cannot connect to the Mac App Store

Question

Level 1

9 points

cannot connect to the Mac App Store

Like the subject line says, I can't connect to the Mac App Store. I am using a 2009 mac mini running 10.7.5. I was running 10.7.4 when I noticed the problem, but ran software update and updated to 10.7.5. Didn't fix the problem. I also tried turning off Firewall and booting in Safe Mode. Tried signing out and signing back in again, but, of course, since I can't connect, all that did was sign me out. Nothing works. Attempting to sign in just gets a red "connection failed" and blanks out my password field. Any help would be appreciated.

15" MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.4.11), Mac mini 2 GHz C2D, PM G4 1.25 GHz

Posted on Oct 18, 2012 6:31 AM

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Answer 1

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 18, 2012 7:15 AM in response to Wardoggie

Just to see if it's a network issue, I booted the Mac App Store from my MBP and everything works. Something must be broken on my mac mini.

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Answer 2

Oct 18, 2012 1:08 PM in response to Wardoggie

- Temporarily disable anti virus software if installed.

- Apps such as Little Snitch, Net Nanny, and Hands Off can prevent access to the App Store.

And try deleting the cache and cookies associated with the App Store.

Quit the App Store. Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type of copy/paste: ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore

Click Go then move the Cache.db file from the com.apple.appstore folder to the Trash.

Type or copy/paste: ~/Library/Cookies

Clicik Go the move the com.apple.appstore.plist file from the Cookies folder to the Trash.

Try the App Store.

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Answer 3

HACKINT0SH

Level 5

5,804 points

Oct 18, 2012 9:23 PM in response to Wardoggie

If safeboot didn't work, what I want you to try next is plug your modem directly into your Mini.

Also, make sure cookies are not disabled in your Safari preferences.

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Answer 4

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 18, 2012 11:14 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

No anti-virus software, nor anything besides the Apple Firewall software running on my mini. Tried deleting the files you mentioned. Found that one had a duplicate named "com.apple.appstore.plist - corrupt" so I deleted three files: two plist and one cache.db.

No luck.

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Answer 5

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 18, 2012 11:20 PM in response to HACKINT0SH

Cookies were set to block third-party cookies, but I turned that to "Never" block cookies. Then I unplugged my mini and connected via WiFi to my AEBS. This is how my MBP connects and it works.

Still no luck. And dragging my mini to my router is going to require a lot of work, so I think I am just going to have to not give Apple any of my money at this time. Their loss, because I was thinking of upgrading to ML, plus spend about $65 on some apps.

Thank you, Carolyn and Hackintosh, for your help! I don't know what's going on here, but I am sure that it will get resolved somehow. I've been a mac user for over 20 years and I've never had a problem that didn't get resolved :-)

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Answer 6

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 28, 2012 8:32 PM in response to HACKINT0SH

Okay, I just tried plugging the mini directly into the cable modem, got back on the internet and still can't connect to the Mac App Store.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 7

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 28, 2012 9:19 PM in response to Wardoggie

Okay, after searching this forum a little more, I found this thread. In it, there is a link to a blog post entitled, "A Fix for SSL Certificate Problems."

http://b.rthr.me/wp/?p=356

Here is an excerpt:

"After doing a reinstall of Lion a few weeks ago, I found that my computer suddenly would reject every VeriSign certificate that it encountered. Using Chrome, that meant that I couldn’t even access Twitter.com, because it thought that the certificate was wrong. I couldn’t login to the Apple developer portal, I couldn’t authenticate a device with XCode, I couldn’t make a purchase at Apple.com, I couldn’t download updates from the Mac App Store, and I couldn’t login to Mint.com, among other sites. I essentially couldn’t do anything that used a VeriSign certificate for SSL."

So, I followed the instructions there and I can now connect to the Mac App Store! I should've guessed something was wrong with SSL certificates because every time I tried to log in to this forum, I got a warning about this certificate being untrustworthy (I forget the exact wording). But I just figured the problem was on the Apple Web Team's end and just clicked "continue" and logged in. This time, when I logged in to post this, I didn't get that warning anymore 🙂

Anyway, I'm off to buy stuff!

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Answer 8

expataus

Level 2

195 points

Mar 3, 2013 9:49 PM in response to Wardoggie

The link that was already suggested in other posts here, works great. First suggested solution I tried that actually succeeded in fixing the problem for me...and it also fixed another issue that had no images at all appearing for paypal.com, despite other sites working without any problems at all.

Go figure.

http://b.rthr.me/wp/?p=356 is the link that worked....

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Answer 9

Mar 6, 2013 6:09 AM in response to Wardoggie

Hi guys.....

I had the exact same problem....!

It's not as complicated as everyone is making it seem.

From the desktop since updating from snow leopard to mountain lion, I couldn't access Safari, Itunes or the App store......!

This was because these were old shortcuts from snow leopard..... delete these one by one, you might have to type in Admin password each time....

Then simply go to applications and drag them back to the desktop.... they will now work....!

Good luck everyone....!

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Answer 10

Mar 20, 2013 11:27 AM in response to Scruffy1981

And how/where do you find these old shortcuts ?

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Answer 11

Mar 20, 2013 11:28 AM in response to expataus

I am afraid that the link

http://b.rthr.me/wp/?p=356 is the link that worked....

Does not work.

Could there be a mistake ?

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Answer 12

Wardoggie Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 20, 2013 11:44 AM in response to Mike Garner

The original website is now offline. I have no connection to the author, but here is a link to its contents I posted in a similar thread.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4381991?answerId=21092500022#21092500022

And here is a direct link to the Google Cached version of the page.

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Answer 13

Tumberry

Level 1

4 points

Apr 27, 2013 9:52 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

This fixed my issue ,Carolyn Samit on my latest iMac running 10.8.3

I was about to try the recovery assistant and the time machine backup , but you really saved me.

THANKS A LOT !!!!!!!

I AM A NEW MAC USER BTW.

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Answer 14

Jaybee15

Level 1

0 points

May 23, 2013 5:21 AM in response to Wardoggie

After trying advices found in this thread (and other ones), nothing worked, no SSL certificate issue, etc... But I finally found out what was causing my AppStore lock issue :

Somewhere in Apple's website is mentionned that some system plugins can cause this issue, and on my own case, the SoundFlower audio-routing utility was causing the issue.

After uninstalling it + reboot the AppStore was back !

Worth to be mentioned ! Hopefully this will help some of us...

Cheers

JB

PS : a thought to share

On another note I was completely stuck with a piece of software I really needed to work with, and could not even launch it due to this issue.

As a software developer, including iOS and OSX, that makes me review my good opinion about the AppStore model, offering secured software on the paper, an editor's distribution heaven, but in practice much hazardous for professionnals, letting us dangerously dependent from Apple servers authentication and Internet connection !

That is a bit sad... anyway... worth to be mentioned as well : please Apple do something, this should not cannot happen !

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Answer 15

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,633 points

May 23, 2013 6:11 AM in response to Jaybee15

Glad you solved your issue. But are you saying it's Apple's fault that a 3rd party add-on app caused your issue?

As a side note, I have Soundflower and it has never caused any issues on my kit.

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