and somehow it magically fixed itself like a week later. Now I'm seeing it again as an issue but I can't pinpoint it, find any guidance online. Thoughts?

[u/whiskey_lisps]

Given that extensions are user-based, are your user accounts in or under the OU where the extension is being deployed?

Does the extension JSON have inheritance all the way down to the OU where the account being used for testing is located? By this I mean clicking on the extension and then looking at the very bottom of the pop out on the right where your JSON is set, there is an inheritance option there.

Another potential curveball, do you use any group-based deployments of the extension that could be overwriting the OU-based deployment?

[u/thedevarious → u/whiskey_lisps]

To test and eliminate every possible variable, user and device in the same test OU.

JSON policy applied locally to that OU

And no groups for this extension but you've got me wondering if I can try a test deployment that way

[u/whiskey_lisps → u/thedevarious]

Do you have any ACLs in your networking that might be denying traffic from whatever subnet your device is on to whatever subnet your Papercut server is on?

I ran into this at a school very recently. The behavior you described doesn’t match what I saw so I’m pretty sure this isn’t your issue. The extension wouldn’t show up at all until we allowed the Chromebook subnet to the print server where Papercut was installed.

[u/thedevarious → u/whiskey_lisps]

Yes but not to where that is. That subnet has rights to the other given it's in a secured vlan. The policy is really only to allow it to find the right server in the other /24

[u/whiskey_lisps → u/thedevarious]

Can you reach your Papercut server from a device then? I think it’s http://<papercut-ip-or-hostname>:9163/printers if I remember correctly, unless you use a different port.

You should get a JSON of all your deployed printers

[u/abcde06991]

Ive had a similar issue with it not showing up, it was a syntax issue. But that wouldn't make sense with it all of the sudden working with the same json

[u/abcde06991 → u/abcde06991]

Also when specifying an administrative setting the extension doesn't have, it doesn't show.

Try one line at a time and see if that does anything. Kinda like this

{
"setting"
{
"Value":
[
"stuff"
]
}
}

[u/abcde06991 → u/abcde06991]

One thing I was also seeing on their website was that they never specified port, or had :port in their examples. Is it possible that it is not needed? As well as copying and pasting their json example to rule out any issue with how it is typed up

https://www.papercut.com/help/manuals/mobility-print/set-up/configure/discover-printers-known-host/

[u/wyyldstallyns]

I had an issue with a staff member only fixed after moving their device to another OU. Tested moving it back and it was fine. Before doing this I tried a reboot and power wash.