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Reboot Private Devices
Learn how device admins can remotely reboot Private Devices using the BrowserStack Device Management Dashboard.
Remotely reboot your BrowserStack Private Devices directly from the Device Management Dashboard. This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough of the reboot functionality, including its prerequisites, behavior, limitations, and error handling.
The reboot option is provided to simulate device restart scenarios for testing purposes or to resolve minor device issues without needing physical access.
Prerequisites
- Permissions: You must have device admin or group owner permissions.
- Device eligibility: The dashboard disables the reboot option for devices that are in an active session, offline, or undergoing a cleaning cycle.
How to reboot a device
Follow these steps to initiate a remote reboot:
Navigate to the Device Management Dashboard and locate the device you want to reboot from the list of available Private Devices.
Click the More options menu next to the device.
Select Reboot Device.
If the reboot option is disabled, hover over it to see a tooltip explaining why (e.g., “Device is in use and cannot be rebooted.”).
A confirmation dialog appears. Click Confirm to proceed.
A message confirms that the reboot is triggered and provides an estimated time for completion (for example, “Reboot initiated. The device will be available in 5-10 minutes.”).
Understanding the reboot process
When a reboot is triggered, the device undergoes the following stages, which are reflected in real-time on the dashboard:
- Triggered: You initiate the reboot from the dashboard.
- Status change: The device’s status immediately changes to Rebooting. This new status is visible on the Device Management Dashboard and the product dashboards (Live, App Live, etc.).
- Rebooting: The device performs a full power cycle. This process typically takes 5-10 minutes.
- Completion: Once the reboot is complete, the device automatically comes back online and its status updates to Available in the device pool, ready for new testing sessions.
Feature limitations and rules
Please be aware of the following rules and behaviors associated with the reboot feature.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
The ability to reboot a device is strictly controlled. Only users with device admin or group owner roles can perform this action. Users with other roles do not see the option.
When reboot is disabled
The Reboot Device action is disabled (greyed out) under the following conditions:
- The device is in an active session (In Use).
- The device is already in the Rebooting state.
- The device is Offline, Blocked, or in a Cleaning state.
Rate limiting
To prevent misuse and ensure stability, a rate limit applies to the reboot functionality.
- Limit: By default, you can reboot a single device a maximum of 5 times per day.
- Reset: This limit resets at midnight UTC every day.
- Error: If you exceed the limit, you receive an error message.
Error handling and troubleshooting
The following table outlines potential error scenarios and the messages you may encounter.
| Scenario | Error Message |
|---|---|
| Attempting to reboot a device in an unavailable state. | The Reboot Device option is disabled. A tooltip on hover explains the reason, e.g., “Device is in cleaning, offline, or blocked state and cannot be rebooted.” |
| Attempting to reboot a device that is already rebooting. | The Reboot Device option is disabled. A tooltip on hover states, “Device is currently rebooting. This takes 5-10 minutes.” |
| The reboot command fails to execute on the backend. | A message appears: “Reboot failed, please try again.” |
| A user without the required permissions tries to trigger the action. | The user does not see the “Reboot Device” option. If they attempt via an API, they receive an RBAC error: “You do not have permission to reboot this device.” |
| The rate limit for rebooting a device has been exceeded. | A message appears: “Device was rebooted five times today. Please wait 24 hours and try again.” |
For Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) related to device reboot on Private Devices, refer to our FAQ section.
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