Profile Manager suddenly stopped working

I basically have the same problem, though for me it *never* worked at all (I've always ended up on the "Profile Manager Service is turned off". I am on a Fresh Lion install. From the looks of it Lion Server (or Server.app more precisely) has an interesting understanding of what Apache configuration files shouls be, and apparently Apache doesn't agree it's "the right way". I seriously doubt this product has ever been tested in a decent way...

It's also my first time with Server. I've only been able to fix some of the SSL issues I've had with it so far thanks to my dusty knowledge of Apache. For now I'm hoping either Apple releases a fixed version of their pre-alpha Lion Server (yeah it looks pre-alpha), or that someone here can tell us what we're doing wrong...

Been messing with it for two days now. Still getting ZERO use out of it. Same problem, cannot get Profile manager service started.

I'm in the same boat in terms of the SSL stuff. I have profile manager working as far as the web interface and creating profiles that users can download. When it comes to adding a device to be managed however, I get the invalid signing message as well. When I go to settings on Profile Manager it says device management is enabled but when I check the box to sign configuration profiles and it asks for a certificate, my SSL's (both signed CA and self signed that I created) don't show in the list. I just get an import or none option. The import option wants me to install the certificate all over again but it is already installed and running on the server. Frustrating stuff! Anyone find a work around yet? Or do we just have to wait for an update?

There are some good tutorials at afp548.com. I followed the Profile Manager video and have had no problems enrolling devices. If you're not using a trusted SSL cert, make sure you install the Trust Profile on your Mac or iOS device before attempting device enrollment.

The Calendar, VPN, etc services are configured with the Everyone profile (which is a manual download profile by default), not the Enrollment Profile. Are you certain you were prompted during the enrollment process?

It looks like my profile manager is not recognizing my server settings as it does not show my ssl cert at all in the drop down when I try to do the sign configuration profiles. It is crazy because it is showing on every other service including my LDAP under server admin and it shows all of the people in my directory and allows me to do custom profiles I just can't enroll devices because it says I have an invalid profile when it comes to enrollment. I can't configure Profile Manager and go through the steps in the video because I upgraded and already had my directory set so it doesn't give a Configure option. Any other ideas out there?

Hi all!

I got Device enrollment to work by simply installing all certificates given from the /mydevices-page, I think "Trust certificate" made it happen. In other words: Go to the /mydevices-page with one of your devices, install every certificate given, linger happily in the Server.app watching how the devices bond to your account.

I can't get Profile manager to work though.

Since I made a fresh install everything else works great. Open directory, web sharing and iCal (+push) is working fine. I do hope that Profile manager gets fixed through an update or some simple trick.

I also hope that this problem may solve it self when I do a second try on my newly ordered Mac mini.

Hi, I hope I'm not teaching you all to suck eggs, but you might want to check that you have DNS fully configured on your network. OS X services have always been a stickler for solid FQDN - that is both forward and reverse lookups. Once you have this you should find it largely works as it says on the box.

I strongly second Cthulu advise.

Most of my problems with services were due to the use of the Lion bundle DNS server. Its configuration and behaviour being faulty I built my own DNS zone on another server (debin with bind9) and everything worked again.

I don't know why when I use Lion's bundled DNS averything fails...with bind9 external DNS everything works great !

As Cthulu says, OSX Server is picky about DNS.

In fact on my machine almost no service would start without a proper DNS configured