Bypass the activation lock in iOS devicesSolved

Hey Thomas! There are scenarios when the user sets up the device for the first time or reset it, then the user would need to activate the device to use it for normal operations.

iCloud Activation Lock allows you to lock your device from activating, if the organization does not have access to the credentials required to unlock them,  Hexnode MDM can help you bypass the activation lock and unlock the iOS device.

To do that, follow the steps mentioned in this link.

Thanks and regards
Michelle Hendricks
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Hexnode | Mitsogo Inc.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by  Hexnode Support.

I can see the bypass code in my portal but it is not being accepted on the iphone. I keep entering the code on the device and it keeps getting rejected. That code is 22 character long. I am running out of patience….

Why go through all that trouble when you can clear it from the Hexnode portal itself?

I could do that all this while? Didn’t know that.

Hello Evelyn,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

A couple of things can cause the activation bypass code from the portal to be rejected.

1. Poor network connection could be the villain. Connect to another network and try again.
2. The bypass code changes each time the device is erased. For a DEP enrolled device, restoring the same device’s backup will make it retain its supervision state and MDM profile. The device might be enrolled in Hexnode with the same Device ID, but the bypass code will still change. Make sure that you enter the correct code.
3. You might be making mistakes while typing out the long code. Connect your iPhone to a macOS device running Catalina or higher and open Finder. Choose the device from there and click Trust. You will now see the Activation Lock page displayed on your phone, on your laptop screen too. Paste the bypass activation code copied from the Hexnode portal in the password field. Leave the field of Apple ID blank.

Or you can take the easy way out and clear the activation lock from the portal.

Cheers!
Deborah Timothy
Hexnode UEM

I am getting this error “The activation lock has expired” on a few of my enrolled mac devices. Not sure what is causing this. Any insights?

Can activation lock expire? Then what is the point? If a person steals an activation locked device and waits long enough he will be able to use the device once the lock expires right?

The error was “the activation lock bypass code has expired”. Sorry for the unnecessary confusion!

Hello Zosia and Lapz,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

@la  Activation lock doesn’t have an expiration date. However, another user will be able to use the device if the activation lock is removed/bypassed or if the original user removes the device from their iCloud account.

@zosi Please check if the devices showing this error were previously supervised and enrolled in your portal or not. You can do so by going to the Reports > Device Reports > Disenrolled devices.

Deborah Timothy
Hexnode UEM

Yes. It shows that those devices were disenrolled before a year or so. All those devices were supervised.

Apple makes the bypass code unretrievable 15 days after the device has been supervised.  If the user does not fetch and clear the activation lock via Hexnode within this time, then the UEM will not be able to retrieve the code. Here are a few things that you can try for generating a new bypass code:

1. Set up the device as a new device.
2. Erase the device but do not restore it from the backup.
3. Erase and restore the device from the backup of a different device.

Hope that clears things out.

Cheers!!
Deborah Timothy
Hexnode UEM