Intune Fresh Start creating duplicate devices

Question

Had a weird issue when doing a compliance check on a device that wasn't getting software, and found that there are 2 instances for the same device. One is an AutoPilot instance, and the other is the actual real device. Is there a way to merge these into the same device again?

There was only one device, associated with the correct groups, and we ran the 'Fresh Start' process before assigning it to a new user. The device received the correct software, and the assigned user was able to log in, so we didn't think anything of it.
A month later, we started pushing new software to the group that the device is part of, but the device was not receiving it. When searching for the device in Intune > Devices > Windows, there was only the single device, and it had no group assignments. When going to the group, we could see that the device was part of the group. When removing the device from the group and re-adding it, I found that there were 2 instances of the same device names, but difference Device/Object IDs.

In talking with the tech who did the reimage, they said that they have seen this happen on occasion before. When doing a fresh start, the device will occasionally prompt for a device name during the setup process (which isn't normal), and then it creates this 2nd device.
Any ideas on why this would happen? Any ideas on how to prevent it, or how to merge it back with it's original ID when it does happen? These devices are Intune-only devices, so it is weird that it would have issues finding itself in the system.

Answer 1

@CaedenV2, Thanks for posting in Q&A.

From your description, I know there was created duplicate devices in Intune after Fresh Start.

Based on my research, if the device was previously enrolled in Intune and owned by one user, then you do Fresh Start and assign it to another user, it may create duplicate device IDs in Intune.

If you want to give the device to a new user, the recommended method is do wipe action and then re-enroll the device.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/remote-actions/devices-wipe

If you want to delete the duplicate device IDs, it is suggested to try to configure a Device clean-up rule to clean the inactive record.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/device-management-in-microsoft/using-intune-device-cleanup-rules-amp-160/ba-p/377272

Moreover, if you want to delete duplicate devices directly, you can just remove all device records in Intune about it and re-image the device, after that you can enroll it to Intune with a new user.

Hope above information can be helpful.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.