Mac Store Apps Not Installing

[Polybius]

I've had some free and paid Mac Store Apps setup for distribution for a long time and for a long time they have worked just fine. Now, all of a sudden, they're not always installing on a newly enrolled iMac. Is there any way to trigger an automatic install of Mac Store Apps?

[junjishimazaki]

Hi, are you installing these apps yourself from self-service or are the users installing them? As to your question about automatically installing the app, yes in the Mac App store App section in Jamf where your apps are located. In app, the General tab, look at the bottom in Distribution Method. You can distribute either via self-service or automatic install. But, I would first look in the policy logs on the macs that do fail of why it failed to install. 

[Polybius]

I'm currently letting things install through the automatic install. I was just wondering if there was a way to trigger that automatic response. There won't be an policy logs because it's the Mac Store Apps, not packages installed through policy.

[junjishimazaki]

How are you letting it install through automatic install? I'm assuming you are scoping to a smart group of newly enrolled mac.

[Polybius]

Yep, that's how the others have been installing.

[junjishimazaki · Accepted solution]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. Since the Mac App Store Apps doesn't have the ability to set a trigger event you can only rely on the smart group. What are the criteria did you set for that smart group? For the mac that does fail to install, if you go to the Mac record then the History tab, look on the left pane there a section for Mac App store apps for any pending/failed/installed apps. If the app is not there then the Mac did not go into that smart group.

[Polybius]

Well, thanks for the help. It appears the computer wasn't put in the correct site, which in turn didn't make it part of the smart group it was supposed to be in. I've used this process maybe a dozen times and this is the first time a computer wasn't put in the site defined by the PreStage Enrollment. I really hate Jamf sometimes >_<

[junjishimazaki]

Tell me about it, sometimes Jamf can just act stupid. At least you figured it out. that's the most important thing

[Polybius]

Well, just when I thought I had things figured out, it appears that I don't. The iMac in question is now in the correct site, the Mac Store apps show up in the computer's record but they won't install. I made one of them available in Self-Serve instead of auto install and while it shows up, it will not install or give any errors. Anybody know where the log is that holds Mac Store app installation info?

[junjishimazaki]

Have you looked in the jamf.log file on the mac?

[Polybius]

Where is that located?

[junjishimazaki]

You can open it from 2 places. From the Console Log app, go to Log Reports on the left, then on the right side search for jamf.log. Or the file is located /private/var/log/jamf.log

[mattmojo]

I tested this on a machine of mine by deleting the app store app assigned via VPP and seeing if it would reinstall automatically. It didn't of course. Though if I re-scoped my machine to the app (put it in the exclusion, run sudo jamf policy, remove from exclusion (with the app being scoped to all computers already), run sudo jamf policy again to force the update, the app ended up re-downloading. Not sure how this tip may hold for your situation but this worked for me.

[dfracassa]

This is what I had to do twice already to get them to work after it stopped deploying.

I just unscope each app for like few hours and then re-scope them to the right groups. It is frustrating like hell + super time consuming.

The weirdest thing is that deplyoments work perfectly for months without hiccups, then all of sudden stop working all togehter, logs are super vague without any hint really on what is causing it.....drives me crazy!

[StevMeis]

I'm having this same issue and found the same resolution.  5 builds, all identical, 4 get all the mac store apps and 1 does not, unscope for a 30 minutes, rescope, all 5 have all software now. 

Spent several days prior to figuring this out checking network connectivity, digging through logs, rebuilding etc.