After successfully installing Goodnotes for Education via Jamf School, you may encounter a situation where the license key is not recognized on some or all of your users' devices. This results in them using the free version of Goodnotes, which limits their ability to create more than 3 notebooks or edit existing ones.
There are a couple of things you can try:
- Force-quit the app on the affected device(s) and relaunch it, making sure there's a stable Wi-Fi connection.
- Restart the affected device(s).
- Check that the license key is correct. It's best to copy and paste the provided key in full instead of typing it.
- Check that the Managed Configuration consists of only the <plist> content:
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>LicenseKey</key>
<string>YOUR_LICENSE_KEY_HERE</string>
</dict>
</plist> - Check that "Apply Managed Configuration" above the XML field is enabled, and also "Managed Configuration: <Configuration name>" is enabled for the entire scope or the device group that includes the affected devices:
- If the checkboxes above are already enabled, disable them and enable them again, then click Save.
- Check that the list of "Devices assigned by a user" is empty in case you've allowed teachers to install Goodnotes. Any devices listed in this section likely won't receive the license key deployment:
- Check that you've exempted "Goodnotes" from any firewall or content-filtering app that you're using.
- Back up the data on the non-validating devices and reinstall Goodnotes on them, or even reset the devices (likely a Jamf issue).
- If the affected devices show a banner message saying "Device Limit Exceeded", it means the license key is at capacity and you'll need to contact us to have usage reset or adjusted.
- Make sure the affected devices have the same Password Policy in Apple School Manager as the others. For example, they all need to use the same Standard password policy.
As a quick test for whether the Managed App Configuration has reached a device, please try this on that device:
- Launch Goodnotes and stay in the library view (where you see all your documents).
- Visit this URL in Safari: goodnotes6://managed-app-config. That URL allows you to see exactly what the Managed App Configuration contents pushed to the device are. We suggest you keep trying things until you get the license key to appear on that screen:
If the issue persists, please send us the following details for our investigation:
- The full Managed App Configuration text, or a screenshot of it.
- The Diagnostic Data of the device(s) having this issue. Please open Goodnotes ⚙️ menu in the library view > About > Export Diagnostic Data.