Apple user anger as Mac apps break due to certificate lapse

Somebody at Apple forgot to renew a digital certificate, and the entire Mac App Store took a tumble, delivering uninstallable apps for a few thousands of users.

That would have worked just fine and saved a large number of users a lot of frustration after finding themselves unable to download apps or use a few of their previously installed ones. Without a valid security certificate, apps that users tried to open would throw up an ominous message that said an app was “damaged” and couldn’t be opened. The iPhone-maker has since issued a new certificate (with an expiry date of April 2035, according to The Guardian), but this hasn’t completely fixed the problem.

The reports of the errors started on Twitter. Users have reported that they’ve solved the problem by logging out of the Mac App Store then signing back in.

The story behind the story: While this problem has a fairly easy fix, it would seem to illustrate a key point about Apple’s treatment of its storefront for desktop applications.

While a centralized directory of “approved” apps makes things easier for consumers who no longer have to scour the web for software, it also introduces a single point of failure into the equation.

The problem was first spotted by Tapbots’ developer Paul Haddad on Wednesday, who realized the issue was related to an expired certificate. These are what Apple uses to verify apps purchased from the App Store. “Apple is now creating receipts which will expire in 2017, [but] for a few reason some part of the Store infrastructure on [OS X] is either not requesting these new receipts until after a reboot or not properly validating them [emphasis added]”.