Unable to update Apps in App Store on iOS 12.4

I have updated to 12.4.1 on both my iPad and iPhone - which does not resolve this issue. The 12.4.1 update was largely to re-apply a security patch that was undone with the 12.4 update.

This is unlikely to be a device issue (i.e., not resolvable via an Erase and Install) because:

1. The issue began to impact different Apple hardware at the same time (iPad, iPhone, Mac)
2. For a short time-window last week, users with this issue (including me) were able to update some apps, but this stopped working shortly after
3. The issue impacts multiple users in the same exact way, and the likelihood of any corruption propagating to all of a user's devices is highly unlikely.

In any case, I have an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and 3 separate MacBooks. It is completely unrealistic for me to Erase and Install, especially when the research I have done strongly supports that the AppleID might be the root cause of this issue.

I suspect the root-cause is the receipt validation mechanism which is responsible for checking that a user's AppleID is authorised to download/update an app. If the receipt list on Apple's end is broken, this might explain why the update fails. If the response is cached locally, this might also explain why sometimes the Update icon bounces back immediately, when sometimes it progresses to the status circle, before eventually bouncing back to the Update button.

I suspect the flow to update an app goes like this:

1. User presses the Update button
2. A request is sent to the Apple AppStore, with the app's unique ID, to check if that ID exists within the customer's purchase history
3. If the receipt is 'validated' the app is allowed to update
4. If the receipt cannot be 'validated', the update fails

This is detailed within the Apple Developer Guides:

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/releasenotes/General/ValidateAppStoreReceipt/Introduction.html

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/releasenotes/General/ValidateAppStoreReceipt/Chapters/ValidateRemotely.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010573-CH104-SW1

It is impossible for a end-user to troubleshoot this directly because communication to the AppStore is protected by certificate pinning which prevents Man-in-the-middle attacks.

At this stage I am inclined to ask Apple Tier 2 support to simulate an update from my account, read the AppStore response and compare that with the status codes detailed in the article above.

Saj

I am the Twitter user referenced earlier in this discussion. To summarise:

1. Began to experience the issue last week
2. Issue impacts my ability to install updates on all of my iOS and macOS devices
3. New purchases (Free and Paid) can be completed successfully

Things I have already tried:

1. Rebooting all my devices
2. Signing out, and back in, to the AppStore
3. 'Resetting' the iPad
4. Deleting Profiles on my iPad
5. Turning off, and back on Automatic Date/Time
6. Rechecking payment information on my AppleID account
7. Enabling, and disabling Automatic Updates (I like reading the Release Notes before updating my apps)
8. Trying to update over different connections -- Wifi, Cellular and through a VPN

Yesterday, I tried to MiTM the connection between the phone and the AppStore to try and analyse the response. Curiously, the Charles Proxy MiTM certificate, which I often use to for this sort of testing, is no longer trusted by the phone, despite re-installing and explicitly granting Trust via Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings. This means I cannot set Charles as the SSL Proxy. This does make me wander whether an intermediary certificate has been revoked, which is causing the app update mechanism to break too.

This is unlikely to be a software issue as it does not explain why all my devices began to experience the issue at the same time -- I would believe it if it were localised to just iOS -- but this is impacting my Mac running Mojave too. I suspect something has gone awry on the update server CDN.

Apple Support have been patient and supportive so far; however, a considerable amount of time has been spent doing some very basic and routine troubleshooting, which they validated through a Screen Sharing session (also in part because of my refusal to Erase and Install all my devices). My last discussion was two days ago when I specifically asked the issue to be escalated to Tier 2 support. I have heard nothing since.

What I have also noticed is that the cadence of tweets referencing the same issue is increasing; suggesting that whatever the issue is might be propagating through their cloud infrastructure and impacting new territories and users.

Good news my friends!

I've just managed to update apps on iPhone, iPad and MacBook. It did not work a few hours ago but now it's working. Cross my fingers for you.

....

It's too early to celebrate :) I updated just a few apps. Now it does not work again.

I'm also having the exact same issue like you guys. Been having this problem for more than a week now and it is really frustrating not to be able to update my existing apps.

I already escalated this issue to Apple support multiple times. They have been really patient on helping me but so far no fixes for me yet and I'm still waiting for their further response...

Like Mike, I was briefly able to update two apps on my iPhone. The update process has not worked at all since then.

The Apple Support team in Cork have been in touch - they have done screen recordings, and taken log dumps from the iPad. The case has been referred to the Engineering teams but there is no ETA when this issue is likely to be resolved.

AppStore enforces SSL certificate pinning so sadly I cannot decipher the server response to understand what the issue might be.

I just spoke with Apple Support and got quite a bit of a runaround. At first it seemed positive.

I have two devices that both started having this problem at the exact same time. I've tried both devices across 3 different wifi networks, and one of them on a mobile network (one of them is wifi only). My iCloud account is the only one that has ever been logged in to either device.

