App Store "Updates" looks very wrong

I believe this occurs for all Macs running High Sierra or earlier, which Apple does not formally support anymore. But the update page is still usable and still works. I did some updates on my Macbook Air running High Sierra. It doesn't look as nice but the functionality is still all there, in terms of updating Apps.

ovirt wrote:

@steve626, what leads you to "belief". Is there a statement from Apple to say that the behaviour is expected? Or is it from your personal experience?

Evidently @BDAqua concurs with you, however @ChrisPixelZoom says he spoke with Tier 1 and Tier 2 Apple support with neither of them suggesting that the behaviour was normal for unsupported versions.

My belief is from personal experience. I have access to Macs running El Capitan, Sierra, and High Sierra. All of them have this "new" odd primitive appearance for the App Store. The computers (that I have access to) that are on Mojave, Catalina or higher all look "normal." All of these systems (Sierra thru Big Sur) still have App Store functionality, it is really more of a cosmetic thing. In my view, it's not worth getting riled up about, it's cosmetic.

As OS's are moved into the "unsupported" category, things slowly stop working. On the El Capitan Mac, there are some companies whose emails do not display in Apple Mail, I have to read them on another computer or use web mail on the El Capitan Mac (which is a 2008 iMac, so El Capitan is as far as it can go). Also on the unsupported Macs, some web pages have stopped displaying properly in Safari -- I have to use either Firefox or Chrome for those. Part off me is a bit surprised that this has happened with the AppStore, but a part of me is not surprised. Apple Support people tend to read from scripts and those scripts no longer apply to unsupported Macs, they are ... well ... "unsupported." That means some things stop working, eventually, some sooner, some later.

Interesting question. I have two Apple IDs. One has two-step authentication activated (and it cannot be rolled back). The other ID, which is the one I use for AppStore and iTunes, has not had two-step activated. But I don't see how this could possibly be related to a failure to load CSS (cascading style sheet) from an external resource site. As noted above, this is a CSP issue – Content Security Policy. High Sierra apparently is not wired to handle the CSP that must have been added to the App Store in the last month or so. Too many people are having this problem to lay blame on the client side. It is a server side issue that Apple can fix in a heartbeat if they really care.

I have the same problem on three Mac desktops and one MacBook Pro – all running High Sierra. The failure to load CSS styles only occurs in the Updates tab of App Store. Is this due to a Content Security Policy or a Mixed Content issue that High Sierra cannot satisfy or process? If so, why do the other tabs load CSS flawlessly? I.e. Featured, Top Charts and Purchased. I am pretty sure this poster on another thread had isolated the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252635034?answerId=255006847022#255006847022

ChrisPixelZoom wrote:

Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

FWIW, I see the same thing with High Sierra & El Capitan VMs. So it's not a problem with your Mac.

Same behavior on Sierra too for me. Something screwed on their side... again. Got a lot of AppStore problems on Mojave a few months ago but now ok.

Then, if I read correctly, El Capitan, Sierra and High Sierra are all affected now!

I suspect that what's occurred is that Apple updated the app updater without regard to creating incompatibility with High Sierra and older OS versions. I spent an hour with a tier one tech going through the same nonsense everyone else has been subjected to, so what burns my *** even more than Apple not giving a **** about users of older hardware who cannot upgrade higher that High Sierra is that Apple can't just post this bug they created and won't fix on the screens that Apple techs use to trouble shoot. This is a known issue that Apple created. Own up to it, inform your customer support techs so they don't waste our time and theirs, and acknowledge the this is just one of many ways we can expect our older hardware to become obsolete by plan.

Oh boy, that's the wrong one.

Here you go (I hope): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252635034

I had the same problem on a 2017 MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.13. I fixed it by upgrading my macOS. I was able to upgrade to the latest OS, Big Sur. I found this article helpful for figuring out what's the latest OS you can upgrade to: https://www.uvm.edu/it/kb/article/outdated-macos-and-how-to-upgrade/

You can upgrade without using the Update tab. Instead, find the OS you want to upgrade to directly in the App Store (online or in the app).

meO-Bp wrote:

This remains a problem on each of my devices.

It is clearly a Server-side problem as a result of how the App Store is feeding the layout design for this page.

(As noted, other pages in the App Store do display correctly.)

How do we push this up so that Apple will prioritize a fix?? Surely they have the technical expertise to be able to build a basic Responsive web page that will display correctly in their own specialized browser environment (which is what the App Store is.)!

While the appearance of the App Store is not the same any more as it is on the more advanced MacOS versions, in High Sierra it still works. You can click on the buttons to upgrade, etc. I don't think there is anything to "fix" as the functionality is all still there. It is more of a cosmetic issue that stems from High Sierra not supporting the rendering now being used. It still works fine, however, there is nothing that needs fixing.

Do I think they are Normal???

No as in you're right, but yes, this is what happens to older OS versions that they no longer support.

This remains a problem on each of my devices.

It is clearly a Server-side problem as a result of how the App Store is feeding the layout design for this page.

(As noted, other pages in the App Store do display correctly.)

How do we push this up so that Apple will prioritize a fix?? Surely they have the technical expertise to be able to build a basic Responsive web page that will display correctly in their own specialized browser environment (which is what the App Store is.)!