Some Mac App Store Apps 'Damaged' Due to Expired Security Certificate

Thursday November 12, 2015 5:54 am PST by Joe Rossignol
A growing number of MacRumors readers and Twitter users have been experiencing an issue with some Mac App Store apps displaying a "damaged" error when opened since late Wednesday. The issue has affected popular apps such as 1Password, Acorn, Byword, DaisyDisk and Tweetbot.

Damaged-Mac-App-Store-Apps
Mac App Store apps with a "damaged" error (Image: Graham/Twitter)

Mac users are prompted with this error message when opening Mac App Store apps:
“App Name” is damaged and can’t be opened. Delete “App Name” and download it again from the App Store.
Tweetbot developer Paul Haddad tweeted that the issue appears to be related to security certificates that expired on November 11, 2015, and he further speculated that the receipts now using SHA256 encryption may be causing problems with older OS X versions.

The issue, however, also appears to affect some users running OS X El Capitan, leading Haddad to believe that Mac App Store apps contacting Apple's servers simultaneously may be causing a "self inflicted DDOS on Apple’s receipt generation service."

Haddad says that rebooting your Mac on OS X 10.10 or later may resolve the issue, while some users have been forced to reinstall apps from the Mac App Store, disconnect from and reopen the Mac App Store or simply reenter their Apple ID password.

It appears that Apple has since set a new 2035 expiration date for the security certificates, per The Guardian, at least some for apps, but the issues are persisting for some. Apple did not respond to request for comment.

Update: Rene Ritchie at iMore has further explained what's causing Mac apps to report as "damaged" and what can be done about it.

Tag: Mac App Store
[ 214 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
Razeus
53 months ago
Welcome to Tim Cook's Apple...

It Just Works is a thing of the past.
Rating: 11 Votes
Avatar
pianojoe
53 months ago
Now, this is embarrassing.
Rating: 8 Votes
Avatar
lysingur
53 months ago
I'm actually kind of glad that Apple isn't planning on making any cars. Oh, wait...
Rating: 7 Votes
Avatar
Tiger8
53 months ago
I said it before and I say it again, Apple is falling behind in the software department. The number of bugs seems to increase with every release for either OSX or iOS. They still haven't resolved the iCloud backup issue, they should be embarrassed.
Rating: 7 Votes
Avatar
canesalato
53 months ago
And Scott Forstall was kicked out because he didn't apologize for Maps?
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
konqerror
53 months ago
This is yet another Apple services fail. What happens if you're outside of Internet access, say you're going to give a presentation?

The cert is valid for 5 years, so they should make the system automatically refresh when the cert has a year or even 6 months left to go.

Even Microsoft's DRM is better than Apple's. For time-limited (corporate) activation, it starts trying to contact the activation server after a month, but will let you go 6 months without locking you out.
Rating: 6 Votes
Avatar
arpi
53 months ago

Why are you still running 10.9? Aren't the requirements identical for 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11 (I don't remember... my MacMini is stuck at 10.6 because it only has 1 GB of RAM and 10.7 requires 2 GB, and my MacBook Air is stuck at 10.7... I don't remember why.)


I'm also running Mavericks. Much more stable then these new crap OSes. Also faster and fewer bells and whistles. I don't like beta software on production machines. El Capitan is beta quality.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
MikeAK
53 months ago

I said it before and I say it again, Apple is falling behind in the software department. The number of bugs seems to increase with every release for either OSX or iOS. They still haven't resolved the iCloud backup issue, they should be embarrassed.


Agreed. The Apple of today is nowhere near that of 5 years ago. Serious quality control issues exist. What is almost as disgusting is the amount of users around here who actually defend the state Apple is in right now and all of the shortcomings that come with it like they've come to expect and accept this type of garbage. Is Apple now just any other mass market brand? With each passing year it looks as though Jobs really was Apple and without him they just aren't the same. They better get their stuff together or they're going to end up right back where they were during the first "post Jobs" era.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
samcraig
53 months ago
This is why as great as an appstore is to consolidate all your downloading/updated of software, I still prefer to be able to buy direct so that I'm not reliant on Apple's cloud services/etc to run them. Oh I still buy from the app store. But I do prefer to buy direct.
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
Rogifan
53 months ago
This is coming from Apple Support #facepalm

https://twitter.com/thestopbutton/status/664960566453075968


https://twitter.com/phillryu/status/664971772542881792
Phill Ryu ‏@phillryu ('https://twitter.com/phillryu') 12h12 hours ago ('https://twitter.com/phillryu/status/664971772542881792')
@sethclifford ('https://twitter.com/sethclifford') I have actually heard that various teams really dislike his team's relative incompetence and arrogance


Seriously Eddy Cue needs to go. I think he's in over his head.
Rating: 5 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]