citykitty00

Q: I can't dismiss app store update notifications

I have a software update that I don't want to install. It's been sitting patiently in my updates list for months, and until Mavericks came along, when the alert appeared in the top right hand corner of my screen I could dismiss it. Now the options I have are Install or Later. The options for Later are 'in 1 hour' 'tonight' 'remind me tomorrow'. I don't want to have this permanently on my screen and I don't want to install the update. I also don't want to have to dismiss it every day.

 

I don't want to turn off all update alerts, or the automatic downloads, because I do want to be told about every other update to every other piece of software on my computer. I have googled this, and can't find a solution. What are my options?

 

As explanation, the update I DON'T want to install is an Epson printer driver update. The reason for this is that I have read rumours on the internet that Epson has a habit of engineering it's software so that it won't recognise the cartridges of generic inks, so that you have to pay the premium for Epson own brand ink. As I paid a fortune for my Epson printer I would be very annoyed if this happened. If anyone can reassure me 100% that this is a false alarm, I will happily upgrade the driver. In the absence of this I would much prefer to just dismiss the alert in the corner of my desktop about the upgrade.

 

I'd be very grateful for help on this irritating new development.

 

Thanks

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Nov 1, 2013 2:08 AM

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Q: I can't dismiss app store update notifications

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  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 3:03 AM in response to aliveonearth
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 3:03 AM in response to aliveonearth

    Just turn off automatic updates.

     

    Pete

  • by tessmar,

    tessmar tessmar Feb 11, 2014 12:51 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 12:51 PM in response to petermac87

    Too hasty an answer and misses the point. The panel has a checkbox for "Automatically check for Updates (emphasis added)", under which are additonal sub-check boxes allowing you to select various options for what you would like to do after this check is performed. One of these says "Download newly available updates in the background: you will be notified when the updates are ready to be installed (emphasis added)."

     

    I do want to know when updates are available. Therefore I have the high level box checked. I do not have any other box checked. Therefore, I should be notified, but nothing should be automatically downloaded, and of course clearly I should not be notified that updates are ready to be installed.

     

    What we have here is an obvious bug as well as a process which, while possibly acceptable to many people, is annoying and distracting to those of us who are fully capable of deciding what, when, and if to upgrade various software components. Even if Apple decides that the safest thing is to automatically upgrade the OS without notification or asking permission, I certainly don't need to be annoyed by messages I can't get rid of (except by turning off a valuable notification function I do want)...and IMO those of us who are more technically literate should be able to choose to not install even OS upgrades whose purpose, according to the documentation Apple supplies with them, are not functions or processes we ever plan to use (e.g. upgrades to RAW image functions)...

     

    But while user forums like this are valuable in allowing us to "vent" they do not appear to actually produce any result...I'm not even sure anyone from Apple looks at the discussions. And if there is means for a group of users to provide a complaint, suggestion, or identification of an error to Apple I am unaware of it.

     

    In one instance I even got myself registered as an Apple developer since this seems to be the only way to notify the company of a bug. After one exchange about an error (and I would be happy to have Apple vett bug reporters' credentials as a way of ensuring that they are not flooded with bogus reports) in which Apple's response suggested an error on my part which was not the case...they simply ignored any further communication, despite my provision of very detailed documentation of how to duplicate the error with 100% repeatability.

     

    If there is a petition process which would get Apple's attention please enlighten me as to how to access it...but even then, the thniness of this thread suggests that this is not a big enough annoyance to enough people to get any action.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 1:08 PM in response to tessmar
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 1:08 PM in response to tessmar

    tessmar wrote:

     

    If there is a petition process which would get Apple's attention please enlighten me as to how to access it...but even then, the thniness of this thread suggests that this is not a big enough annoyance to enough people to get any action.

    Correct and petitioning here is against the Terms Of Use you agreed to when joining these forums.

     

    I have not noticed any change on how to handle updates since the App Store was introduced in  10.6.7 

     

    Pete

  • by tessmar,

    tessmar tessmar Feb 11, 2014 1:57 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 1:57 PM in response to petermac87

    This change occurred with one of the Mavericks updates, though I'm not certain which one. I don't recall it being there in the initial upgrade but could be wrong. I do clone my systems regularly but only keep one generation back. If annoying things like this continue I might have to change that strategy.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 2:07 PM in response to tessmar
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 2:07 PM in response to tessmar

    tessmar wrote:

     

    This change occurred with one of the Mavericks updates, though I'm not certain which one. I don't recall it being there in the initial upgrade but could be wrong. I do clone my systems regularly but only keep one generation back. If annoying things like this continue I might have to change that strategy.

    There has only been one update for Mavericks. Not too hard to figure out  that one. 10.9.1???????

     

    It was there in the App Store in Lion and Mountain Lion also.

     

    You simply turn it off if you don't have the data allowance required.

     

    Pete

  • by tessmar,

    tessmar tessmar Feb 11, 2014 3:49 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 3:49 PM in response to petermac87

    Pete

    I know the notification was there, but not the annoying inability to do anything other than install everything or choose a "wait til later" option which means the **** thing never actually goes away. I guess I could just ignore the panel but it bugs me to have something in front of my work on the screen which is unrelated and unwanted.

     

    But I guess I'll just have to live with it. It does remind me of Microsoft though...and when I switched over after finally having enough of annoying little popups I thought I was done with that.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 3:58 PM in response to tessmar
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 3:58 PM in response to tessmar

    Go to the App Store... Purchases... right click (control+click) on the app you don't want to update... Hide Purchase.

