Profile installation failed

Hi Linc,

no it's just a simple local network user. With only mail settings. I have about eight of them and all similar. One trust profile. Some months ago it all went well and then suddenly it gave this problem when adding a new profile. I can't recall exactly what had happened after that, I think it was after I migrated to Mavericks. Then it worked again for a short while, in which I could add my last new (local network) account/profile. But also a modified Trusted Profile gives this issue.

I somehow have a gut feeling that it has something to do with certificates and/or dns. My server is connected directly to the net, to a switch of the ISP. So it has it's own IP address. It is running just fine except for this issue. I simply cannot add new accounts/profiles or even modify existing ones.

FYI. Not sure if this is a related issue. But one of my employees could connect to the mail incoming and outgoing server. After changing to a new phone she constantly gets an error saying that the outgoing mailserver does not have SSL. Which is weird, because it has. And works for me also. But this was also the initial reason for modifying her profile.

Well the Mail payload is the only one in there. And removing that won't allow me to download the profile. It should contain 1 more in addition to the General one. The strangest thing did happen. When I create a user for the first time (ever) in Server->Users, and then go into Profile Manager to create a Mail payload profile, it works. But as soon as you try to download a new profile for that user, it deletes the profile from the Profiles in System Preferences.

Even if you delete the user after that and create it once again, plus the profile, this same error appears. So I am not trying to edit the existing profiles, because it would ruin my business mail. However that deletion of profiles did not happen for other users before. Really weird what is going on here. I really need this fixed 😟

Weird, weirder, weirdest ... I just tried something else.

- Just keep the user in OS.

- In Profile Manager I removed the Mail payload all together and saved it. Well actually I hit the "-" sign in the Profile Manager next to the 'Settings for <user>''. But I only use one payload, so its fine for me. Then you cannot download the profile anymore, but that's ok.

- Immediately create the Mail payload again for that user in Profile Manager. Save it (it is the first Save again, so the button says "Save" instead of "Save...")

- then download it .. and the profile loads again successfully in System Preferences.

If you repeat this, then it only works if you first delete the profile in System Preferences for that user. Otherwise I get the same error.

So to sum it up it looks like it basically comes down to this:

- the Mail profile needs to be created a first time (it will say "Save" instead of "Save...")

- and the profile must not already exist in System Preferences.

I really don't know if this a strange workaround and keeps everything working. But I have to find that out. I don't think (hopefully) it will remove existing mails for that user, because I'm only changing the payload in the profile. And removing/adding the profile in System Preferences.

Ok .. 'cheered' too soon. I tried that with a testing account. Not much different from other accounts. But when I tried this with a new/existing account, it fails. So back to square one.... *sigh*

Not sure if I understand what you mean. But every (user)profile has one or more payloads. Not the other way around. I mean, for every (user)profile the mail payload has specific account information. Like password, accountname and such. So for every account there is a (user)profile in the System Preferences. And each has (in my case) it's own Mail payload in it.

And they all look the same. The workaround I mentioned above does still work for a test-account (named that e.g. 'testing'). Oddly enough. I also created a new acount for a new employee, and that one cannot be entered via the workaround. Only succeeded once and not anymore after that. So I tried to see what the difference is between those accounts and I really cannot come up with any difference. I even tried changing stupid things like email-format or 'Name to Display' and such.

And like I said, I am *very* carefull not to change anything in existing accounts. If those don't work anymore after that because of this weird bug orso, then I am totally screwed.

I am just so frustrated that (often) I seem to have the one problem that none of the other million's of Apple users have. Why can't Apple themself respond what those error messages mean, what's behind them and what to do about it. I mean, seriously, the guys at Apple are the ones who wrote this stuff, right? So much for 'Apple geniuses'...

Nevertheless I am happy that at least one Apple user responds 🙂 But still a big, big sigh

I still have not figured out the problem yet. But I have come to a point now for which I seriously wonder why-the-frog these Profiles w/Mail payload are necessary at all? Please bear with me on this.

I thought I had mastered the Server/Mail/Profile Manager/Profiles thingie. But the more I was thinking about it, the more I was questioning the reason(s) for these profiles in the System Preferences. I mean, I did create the (local network) users. For the sole purpose of having (OD) mail-account(s). Now why would it be necessary to further create the Profile w/Mail payload?

I thought because that's the place where you could specify (per user and/or group) the Mail settings. Like IMAP, ports, SSL and such. It seems logical that this info is needed on the system. But then again, this has been entered in Profile Manager. So somewhere on the Server that info is known. Then why is the extra download and creation of a profile in System Preferences needed?

So I just e-mailed to the newly created mail-account. No mail-delivery error came back. So then I inserted that account in Mail.app. And all settings (mail, smtp server) entered were all accepted... And then (to my big surprise) I also received the testing e-mail. I could even reply and that arrived as well.

So again, why-the-frog going through all this trouble, when actual the downloading of Profiles w/Mail payloads are not necessary at all?? Or am I missing out on something and will all be going wrong in the end still?

Ok well, after this I do hope someone still has an answer for the original problem. But I now know that for having e-mail accounts you can do all the things, up until the Download for the profile from Profile Manager. And the latter is definitely NOT necessary. Big relieve.

But this aside, I do have some new info on the original issue. Like I said before, my guess was it has to do with either DNS or Certificates. Have one of these a little bit wrong, and you're screwed. Sooo yesterday I decided to finally have a real trusted certificate for my domain. Instead of my own self-signed one. For https and mail. So after buying and installing this I decided to give the whole profiling thing another chance. And to my surprise I got a new popup. Concerning certifcate for 'autodiscover.domain.nl'. Although I checked the extra box on, I still got the error again for 'auto discovery settings'. But I do know now that this has to do with the certificates. Probably for the SSL, I defined in the Mail payload. Although I also tried that once, without SSL, it still didn't work. But like I said, it's a very delicate thing, certificates and DNS. So maybe something has to be refreshed or re-installed with this new certificate. Don't know. But it's not a major issue anymore for me. I just give this info for someone else to bite on. And if (s)he does have the answer, it would be nice to share it here with me. Thanks in advance. For now I will just leave this issue be.