Detailed Resolution Summary: Chrome Policy Lockout

This document summarizes the troubleshooting steps and final resolution for enabling the “Use secure DNS” setting in Google Chrome on macOS when it was disabled by a persistent enterprise policy.

1. The Core Problem

• Symptom: The “Use secure DNS” setting was greyed out in Chrome settings with the message “This setting is disabled on managed browsers.”
• Diagnosis (chrome://policy): The browser was locked by the policy key BuiltInDnsClientEnabled set to false.
• Source of Policy: The policy was consistently tagged as Source: Platform, indicating it was enforced by the macOS system layer (a remnant of the user’s previous corporate environment.
• Challenge: The policy was exceptionally tenacious, persisting after the deletion of common configuration files, suggesting it was being immediately re-injected or stored in a deep system cache.

2. Required Diagnostic Steps (Confirmed Lockout)

Step	Action	Outcome	Policy Status
Initial Check	chrome://policy analysis.	Confirmed BuiltInDnsClientEnabled: false and Source: Platform.	LOCKED
Constraint Check	Ruled out Google Advanced Protection Program as the cause.	The policy conflict did not align with APP’s known control points.	LOCKED
Profile Check (Step 1)	Checked macOS System Settings for Configuration Profiles.	No profiles found or removal was ineffective.	LOCKED

3. Execution of Cleanup (The Escalation)

The fix required sequentially escalating cleanup actions, specifically targeting known preference locations for system, managed, and user settings until the policy enforcement was removed.

Escalation Level	Command(s) Executed	Purpose	Final Policy Status
Tier 1: System/Cloud Policy Files	sudo rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist sudo rm -f /Library/Managed\ Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome\ Cloud\ Enrollment/*	Remove all common system-wide and cloud management policy files.	Still Locked
Tier 2: User-Level Policy Files	rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist	Remove the primary user-level preference file.	Still Locked
Tier 3: The Nuclear Cleanup (Successful Break)	defaults read com.google.Chrome (Diagnostic to confirm domain deletion).	Confirmed the preference domain itself was gone, isolating the issue to caching/re-injection.	N/A
	rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Preferences rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Local\ State	Final, successful action: Deleted core, non-synced user configuration files and the local state file, forcing Chrome to rebuild its settings without the policy artifact.	Policy Removed
	sudo killall cfprefsd	Force-cleared the macOS preference caching daemon.	Policy Removed

4. Final Status

After executing the Tier 3 cleanup and relaunching Chrome:

• Policy Verification: The chrome://policy page displayed “No policies set” for Chrome Policies.
• Functionality: The “Use secure DNS” toggle became enabled and fully functional for the user to control.