They had me test downloading new apps. Deleting and then downloading an app that wouldn't update. Both were fine. But updating existing apps still didn't work.

One thing they also suggested was signing out of iTunes, resetting the network, then going in to App Store and only signing back in when prompted after updating the app. All failed.

This person then had me sign in to iTunes on my phone using someone elses account. This worked. To me this confirms the problem is my account, not my devices.

They put me through to the iTunes Account Billing Team, they had me try a few times while they watched my account. They couldn't find any issues. Put me back through to Technical Support.

This person really struggled to understand the problem. Kept insisting I was trying to use two accounts despite the fact the ONLY time a second account has ever touched my phone was earlier today while troubleshooting. The second account was of a random person here in the office. So the fact it updated using this second persons account confirmed other accounts CAN update apps downloaded with a different primary account.

Now they want me to do a full restore of my device. To me this isn't troubleshooting, it's just getting rid of me and putting me on to a different support agent. I'll try it tonight anyway just so it can be ruled out.

As per others in this thread, doing a full factory reset and setting up everything from scratch isn't an option. Especially not on multiple devices. Not when I am of the opinion this problem is due to my account and will recur as soon as one of the newly downloaded apps gets another update.

I'm also having this issue on both of my devices(iPhone and iPad) using the same Apple ID. Same issue with Sulfo, whenever i tap the "update" button it will spin a bit then it will immidiately revert back to "update" button again thus it won't let me update the app. This is happening on both of my devices.

I don't think this is a coincidence that both of my devices are having software problem at the same time but rather im pretty convinced that the problem is with my Apple ID.

Is anyone else in the beta program? I joined that to test out iPadOS on my old iPad, but haven't used it since one of the early releases. I'm wondering if that may have somehow affected my account, seeing as the devices having issue are non-beta? I might pull out the old ipad again tonight and see if it behaves. Try it under both iPadOS and a clean install of iOS (it'll take a while as I'll have to wait for apps to require updates).

So i got a call from Apple support a few hours ago. The Apple engineer advised me to restore my phone to factory settings and set it up as a new phone. So basically wipe everything clean then download a few new apps and hope for those downloaded apps to have a new update soon. This way I can check whether this will fix the issue or not and see whether the problem lies with the software itself or my Apple ID.

So I got a call from one of the Senior Advisors yesterday night and she advised me to try and restore my phone and set it up as a new phone (completely clean restore) to see whether my issue regarding “unable to update apps” can be fixed that way.

After our phone call, I followed her advise and did a clean restore right away and download a bunch of apps hoping I would get an update from those downloaded apps very soon. Luckily, I got 6 new updates today from those downloaded apps from last night but surprisingly i’m still UNABLE to update my apps! The issue still persist. I can still download a new one but unable to update the current one.

I can now 100% suspect that the issue lies with my Apple ID and the connection to App Store server. I already did the “worst case” troubleshoot of clean restore but the issue is still there. I already reported this back to them.

Btw: For every app I try to update the following log-entry (e.g. from apple support app xcode - console) occurs:

[UPD17983BC5/com.apple.supportapp:1130498044] Failing purchase with error: Error Domain=SSErrorDomain Code=13 "MZFairplay.sinftoolFailure_message" UserInfo={SSPurchaseErrorKeyShouldCancelPurchaseBatch=true, NSLocalizedDescription=MZFairplay.sinftoolFailure_message}

As it worked fine last week on every device with every ios / macos version from the last 2 weeks, its quite unlikely the error is on my / our side and the error message also seems to point more to apple.

So hopefully apple gets its infrastructure fixed soon. It is no option to set up every device from scratch and also no option to re-install every app every time it wants an update.

anyway on macos also downloads don't work with the same effect, console output for each (example is twitterrific), interesting lines:

NSURLConnection finished with error - code -1100

fehler 18:46:58.573240 +0200 appstoreagent [CommerceKitProgress]: Task for com.iconfactory.Twitterrific5 has failed with reason: 202

standard 18:46:58.573307 +0200 appstoreagent [ProgressCache]: Canceling progress for bundleID: com.iconfactory.Twitterrific5

standard 18:46:58.645440 +0200 appstoreagent [LibraryService]: [2A011D7C] Completed with 1 result: <ASDApp: 0x7ff436559550>: {bundleID = com.iconfactory.Twitterrific5; storeItemID = 1289378661; storeExternalVersionID = 830174806; installed = 1}

Guys, app update in App Store is suddenly working again. I'm able to update all my existing apps with no problem at all.

I think they manage to fix it. So try to update yours too and see if it works!

I wasn't all that hopeful when I saw your reply, as others have had it work sporadically or for one or two apps then fail for the rest. But I just tested it, and I too am working for my phone. Will try the tablet when I get home tonight.

I was up to 57 apps needing updates. Be interesting to see how long this takes.