Updating App Store apps fails with macOS 26.1 | 15.7.2 | 14.8.2

[avichou]

macbook air m1 macOS 26.1 beta 2

it just tries to install then throws an error

[NeckBeardPrince]

Same issue here, no apps are updating.

[Neoconair]

Same for me

[xTriZzz]

+1 same issue. It recognizes that there's an update but fails to begin the installation.

[urniar]

is this app still upadint?

[mangerlahn]

Thanks for the report! I see this issue as well. I try to find time in the next couple of days to see if there is a fix or if this is a bigger issue. Anyone having this issue on macOS 26.0 or is this currently just a beta OS issue? I am on the beta myself, so I can't check at the moment.

[SukeshSiva]

+1 . running beta 26.1 (25B5057f)

[rgoldberg]

@mangerlahn this is probably the same problem as https://github.com/mas-cli/mas/issues/1029.

CKPurchaseController probably no longer works.

[mangerlahn]

Hey @rgoldberg,

thanks for mentioning! I can confirm that this is still an issue in 26.1 beta 4, so far I was not able find out anything useful, but my experience is very much limited. I will continue to poke around and write if I find anything

[rgoldberg]

@mangerlahn Thanks for investigating. I tried to use ASDPurchaseManager & ASDPurchase instead of CKPurchaseController & ``SSPurchase, but I needed entitlements. I granted all the entitlements that App Store.app` has, but then mas got killed immediately with no explanatory message. ChatGPT said that is normal when you try to use entitlements that are only to be used by Apple's code. I was whittling down the entitlements that I granted, but I think that the newer Apple private frameworks probably all require entitlements that can only be used by Apple, and there probably are no public framework replacements. So mas & Latest will probably not be able to update MAS apps…

[mangerlahn]

Probably, yes.

I tried to check whats going with the existing frameworks used by mas and Latest. As far as I know, the processes talk to a service called storedownloadd, which I believe handles the download and installation of App Store apps. In the console I get this interesting message from that service: *** Assertion failure in <private>, SoftwareInstallOperation.m:577

So my guess would be that something goes wrong within that service, resulting in the error being returned we then see. I have yet to find out what exactly is causing the issue. Could very much be a permission issue as well. But I did not find anything in the logs for now.

[Will-Georges]

I am on 26.0 but I am having issues detecting updates for any app. The date still is stuck on "yesterday" for a few things even if that was days ago. Clicking the refresh button does nothing. Even apps on the app store are not detecting updates, even when I know there is one.

[rgoldberg]

@mangerlahn i didn't look into what is causing this issue, i just looked into trying out newer frameworks. I don't have an extra machine on which to install macOS betas. I also don't have any multi-boot setup.

[mangerlahn]

Okay, I was able to investigate a litlle further. storedownloadd is unable to communicate with installd due to missing permissions. So we are likely running into the same issues now as with the newer frameworks.

2025-10-21 22:56:03.157435+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (StoreFoundation) [com.apple.commerce:CKLegacy] SoftwareInstallOperation: Setting 4859 bytes of receipt data on PKInstallRequest from path /var/folders/7t/fm4w43j144zdl_yv1ckzp0c00000gn/C/com.apple.appstore/545519333/receipt
2025-10-21 22:56:03.158077+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9250, Description: SecKeyVerifySignature
2025-10-21 22:56:03.158227+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9251, Description: SecKeyVerifySignature
2025-10-21 22:56:03.158322+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9252, Description: SecTrustEvaluateIfNecessary
2025-10-21 22:56:03.159986+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9253, Description: SecKeyVerifySignature
2025-10-21 22:56:03.160728+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9254, Description: SecTrustEvaluateIfNecessary
2025-10-21 22:56:03.212491+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) [com.apple.securityd:SecError] Trust evaluate failure: [leaf ExtendedKeyUsage] [ca1 IntermediateEKU]
2025-10-21 22:56:03.212550+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9255, Description: SecTrustEvaluateIfNecessary
2025-10-21 22:56:03.214154+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Security) Created Activity ID: 0x26d9256, Description: SecKeyVerifySignature
2025-10-21 22:56:03.214845+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x916a44640] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.installd
2025-10-21 22:56:03.215734+0200  localhost installd[1614]: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x83cc88000] invalidated because the current process cancelled the connection by calling xpc_connection_cancel()
2025-10-21 22:56:03.215753+0200  localhost installd[1614]: (libxpc.dylib) Peer connection was rejected by the listener (xpc_connection_cancel())
2025-10-21 22:56:03.215782+0200  localhost installd[1614]: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x83cc88000] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=true name=com.apple.installd.peer[16672].0x83cc88000
2025-10-21 22:56:03.215903+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (libxpc.dylib) [com.apple.xpc:connection] [0x916a44640] Re-initialization successful; calling out to event handler with XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED
2025-10-21 22:56:03.216104+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: (Foundation) [com.apple.Foundation:general] *** Assertion failure in <private>, SoftwareInstallOperation.m:577
2025-10-21 22:56:03.216204+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: error Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=201 UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x919504b40 {Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=201 UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=<private>}}}
2025-10-21 22:56:03.216239+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: underlyingError Error Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=201 UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=<private>}
2025-10-21 22:56:03.216257+0200  localhost storedownloadd[16672]: localException [PKInstallClient initWithRequest:PKInstallRequest <1 packages, destination=/>] failed with Error…

[rgoldberg]

@mangerlahn Thanks for the info. Is that all from the Console? I haven't used the Console before. Are there any other useful tools to investigate this type of stuff?

