Mac App Store Broken on macOS 10.14 and Earlier
I’m getting a report from a user that the Mac App Store doesn’t work on macOS Sierra 10.12.6 anymore - they get “An unexpected error occurred while signing in.”
I also see these threads in the the Apple Support Community:
- App Store No Longer Working in Mac OS 10.12.6 Sierra
- Unable to log into App Store from OSX 10.12.6 (Sierra) as of January 27, 2025
Apple made changes to Mac App Store receipts on January 24, 2025.
Looks like with this change they have also rendered the Mac App Store unusable on older systems, so that customers on these systems can no longer download their purchased apps.
I’m not sure whether there’s actually a connection between the receipts change and the store itself not working, but I can confirm that the store is broken on macOS 10.14 but works on macOS 10.15. On earlier versions, when I try to sign in it doesn’t report an error but never actually signs me in. Thus, you can browse the store but can’t make new purchases, re-download old ones, or install updates.
Previously:
- Receipt Validation With SHA-256
- Some Web Sites Will Stop Working With El Capitan and Older
- Mac App Store Updates Failing on Mojave
- App Store Sandbox Dropping Requests
- Is There Hope for the Mac App Store?
- App Store and iTunes Store Outage
Update (2025-02-07): This story got picked up by MacRumors and AppleInsider, and as of this morning, the Mac App Store is once again working for me on macOS 10.14. Michel Fortin says it now works on 10.13.
