Level 1

25 points

Backing up iPhone/iPad with Catalina

Updated to Catalina today. I wanted to backed up my iPhone and iPad to try the new finder location for backing up devices. For both devices, I presented with a popup window stating AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain. I could allow once, allow always or deny. Since I have no idea what AMPDevicesAgent is I clicked deny. I have never seen this window before when doing a backup on my Mac. Is this something new with Catalina or is this something fishy? Does anyone know what this is all about? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Posted on Oct 7, 2019 6:54 PM

Top-ranking reply

RatleyRambler

Level 1

27 points

Posted on Oct 22, 2019 4:58 PM

I'm still getting the "AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain" messages. So I chatted to Apple Support for 3/4 of an hour. The Agent was actually very good and checked up on all sorts of things. I shared screenshots of the message and Activity Monitor info for AMPDevicesAgent and AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent. Here are some pertinant excerpts from the conversation;

Agent;

"I checked on my lab machine (Which never has any 3rd Party Apps) which I upgraded from 10.14 and was able to locate AMPDevicesAgent. This confirm the behavior is expected."

This is useful as it confirms that AMPDevicesAgent is not 3rd party software but is included with Catalina.

Agent;

"AMPDevicesAgent is something new with Catalina. As seen in Activity monitor it shows as an Apple process and I have checked with my lab device to confirm this as well."

Following this the Agent recommended that I ran a Malwarebytes scan. This completed with no problems found.

Agent;

"This is something with Catalina so other persons may have this pop up but I can guarantee this is not a cause for concern."

I asked what would not work if I continued to Deny the access request

"Honestly, I am not aware if anything will stop working if you hit deny."

I was still concerned that we did not know what AMPDevicesAgent actually is, so I was passed over to a supervisor. I explained;

I am getting the AMPDevices pop up and it is asking for access to my keychain. I have no idea what AMPDevicesAgent is or why it needs access to my keychain.
It a bit like giving your bank account details to somebody you just met on the street.
All other things that ask for access tell you who they are e.g Malwarebytes asked for access to my desktop. Its a malware scanner so that is reasonable. But what is AMPDevices?

The answer to this was

"It’s actually part of the Frameworks in you Library folder for the iOS Device that is installed with Catalina, so that would be expected behavior and there is nothing to worry about by accepting it."

So I asked

"OK. Can you please pass a message back to the development team that allowing something called AMPdDeviceAgent to ask for access to the keychain is not good practice. It causes the end user to worry and hence waste lots of time researching the issue and then contacting Apple Support."

Supervisor response;

"Sure can. You can also voice your concern about this at apple.com/feedback. We have a dedicated team here at Apple whose entire job is to review this feedback and implement any changes needed."

Conclusion

AMPDevicesAgent seems to be part of the new Catalina functionality that allows Finder to sync and backup with iOS & iPadOS devices. It looks like either the access rights for it haven't been properly fixed or somebody didn't give it a user friendly name.

As a result of this conversation with Support, I'm going to Allow access.

I suggest that we all input to apple.com/feedback saying that a window popping up to say that AMPDevicesAgent needs access to the keychain is not very User friendly. Either its access rights should be fixed so it doesn't need to ask or it should be renamed something the User can understand.

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55 replies

Oct 13, 2019 6:03 AM in response to paulorhodes1

It’s just one of thousands of Apple internal processes that are inscrutable to anyone not involved with Apple development internally.

Oct 22, 2019 7:38 PM in response to RatleyRambler

Thank you, I’ve passed this along to an internal Apple contact.

Its a really poor message; it should say something like “iOS sync wants to access your keychain”

Nov 2, 2019 1:46 AM in response to GStormer

I came to my desktop also when i connect the Iphone with labtop, i think it is relate to the new update as to keep the keychain in the new system

Nov 2, 2019 6:26 AM in response to Mohdnasef

If you read the other posts in this thread you will find the explanation.