[mangerlahn]

Thats from the system log, yes. I retrieved this using the following command:

log show --predicate 'process == "storedownloadd" OR process == "installd"' \
  --style syslog --last 5m | grep -A5 -B5 "PKInstall\|xpc_connection"

I also used the Hopper disassembler to poke around in the storedownloadd binary. The error comes from the method -[SoftwareInstallOperation _startInstall]. The download runs fine, but the install is (now?) done by the PackageKit.framework, or more specifically through the installd service shipped with the framework.

_startInstall then calls [[PKInstallClient alloc] initWithRequest:$someRequest inUserContext:YES delegate:$someDelegate: error&error]. The init then fails with an error and the installation is cancelled. If i have time tonight I will check the PKInstallClient init methods, which look like the source of the issue now. Would also be interesting to see what changed since macOS 26.0 here..

[juanchohq]

Thanks for the report! I see this issue as well. I try to find time in the next couple of days to see if there is a fix or if this is a bigger issue. Anyone having this issue on macOS 26.0 or is this currently just a beta OS issue? I am on the beta myself, so I can't check at the moment.

also in 26.0.1, but the app is not open at all, crash.

[jakimo]

I routinely run in terminal: brew update && brew upgrade && mas upgrade && brew cleanup && gem update

Does the MAS UPGRADE command (I think I installed it via Homebrew) still work with macOS 26.1? It works fine with 26.0.1

[rgoldberg]

@jakimo I am the current developer of mas.

I haven't run any macOS 26.1 betas myself, but mas users have reported this same problem.

When macOS 26.1 is released, I will be able to investigate myself.

Preliminary reports make it seem like mas & Latest might not be able to update App Store apps in the future, but there might be ways to get them working again.

You might want to look into using topgrade, which is installable via brew install topgrade. It detects multiple different update commands & runs them all for you, including brew, mas, gem, pip, etc.

[mangerlahn]

@rgoldberg I briefly checked the implementation of PKInstallClient. It throws the error 201 when the connection failed. This also happens on the 26.1 RC, so it is probably safe to assume that this is an intentional change.

I will probably disable the update functionality for App Store apps for now, I had to do that before until another workaround has been found. I will see if I have time to look into this.

[rgoldberg]

@mangerlahn Thanks for the info.

Do you know anyone else who might be able to help with this?

Did you use Hopper to get the PKInstallClient implementation?

Can you share the implementations of the following classes from both macOS 26.0.1 & production 26.1 (once it ships):

• CKPurchaseController
• SSPurchase
• ASDPurchase
• ASDPurchaseManager
• PKInstallClient

And anything else you think might be relevant.

On prior macOS versions, I got a missing entitlement error when trying the ASD* classes (instead of the CK & SS classes) without entitlements.

When I copied over the entitlements from App Store.app (obtained via Apparency) & self signed (without any Apple Developer account), mas crashed immediately.

When I removed some entitlements, mas output the same missing entitlement error as before, IIRC.

I haven't tested all the entitlements yet, though.

Thanks again.

[cpatchett-iqbo]

Is anyone aware of whether this is only for minor updates (updates that don't appear for updating in the App Store app's Updates page)? I've noticed that the update button in MacUpdater takes you to the app's page in the App Store to update these. Not sure if that's new to 26.1, since I had it turned off before.

[pro-sumer]

The mas CLI tool also fails currently:

https://github.com/mas-cli/mas/issues/1029

Maybe they come up with a solution that can help here as well?

[eccgecko]

Are we sure that this bug is unique to Tahoe 26.1? Because I haven't yet updated to Tahoe, but am also seeing this exact same issue in Latest on my Sequoia install (MacBook Air M2 2022, macOS Sequoia 15.7.2).

[rgoldberg]

It's in 26.1, 15.7.2 & 14.8.2. See https://github.com/mas-cli/mas/issues/1029#issuecomment-3491739302.

I'm almost done with the fix for mas. Latest might want to use a fix similar to Pearcleaner. mas will use sudo as it's a command-line app, while Pearcleaner uses a privileged helper executable process (sudo won't work for GUI apps).

[knetrix]

Same issue

[avichou]

still not fixed for me.

[soberDevEddie]

Having the same issue. No apps are updating. Or maybe some are? Can't really tell.

[astrocp]

I have the same problem with LATEST and wih CLEANMYMAC. All updates seem to fail.

[fuzzy76]

I do not think it's helpful to anyone to post yet another "I'm also experiencing this", as this bug applies to everyone. Give a thumbs up to the issue and subscribe instead.

[HackettLai]

have the same problem as well~