topic Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used" in Peer-Peer Topics

"administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

smackall — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:15:38 GMT

Hello all,

We're having an issue with some of our student devices where, when the student tries to login, they get a notification pop-up in the corner stating that they can't because the "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used." I do see that there is now a Device Restriction Setting in the admin console, but it is not set for any of the OUs in our school. When I try to set it (so I can unset it and possibly prompt a policy change) I get either an "update failed" error or, if I change the time at all, an "Incomplete time format" error which prevents saving.

I'm seeing this post on reddit from two weeks ago which seems to indicate this issue has happened to at least one other school: https://www.reddit.com/r/k12sysadmin/comments/1is39ml/admin_set_when_cb_can_be_used/ - the solution they came up with was to powerwash the devices, but I would like to know why we are having so many get this error all on the same day. Has anyone else come across this? If anyone uses the Device Restriction Setting can you confirm that is the message it produces? Any ideas welcome!

Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

ddelboccio — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:19:01 GMT

Do you have anything configured under :device off hours":

https://admin.google.com/ac/chrome/settings/device?f=POLICY_NAME.DeviceOffHours

Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

panderson — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:20:17 GMT

We had the same issue on one of our Chromebooks earlier this week and I probably found the same reddit post that you did. The one thing that I did notice was the user had not restarted the Chromebook for quite a while and it was a few versions behind (I can't remember what it was) and I just kind of figured that might have had something to do with it. So far that is the only one that we have had.

Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

jwisniewski — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 15:22:52 GMT

Do you use any third-party software to monitor students? We use DyKnow and sometimes teachers forget to remove blocks when they are done with a session.

Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

Ana_Durón — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:17:13 GMT

En tres de mis dispositivos me paso el mismo problema, ya se realizó el reporte para encontrar alguna solución, pero si le sirve lo que les hice fue un Powerwash y con eso hasta el momento ya no volvió a pasar.

Re: "administrator has set when this Chromebook can be used"

smackall — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:38:59 GMT

Thank you everyone for your responses! We found that 1) most of these devices were showing the wrong date (one of them was two days behind), 2) powerwashing did correct the issue (thank you @Ana_Durón !), and 3) switching them to a different network/SSID (and then back again) also solved the issue.

We still aren't sure if the root cause was something on our network end, a side-effect of an chromeOS update, or something else all together.