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There is an update for Angry Birds in my App Store, but I do not and never have purchased or owned Angry Birds. How can I get rid of this update?

There is an update for Angry Birds in my App Store, but I do not and never have purchased or owned Angry Birds. How can I get rid of this update? When I click "update" it says, "Update Unavailable with This Apple ID, This update is not available for this Apple ID either because it was bought by a different user or the item was refunded or cancelled." I click ok and it says, "We could not complete your request. There was an error in the App Store. Please try again later. (null)" This is very irritating and I don't understand why I can't clear this when I never had Angry Birds to begin with. Help?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2014 6:58 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jul 23, 2014 5:19 PM

You installed a hacked app, originally from the Mac App Store. It contains the receipt for a different app, downloaded using an account that you don't control. You need to identify and remove the hacked app.

Important: The app you need to remove is not necessarily the one named in the App Store alert. For example, the App Store may prompt you to update "Angry Birds" or "Twitter," but the hacked app may be something else entirely. Don't make any assumptions about which app you're looking for. To find it, you must carry out a systematic search with Spotlight.

1. Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:

kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt=1

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

2. In the Finder, press command-F to open a search window, or select

File Find

from the menu bar. In the search window, select

Search: This Mac

from the row of tokens below the toolbar. Below that is a popup menu of search criteria, initially showing Kind. From that menu, select

Other...

A sheet will drop down. In that sheet, select

Raw Query

as the criterion, then click OK or press return.

Now there will be a text box to the right of the menu of search criteria. That's where you enter the raw search query. Click in that box and paste the text you copied earlier by pressing command-V.

4. The search window will now show all the App Store products that are installed. Compare those search results with the list of your purchases from the App Store. To see the complete list, you may need to unhide hidden purchases. If any apps were download from the App Store using other Apple ID accounts that you control, sign in to the store under each of those ID's and check the purchases.

At least one of the apps in the Spotlight search results is not among your purchases in the App Store. Move each such item to the Trash, after quitting it if it's running. You may be prompted for your administrator password. Empty the Trash.

Quit and relaunch the App Store. Test.

If you find these instructions confusing, ask for an alternative method.

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 23, 2014 5:19 PM in response to dragonfly3007

You installed a hacked app, originally from the Mac App Store. It contains the receipt for a different app, downloaded using an account that you don't control. You need to identify and remove the hacked app.

Important: The app you need to remove is not necessarily the one named in the App Store alert. For example, the App Store may prompt you to update "Angry Birds" or "Twitter," but the hacked app may be something else entirely. Don't make any assumptions about which app you're looking for. To find it, you must carry out a systematic search with Spotlight.

1. Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:

kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt=1

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

2. In the Finder, press command-F to open a search window, or select

File Find

from the menu bar. In the search window, select

Search: This Mac

from the row of tokens below the toolbar. Below that is a popup menu of search criteria, initially showing Kind. From that menu, select

Other...

A sheet will drop down. In that sheet, select

Raw Query

as the criterion, then click OK or press return.

Now there will be a text box to the right of the menu of search criteria. That's where you enter the raw search query. Click in that box and paste the text you copied earlier by pressing command-V.

4. The search window will now show all the App Store products that are installed. Compare those search results with the list of your purchases from the App Store. To see the complete list, you may need to unhide hidden purchases. If any apps were download from the App Store using other Apple ID accounts that you control, sign in to the store under each of those ID's and check the purchases.

At least one of the apps in the Spotlight search results is not among your purchases in the App Store. Move each such item to the Trash, after quitting it if it's running. You may be prompted for your administrator password. Empty the Trash.

Quit and relaunch the App Store. Test.

If you find these instructions confusing, ask for an alternative method.

Jan 16, 2015 4:31 PM in response to Linc Davis

I have the same problem but first thing I did when I bought this used macBook was to delete all pirated programs. I followed the above but I do not see anything that I did not personnally purchase. I tryed to unhide but I can only unhide for my own account. If I click on the update it only tells me that the purchase was for a diffrent UserID. Any further ideas?

There is an update for Angry Birds in my App Store, but I do not and never have purchased or owned Angry Birds. How can I get rid of this update?

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