Unable to purchase.

I get this often. For me it happens when I try to purchase a free app that fails to download because it is in the process of a price change (this item is being modified error or something similar). The app later becomes not free so when the iphone tries to repurchase it later for free it fails because it is not free anymore.

It is good to know there is a solution with iExplorer. Apple really needs to look into this issue because it is bothersome.

I found this thread by searching Google for "Unable to Purchase", I have read all 15 1/2 pages of posts and tried a few of the suggestions with no luck until I tried the removal of the SQL file with iExplorer.

First, along with the "Unable to Purchase" dialog that occasionally popped up. I saw two other symptoms of this problem. One started back in January when I started being prompted for my AppleID password at random times:

I was a bit concerned at first since I thought I might be being Phished. Then I found a pattern. The password prompt was appearing everytime I installed an app from a different device or iTunes and iCloud added the app to the device. So, for example, I download a Universal app in iTunes. Both my iPhone and my iPad would prompt me for my AppleID password.

A little later, I noticed that something was happening with my installed apps. After waking the device, I would see some icons grey out with progress bar spaces and titles of "Waiting..." under them. A second later, the icons would reappear (still showing the progress bar and "Waiting..." text), followed a few seconds later by the icons fully restoring one by one (very quickly):

When this happened, my iPhone and iPad would also freeze for a short period of time. This started pretty much every time I woke the device up after a couple of minutes of not being used.

It wasn't until a little later that the "Unable to Purchase" pop up appeared when I was updating my device or purchasing a new app.

For some reason, I can't find the "Media" folder on my iPhone using iExplorer (it's jailbroken), so I used the Jailbreak app iFile to located the Downloads folder. I deleted the "downloads.28.sqlitedb" file, rebooted the iPhone and waited a few minutes. When I woke the iPhone up, I didn't see the greying icon effect and didn't see any freezing either.

I then used iExplorer to remove the same file from my iPad.

It's been about 12 hours since I did this and I haven't seen any freezing or greyed icons since. After installing apps from iTunes, I wasn't prompted for a password on either device and both had the new apps installed.

I'm betting I won't see the "Unable to Purchase" pop up either.

After reading that others have deleted the other folders in the Downloads folder, I'm thinking that I'll do that shortly. I haven't yet for concerns that it would cause problems.

Currently, my "downloads.28.sqlitedb" file is 80KB's where it was over 799KB's when I was seeing this problem.

How long has this been going on for now? This could be fixed by Apple in one day if they gave a ****. I guess they're too busy counting our money, and building new Apple stores to fix this.

Indeed, we must get the accountants, architects, and construction workers on this issue, posthaste!

To be fair to Apple. Deleting the downloads.28.sqlitedb file seems to fix the problem which implies that it's a corrupted db file. Great. So what caused the db to be corrupted?

This forum thread has a pretty good idea as to what might be causing the fault. However, we don't know for sure. Apple needs to reproduce the problem every time they attempt it so that they can use debuggers to figure out just what is going on when the problem occurs.

It's possible that iOS 5.1 actually fixes the problem. We need to keep a watch on our downloads and such to see if we have a problem download, if this problem reoccurs.

In my case, the problem went away for a while. Then started again right after the 5.1 update. I never attempted deleting the corrupt file I read about here.

I'm still doing well after a restore from backup. I wonder if anyone else tried this. (Although I don't always see the badge on the App Store until I enter it, all else is well)

hi everyone, i would like everyone to know i emailed Tim Cook, linking to this thread and that blog that explains the Iexplorer fix, and i received a phonecall to warn me that a software engineer will be ringing me to ask me further questions about our problems. So to the people who said they don't care, they do. How many of you bothered to report the bug, rather than just discuss it in here. Software bugs need to be reported not discussed. I hope this engineer will find a fix to our corrupted apps database and push it out in a future update. chowwww

ps, the phonecall wasn't from tim (obviously), but from one of his 'people'.

Wow. Finally some good news.

I wanted to report it too, but Im not from USA and even not from English speaking country, so..

But really good news, thank you man! You made my day 🙂

If you've read this thread you would know I opened a case early on and I had been escalated to high level support personnel and they were communicating with me regularly. My contact was a senior support representative and was in active communication with engineering.

Although they were willing to continue working with me a few days ago I just couldn't take all the issues any more and used the sql download file resolution. I hated to but it was that or wipe and re-install over 700 apps on both my iPhone and iPad manually one at a time, reconfigure them, etc.

In my final email to support a few days ago I stated that by performing the unofficial "fix" all of the issues I was experiencing with my device were completely resolved and they continue to be. They were:

1) No more of the error messages.
2) No more bizarre re-installing of apps unexpectedly or "ghost" icons.
3) No more constant brief stuttering or freezes in the general use of my devices.
4) No more Apple ID password requests popping up when they shouldn't.
5) Battery life on my iPhone improved significantly.

So I agree they need to be reported and disagree they don't need to be discussed. It sounds like you may have found access that I was unable to but I will say I felt like I was getting responsive service for an extended period of time and they were trying to resolve the issue.

Please let us know how it turns out for you.

- KEM

Okay, now this thread is really getting interesting. With that said, the iExplorer "fix" is still holding up. No more problems here (and I had been experiencing the said issues since December).

I didn't have to restore apps one at a time - and have had no problems for more than a week (and things were awful before then). Just a backup to the cloud and a restore from backup and a sync.

hi there. my post was in response to some noob who was accusing apple of not caring about their customers, and just counting our money instead, thats why i wondered if he even bothered contacting apple for help on this issue.

I am still awaiting for the software engineer to contact me, so far i was only contacted by a support staff member to warn me that a phonecall will be coming. I'm sure they'll be glad we found the source of the problem for them, and hopefully it's an easy fix. Hopefully it's not too long untill the next OS update either, because sometimes they sit on fixes until the next update. But yes, i shall update this thread to let everyone know my discussions with the apple engineer. But i was told they already looked at this thread, and the blog with the Iexplorer fix, so this is definately promising stuff.

Thanks to whoever discovered the problem and subsequent fix, you should hand in a CV to Apple and roll out some official fixes haha

When I (and many others from this thread) just did a backup and restore it did not permanently resolve the issues.

- KEM