Are you CERTAIN you can re-buy an app for free? In the beginning, the warning would say something like "you own this already, you can download it for free." Now it says that your card will be charged immediately.
I had the same problem. I deleted the apps that weren't showing up properly on the app screen ( just black and white icons with the app icon). That worked. I would assume this might have something to do with the upcoming update tomorrow, Friday the 12th. That update is supposed to fix a lot of these types of bugs. Lets hope!
I solved my problem in a similar way. I used my iPhone to download all the updates and re-synced them back to iTunes on my computer. That left one app that didn't seem to want to play nice. So I deleted it off my phone and iTunes. Error 5002 vanished after that.
I re-downloaded that app and it installed fine and the error hasn't come back.
NOTE: If you screw up and wipe out your Apps, you’re SOL. You should also know that iTunes may want to reinstall all your applications on your iPhone/iPod, so it might be best to hold off doing this until you’re ready for this (and bear in mind that my experience with iPhone application remove/install hasn’t been stellar, and I’ve had to completely restore from scratch a few times).
1. Back up Mobile Applications from /Users/myusername/Music/iTunes by dragging them to another disk — simply moving them elsewhere on the same disk doesn’t work, since iTunes keeps track of their location. Duplicating the folder would likely work too, if you haven’t got anywhere else to copy them.
2. Once you have the Mobile Applications folder backed up, and have verified and reverified that you’ve got a copy and haven’t simply moved the folder, open iTunes WITHOUT YOUR IPHONE/IPOD CONNECTED and select all your applications and delete them. (if your iPhone/iPod were connected, it would now start helpfully deleting apps)
3. When they’re all gone, quit iTunes
4. Start iTunes again and verify that you have no apps listed.
5. Drag your backup Mobile Applications folder to your open iTunes window — if you have default iTunes settings (copy/manage my music), then iTunes will start re-adding your applications. The nice thing about this is that it also eliminates all the duplicate apps and renames along the way — all those updates you keep doing don’t get rid of older versions, so these just pile up as “Application 1″, 2, 3, etc. You may end up saving a lot of disk space. Many apps have gone through name changes too, so you may clear up some confusion and duplication too.
6. Read the iTunes notices carefully — you will likely get something like “an OLDER version of this app already exists, do you want to replace it” (you DO), or “a NEWER version of this app already exists, do you want to replace it” (you DON’T), or sometimes a mention that this app already exists as the same version (replace it).
7.0 Quit iTunes, then restart it to “set” the changes
You will end up with a pristine iTunes Mobile Applications folder at the end of this process, and will likely save some space too.
Your 5002 error should also be gone too.
REMEMBER THAT YOU COULD POTENTIALLY LOSE ALL YOUR APPLICATIONS IF YOU SCREW UP, so please do this at your own risk, and as always, make sure you have backups!
I did this and it fixed my incorrect update count and the 5002 error!!!!!!
Mine was happy dragging the folder to the desktop, you don't need to move it to another disk as you are deleting them from iTunes anyway. It no longer keeps track of files that aren't in iTunes.
1 Drag the Mobile Applications folder from /Users/username/Music/iTunes to the desktop
2 Open iTunes WITHOUT THE IPHONE/IPOD CONNECTED and select all your applications and delete them. (if your iPhone/iPod were connected, it would now start helpfully deleting apps)
3. When they’re all gone, quit iTunes
4. Start iTunes again and verify that you have no apps listed.
5. Drag your the Mobile Applications folder to your open iTunes window — if you have default iTunes settings (copy/manage my music), then iTunes will start re-adding your applications.
6. Read the iTunes notices carefully — you will likely get something like “an OLDER version of this app already exists, do you want to replace it” (you DO), or “a NEWER version of this app already exists, do you want to replace it” (you DON’T), or sometimes a mention that this app already exists as the same version (replace it).
7. Quit iTunes, then restart it to “set” the changes
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I've had the wrong application count since day one, and the 5002 error since iTunes 8. This fixes both!!
I found a pretty easy way that worked for me. I simply double clicked every app icon and three of them came up with a window saying something like the original file couldn't be located, would I like to locate it. I then pointed to the .ipa file in the itunes\mobile applications folder and the problem went away!
Using iTunes 8 and OSX 10.4.11 I updated my apps using iTunes. Then I deselected the apps causing the errors in iTunes and synced so as to uninstall them on my iphone 3G (2.1 firmware). Once uninstalled, I rechecked the apps and synced thus reinstalling them. Problem solved. No more update errors.
yup - clicked on all the app icons. Dashbuster was 'not found' so I navigated to the Dashbuster app in the Music -> iTunes folder -> Mobile Applications and selected on the Dashbuster 1.1.5.ipa file
Thank you for this fix. I was able to delete the app, and then add it back using File>Add to Library... And the fix stuck. Apple needs to post a kb article on this.
