App Store Says App Is "Installed" When It's Not

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Level 1

135 points

App Store Says App Is "Installed" When It's Not

Hi,

I have just done a fresh install on Mountain Lion to my MacBook Pro after imaging my old Lion install.

I am now testing some apps but when I go to the App Store I'm told the apps I have purchased are "Installed" when they aren't - at least not on this machine with Mountain Lion. But they are on the older Lion image.

Can I 'reset' the apps status (or force installs) or do I need to do something more drastic first? I have removed the App Store plistfiles and rebooted but this makes no difference. I guess the app store believes them to still be installed on this machine. Which they effectively are but on a Lion image.

Thanks in advance.

Radar

Posted on Sep 2, 2012 9:35 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Scott Dye

Level 2

185 points

Sep 2, 2012 1:31 PM in response to Niall Mallyon

I had the exact same problem today. I got it to work finally, and I think the issue was that my Lion cloned disk was still mounted, so the app store was seeing the apps "installed" on the secondary drive. When I unmounted the backup drive, I was able to install all but one app - I did a search and found a non-appstore version of an app that was in a "installed apps" folder on my desktop - it wasn't really installed, and had never been run on this install, but the app store apparently just went by the apps file name.

I hope that helps

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Answer 2

Niall Mallyon Author

Level 1

135 points

Sep 2, 2012 3:03 PM in response to Scott Dye

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Not sure if this was the issue or not as I seemed to have found another 'workaround'.

Basically I downloaded a free app that wasn't installed via the app store and also restored an app that the app store was saying was already installed. I then ran them both and then immediately removed them using AppDelete.

Rebooted and relaunched App Store and all is now good.

Thanks for the reply. Maybe both our 'solutins' will help others.

Regards

Radar

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Answer 3

Apr 17, 2013 1:38 PM in response to Scott Dye

Thanks to Scott, this worked perfectly. I had the old drive mounted when I opened the App Store. Unmounting the drive and opening again I now have the option to install software.

Thanks

Bryan.

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