Mac App Store: A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer
I awoke this morning to flurries of happy activity in my Twitter feed: Reeder for Mac was finally out of beta, and available for £5.99/$9.99 on the Mac App Store. Reeder is a fantastic RSS reader that I totally fell for on the iPad, and I’ve used the Mac version since the earliest beta. A couple of iterations in, I binned NetNewsWire, because even a feature-incomplete Reeder suited me better.
As a Mac journo, I get a lot of free software, but there are a few cases—notably, indie apps that I use daily—where I transition from ‘free stuff’ to paying for the product myself. For me, Reeder was in insta-buy territory, but, helpfully, the Mac App Store wouldn’t let me pay for a copy. Instead, it told me:
A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer
Well, thanks for that, Mac App Store. I trashed the Reeder beta, went through my ~/Library folder to remove Application Support and Preferences files. Still no dice. I then trashed support files in a copy of my old computer’s home folder that’s lurking on my new Mac. Still, the Mac App Store stubbornly claimed a ‘newer’ version of the app was installed, even though Mac OS X’s System Profiler disagreed that any version of Reeder existed on the system.
Then it struck me: I have a back-up hard-drive attached to the Mac, which is a clone taken by SuperDuper!, and, sure enough, the Mac App Store seemingly cannot tell the difference between the active volume and the back-up—at least in this case. And so if the Mac App Store tells you that you can’t install an app and you’re using cloning software, try temporarily unmounting the clone and see if that helps.
UPDATE: Alex Chan says in the comments that this problem extends to additional hard-drive partitions with installed apps.
I’ll add that this extends not just to clones, but other hard drive partitions as well. I partitioned my HD between Lion and Snow Leopard, and wasn’t allowed to install MAS apps on the Lion partition if they were installed on the Snow Leopard partition. I had to dismount the partition in Disk Utility.
Just remove the beta app itself, and keep all prefs, and everything works perfect
The only thing I had to do was moving the Reeder.app from Applications folder to Trash, emptying it and re-opening Mac App Store. Right then I was able to download Reeder without any problems:)
I experienced exactly the same but was solved by deleting all traces of Reeder on all attached disks
but bad is that the developer of Reeder does not seem to answer questions on Twiitter related to changing the name of feed which seems not possible
The Mac App Store app uses Spotlight’s index to find these duplicates. You have to “clean” every partition that is indexed by Spotlight.
Have you tried excluding your backup drive from being indexed by Spotlight? Chances are that it thought Reeder was still installed because it was finding a copy in the Spotlight index from the backup drive.
I have a backup permanently connected to my Mac that’s cloned from the mac with superduper every night and I didn’t have this problem. I just deleted the reeder beta on my mac, Hazel cleared out the support files, done.
I had the same problem, you can take your back up drives/partitions out of spotlight search. This stops the MacApp Store from seeing them as valid applications
Erk. For some reason, this article’s now the most popular one Revert to Saved has ever written (even more than the recent Lodsys stuff). Where do you all find it? (My web stats aren’t telling.)
Anyway, for the record, my back-up drive is and was listed in Spotlight’s Privacy tag, and all files relating to the beta were trashed before the first install attempt. Only disconnecting the back-up drive enabled me to install the final version of the app, and it’s worked fine ever since.
The reason for writing the blog post was to assist anyone else who might have the same problem, in case it worked for them.
@owen-b: I’ve never had this problem before either. But the MAS is new, and so it presumably has some oddball quirks that need hammering out with something vaguely hammer-like.
@craig you were retwweeted by @reederapp
I came here via this tweet (https://twitter.com/#!/reverttosaved/status/78765467245883393) – retweeted by Silvio Rizzi (reederapp) himself. Now following you as well. Please entertain me 😉
If all the traffic I got was from a single retweet, that’s crazy—a sizeable percentage of @readerapp’s followers have visited, not just a small number. Anyway, welcome to all new readers.
@Maurice: I’ll do my best!
ok, now it’s getting frustrating. i deleted the app, deleted the libraries, have no other hard drive attached (ok there’s another disk in my macbook’s optical drive bay, but it only contains data), and i’m still getting the error above.
any ideas?
@Chris: Did you trash the prefs too? I’m assuming you’ve restarted the Mac, in case it’s playing silly buggers?
I had a very similar issue. I had Snow Leopard and Lion installed on separate partitions, and it kept giving me this error until I removed the Reeder from the *other* OS’s
/Applications
directory.I was so glad to find I wasn’t going mad. I unmounted the other volumes, but only found that logging off and on again seemed to get MAS to allow me to buy Reeder. Something is screwy somewhere. If I was the author of Reeder then I’d be looking for a ways to eliminate these issues as people will go an buy something else.
I did NOT delete the Library, Prefs, other files – only the .app.
@Vince: I’m not sure this is the Reeder author’s fault—people with other apps have found similar issues. I think it’s down to how the MAS tracks installed apps.
Same problem. Only, after restarting, the MAS did allow purchase and instal. BUT, the app literally disappeared from the dock immediately after the download completed. I’ve rebooted 3 times. Each time MAS does not reflect the prior install, so I download again, the app just literally disappears. Never had such hassles before with any app, in or outside the App Store.
@PamG: No idea what could be causing that, I’m afraid. Worth raising a support ticket with Apple in this case, I’d say.
I got the same message from AppStore after deleting the app trying to buy on my MBP. Had no problems on my iMac though; just deleted the app (with AppZapper) and it installed fine. Still no luck on the MPB so i just copied the app across and all is fine.
Just use CleanMyMac, works like a charm!
I had a very similar issue, but the comment that mentioned spotlight lead me down the right path.
If you’re having this problem, try doing a spotlight search for Reeder. When I did so, it found Reeder in my Downloads directory. Once that was moved to the trash, the purchase and install went off without a hitch.
Yes , I do support Alex. This problem is not only between main drive and backup drive but also between the partitions. The same thing happened to me when I was installing Stellar Drive Clone for Mac.
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