GStormer Author

Level 1

25 points

Oct 9, 2019 6:45 AM in response to rohan87

Thank you rohan87 for tracking this down, it's very helpful. Indeed, it does look like it's from Apple and safe to allow. The next time I back up my iPhone and iPad I'm anxious to see if I get the pop-up asking for permission. Thanks again!

iwaddo

Level 1

126 points

Oct 9, 2019 8:30 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

I used Finder with my iPhone first and was not asked.

I was only asked the first time I used my iPad Pro with Finder.

Anyone any idea how to get the prompt again? I denied access and now it is not asking. I think is is why Sidecar is not available.

Loupita

Level 1

13 points

Oct 10, 2019 7:26 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks - understand the concept of incremental backups - the fact is that my iPad has gone through that process several times already and it continues to require a significant amount of time to backup, even without changes to the content.

Oct 10, 2019 7:38 AM in response to Loupita

Hmm, I just backed up my iPhone 256 GB (half full) and my iPad. Each took about 5 minutes. The iPhone was a full backup (I had archived the previous backup). Do you have an antivirus on your computer that is set to scan all files when they are opened?

Loupita

Level 1

13 points

Oct 10, 2019 8:02 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

No - the phone has sped up so I don't know if it needed multiple passes to get a foothold. My iPad is 512 and has about 400Gbs of video on it. So it continues to be slow. I think part of the issue is that having split iTunes into different parts it is now backing up each part separately - so much for the "conveniences" of that ambition. Same content just more places to go find it.

I'm frustrated that this update has been so poorly managed and Apple offered no warnings about things needing additional time etc. It seems as though it's been a "don't ask, we know better" kind of upgrade. Makes me question wanting to do future upgrades.

Oct 10, 2019 12:08 PM in response to GStormer

It took my new Mac Book Pro three hours to do the upgrade to Catalina. It took my old Air 2 hours. Think it was the big music library on an attached drive on that newer one...? Whatever it was, it seemed to do an entire copy of the old system. Anybody else take that long?

Oct 24, 2019 2:59 AM in response to Lawrence Finch

Thanks for the feedback Lawrence. On an another but equally annoying issue, I keep getting asked if I want to "Trust this computer" every time I connect my iPhone to my Mac via usb. Then I have to put in my passcode after I click 'Trust'. What happened to the seamlessness Apple had in the past?

Oct 24, 2019 7:08 AM in response to paulorhodes1

paulorhodes1 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback Lawrence. On an another but equally annoying issue, I keep getting asked if I want to "Trust this computer" every time I connect my iPhone to my Mac via usb. Then I have to put in my passcode after I click 'Trust'. What happened to the seamlessness Apple had in the past?

It had to make way for increased security. If you have 2 Fact Authentication enabled, it shouldn't be doing that. Open iTunes, go to Preferences/Advanced and click Reset Warnings. Then connect the phone, open Finder, click on the phone. When the Summary page comes up (after a couple of days) click Reset Warnings. The next time you connect it will prompt again and you can select Trust and it shouldn't ask again.

If you don't have 2 factor authentication enabled you will probably have to live with accepting each time.

pamstree

Level 1

9 points

Oct 28, 2019 7:54 AM in response to GStormer

Gremlin9

Level 1

8 points

Oct 28, 2019 5:50 PM in response to GStormer

The reason I switched to Apple 8 years ago was because Windows was plagued with things like this and I was tired of fixing problems with Windows. Seems like Apple doesn't want my business any longer.

Oct 28, 2019 6:15 PM in response to Gremlin9

Searching for this problem doesn't bring up many posts. So it seems it doesn't affect most people. I agree its frustrating and a particularly unhelpful message. But if this is the only problem you have experienced since changing to Apple 8 years ago, I would suggest that you are doing well compared to what your experience would have been if you had stayed with Windows.

All suppliers get problems sometimes, and yes, I have seen a Rolls Royce broken down by the roadside. The issue is how often do problems occur and how well do they get fixed.

Even after suffering the "AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain" issue - which actually isn't something broken, just something asking for permission when perhaps we don't think it should have to, my vote stays with Apple because OSX, although not perfect, is much, much better than Windows.

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Backing up iPhone/iPad with Catalina