Apps from Mac App Store crash when started (CODESIGNING error)

Excellent news!

I don't exactly recall, but I do believe in each of my attempts...

...I created a new Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition and then secure erased the entire drive (just to be sure :);

...I then did the reinstall of High Sierra, which now seems to convert the installation drive to APFS, which is not what I want but oh well Apple knows best. ;-P

...I'm pretty sure in one of my attempts I started with APFS formatted partition but I can't remember as I was starting to get frustrated.

I'm going to try it again as you have stated:

"...reformate... APFS instead of Mac OS Extended... clean install of High Sierra"

It will try to post later in the day if I am successful in this first step. If so I will also try to do a restore of my users and settings from a current Time Machine backup.

I just tried another reformat and High Sierra install, and the problem persists for me. All app store apps crash immediately with a code signing error: CSSMERR_TP_CERT_REVOKED .

Please file bugs on this issue: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

I filed one yesterday but it hasn't been updated yet. A wave of duplicate bug reports will help convince Apple the problem’s on their end (which it is.)

JUST AN FYI...!

I just completed an install of the much older macOS Mavericks using the exact same procedure as described in another discussion thread for my High Sierra install

The App Store apps are working in Mavericks!

I’m so glad I found this, for a moment I thought I was the only one with this issue.

I am on a Mac Pro 5,1 and freshly installed High Sierra last Sunday.

Something I do always first when installing macOS ‘freshly’ is downloading AppStore applications I use on a regular basis. For me every single application I tried to download was not working (sometimes I couldn’t even download it). It would close immediately after opening it, and I’d get the same report:

Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (Code Signature Invalid)

Termination Reason: Namespace CODESIGNING, Code 0x1

Also, when I installed Pages, Numbers and Keynote each app appeared in the AppStore under “3 incompatible updates”.

I tried all kind of tricks people suggested, but so far nothing worked.

For now I installed OS X El Capitan on a second drive, there everything works fine. I hope this issue will be resolved soon.

I’m currently doing some additional testing to validate our situation.

I did a restore back to the original system that came with my iMac and I’m upgrading to each OS sequentiality and testing the App Store. I started with Lion LOL and not too much works unpatched. I expected this because it pretty old OS, but I needed to start at a factory condition. Anyway, so far I have completed Mountain Lion and Mavericks and the issue is not present. The App Store functions correctly, compatible apps download correctly, and best of all.... they start without error. It’s time consuming but I will continue to test all they way up to High Sierra and post my findings

I was introduced a solution that works with some apps.

Open terminal and type:

sudo codesign —deep -fs - /Applications/Pages.app

After typing -fs - you can drag your desired application. I tried it with pages. While it now opens and gives me the option to either create a new document or open an existing one, it closes again after I chose one of said options. But with some other apps it actually worked.

Update:

I found a workaround for Pages, Keynote and Numbers. It’s a little bit annoying and probably not worth the work, yet I just wanted to mention it.

If you have El Capitan on another drive or mac you can copy pages from it and paste it in your High Sierra application folder. Then run said terminal command and it will open - which surprises me a little bit. Now you can use pages, yet it’s the “El Capitan version”, so not the latest version for High Sierra.

Other ‘apple appsm I managed to get working now (with said terminal command) that didn’t before are iMovie and Garage Band.

Update:

I found a workaround for Pages, Keynote and Numbers. It’s a little bit annoying and probably not worth the work, yet I just wanted to mention it.

If you have El Capitan on another drive or mac you can copy pages from it and paste it in your High Sierra application folder. Then run said terminal command and it will open - which surprises me a little bit. Now you can use pages, yet it’s the “El Capitan version”, so not the latest version for High Sierra.

Other ‘apple apps’ I managed to get working now (with said terminal command) that didn’t before are iMovie and Garage Band.

I have the same problem. All apps I download from the App Store do not work. Downloading works. Do not open. Use High Sierra version 10.13.6

Newly uploaded on 11/17/2020

All tricks (reinstall, create new user, etc.) do not work.

The Affinity Photo App worked until the reinstallation of High Sierra.

Has Apple already announced something?

Just want to remind everyone who’s experiencing this to please file a bug report:

https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

Given the severity of this bug, I'm hoping Apple will fix it even though it only affects an older OS. I would think breaking the entire App Store should be big enough to warrant a fix.

pininfrna is right please do file a report https://feedbackassistant.apple.com

Also, if you're continuing to test, please always let crash reporter send the apps crash information to Apple.

High Sierra is currently still an Apple supported operating system.

Yep you would think so but in the end of the day apple doesn't care. Even if the entire OS X wasn't working they wouldn't do anything except tell us to update. I filed the report in hope that this company that we all love actually does something to help their customers.

Hey Peter,

I've got no answers for you, just empathy. I've got the exact same setup: mid 2010 MacBook Pro with freshly installed High Sierra. None of my purchased apps from the Mac App Store work.

Have you found a solution for yourself yet?

Yesterday reinstalled High Sierra (10.13.6) on MacBook Pro 8.1 (MD313).

Faced with problems launching applications from the AppStore - Microsoft Remote Desktop and The Unarchiver

I hope that Apple will solve this problem.

Same Codesigning error & resulting crash reports. After reading multiple recent discussions on the Apple Support site I chose to go back to OS X 10.12.6(restore) dumping OS X 10.13 High Sierra(recently installed Nov.15.2020). I did a restore with Time Machine after rebooting in recovery mode. The process was simpler as my computer does not have a SSD. No APFS files to deal with. All my App Store apps are back. Thank you everyone for contributing.