     

    http://osxdaily.com/2012/11/15/stop-software-update-mac-os-x/

     

    Pete

  • by tessmar,

    tessmar tessmar Feb 11, 2014 4:15 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 4:15 PM in response to petermac87

    Fantastic! Thanks, Pete. Glad you shared this. One or several of these should do the trick for anyone following this thread. I had not seen this site before.

     

    As I paged back on this thread it also appears that I have only been receiving some, but not all, of the responses and posts. I checked to see if the missing ones were in a spam suspect folder and they are not. Odd...

  • by aliveonearth,

    aliveonearth aliveonearth Feb 11, 2014 5:38 PM in response to tessmar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 5:38 PM in response to tessmar

    It reminds me of those annoying browser popups by advertisers on bad websites. Its also goes aganist normally accepted good desigen practice and you woudl expect better from apple here.  Microsoft used to be terrable at this, for example they would show a message dialouge with only one button option

    mesage -> "The world has ended" , button options = "OK.",   There is no point to display a user dialouge where the only option is OK.  The install notification is basically the same thing. Would you like to install this update you dont need.   option OK .....

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 5:38 PM in response to aliveonearth
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 5:38 PM in response to aliveonearth

    aliveonearth wrote:

     

    I reminds me of those annoying browser popups by advertisers on bad websites. Its also voiliates normally accepted good desigen practice for user interface design. Microsoft used to be the worst at this. Where they would show a dialouge with only one buttion on it that said OK.  There is no point to display a user dialouge where the only option is OK.  The install notification is basically the same thing. Would you like to install this update you dont need. option OK .....

    Refer to above. Turn it off.

     

    Pete

  • by aliveonearth,

    aliveonearth aliveonearth Feb 11, 2014 5:51 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 5:51 PM in response to petermac87

    Its  a little more complicated than that. On our network we have a software update server runing Mountain lion.  Apple tried to be a little more clever with the way it works now providing updates via the app store then attempting to cashe the updates on the update server or look for them first there. The clients still have a profile managed update server settings.  The App store prefferences are diferent again I disabled the automatic check will see if that works. Its also annoying to constanly have the you have an update item on the App store doc icon I havent worked how to dismiss yet. 

     

    Its alos equally annoying to have all the other even less savy residents on the network come and see me every day asking "what is imovie" ? do I need that.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 11, 2014 5:53 PM in response to aliveonearth
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 11, 2014 5:53 PM in response to aliveonearth

    That is something you will have to discuss with Apple.

     

    FEEDBACK    http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

     

    Pete

  • by hepcat72,

    hepcat72 hepcat72 Apr 3, 2014 7:26 AM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Apr 3, 2014 7:26 AM in response to petermac87

    I have not noticed any change on how to handle updates since the App Store was introduced in  10.6.7

    You're ignoring the fact that you could manage updates in the Software Update App and that people have been forced to use the App Store and are forced to deal with its notifications.  This is the change that this thread is all about - App Store is now the only option to keep your system up to date - and it doesn't have some functionality that Software Update had.  I just found this thread because I got annoyed with the changes.  I can't speak to 10.8 because I skipped that one, but in 10.6.x and 10.7.x, you could "ignore" a *specific* update, effectively allowing you to skip that update.  The next update that came along for that app would still be installable and you would be notified about it, but you would *not* be continually notified about a specific update that you didn't want.  No solution provided here, including "Hide Purchase" brings back that functionality fully.

     

    In case you never used it, or forgot about the ignore feature, I still have a computer running 10.7 and happened to have an update waiting.  Here's how you could ignore an update on 10.7 and before:

     

    Screen Shot 2014-04-03 at 10.12.12 AM.png

     

    Now that Software Update is gone in Mavericks, you can no longer do this.  What's more, you can't hide purchases on everything, e.g. system software.  So say you keep a computer with an older operating system for testing - like for the purpose of testing for some hardware that is prohibited from installing a specific update, such as the system software, but you want your software and other software to continue to update.  You can't do that on Mavericks without the annoying notification every day.  Sure, you can hide *some* purchases, but you can't hide everything.  Like someone said before: it's windows-like behavior - that constant daily yellow bubble in the bottom right corner.

     

    /end-rant

  • by RyeHumidor,

    RyeHumidor RyeHumidor Mar 16, 2015 12:51 PM in response to hepcat72
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2015 12:51 PM in response to hepcat72

    I agree completely and while I appreciate you responding, "Wizard" petermac 87, I found your attitude throughout this thread very Apple like, dismissive, tough, turn it off or download a 3rd party software to address an obvious problem. Yes, I know Apple came back from the the dead to rule the world but Apple's arrogance has me constantly searching for other solutions. For months I am asked, 7-10 times a day to update to Yosemite but my tech has told me the age of my MacBook would make this a disaster. I need to turn off all notifications just so I will not be hammered all day? Speaking of which, why can't I choose where the notifications appear on my screen? They freeze me from working as they constantly show up blocking part of my browser I use all day long. These are basic usability issues that make me question the premium I pay for Apple machines.

  • by Nica05,

    Nica05 Nica05 Jun 1, 2015 4:13 AM in response to citykitty00
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 1, 2015 4:13 AM in response to citykitty00

    i have the same issue, there is a notification on my app store UPDATE panel but i cannot see what it is because there's a message saying CANNOT CONNECT TO THE APP STORE even i am signed in and can even download and delete apps... need answer please... this is kinda annoying...

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