MAS Install is damaged

[ImAMacGuy]

I did a couple captures of some apps from the MAS doing the pause/resume/copy the PKG to the desktop. However, when I installed it, the app reports the app was not installed correctly.

Any ideas?

[scottb]

I did a bunch of them yesterday, and they were all OK. Are all of yours damaged? Something wrong in the process?
OK, interesting. One package - GarageBand - is showing damaged when I try to install on another Mac. The thing I see is that with one created using Composer, it says it needs ~1.2GB of space for the install. For the one I created yesterday, it shows it will need ~750MB. That one fails. I'm re-doing the process now. The others seem OK though...

*EDIT: on the failed GB app, I just added an empty _MASReceipt and it now launches. FYI.
*EDIT#2: Seems GB is not going to be working right now. The loops are not installed and it prompts for the Apple ID. GB is not going to work this way without some additional tweaking it appears...

[mpermann]

The GarageBand app downloads some additional content, besides the main app, from the app store on first launch. I grabbed all the additional content installers and was still forced to use an empty _MASReceipt for that application. Non of the other Apple iLife or iWork apps require me to use the receipt trick. I sure wish GarageBand didn't require it either. Does anyone know if adding and empty _MASReceipt to the application will cause problems when an update is available from the App store?

[ImAMacGuy]

I thought it was all of the apps i did yesterday, I'm slowly going back through and found that 3 of the 5 or 6 i did were OK...the main app that failed though was a 3rd party app (X2 Pro)... not sure why it would have failed.. it's a standalone app, doesn't seem to have any dependencies... more testing is required I guess.

[scottb]

@mpermann: when you put in the dummy receipt, it will not allow downloads of updates. After doing this for days on end, I've lost track of what does what, but if you don't put in the receipt, I think it fails to flag the updates in the App Store, avoiding that issue. Overall, it's just a huge pain.

[gregneagle]

App Store vendors may validate the receipts to ensure the app was properly purchased. You are side-stepping the creation of the valid receipt. Some app vendors may not enforce a valid receipt, but you cannot count on that being the case. I'm guessing that X2 Pro is doing receipt validation.

[scottb]

I think I'm going to do a full GB install - including loops, etc and build with Composer. Then, play with the _MASReceipt thing and see if it works. The other Apple iApps seem OK so far, but I've been fairly limited in the amount of testing.

[scottb]

Apple iApps:
No receipt: App updates do NOT show up.
Dummy receipt: App updates do NOT show up.
Original Apple receipt: Updates DO show in App Store.

This is probably not news to those who have been messing with this for a while, but I thought I'd post it here as it can be confusing. If I managed to muck up that info above, feel free to smack me.
What method is "best" is beyond me at this point. I still have to get GB working in full using this method, which most likely means installing all the content then using Composer. If someone has done a full, successful install of GB using the "pause, ln, resume" method, please post up.

[ImAMacGuy]

x2 pro fails with teh touch receipt :(
when I deploy it as Composer grabbed it, the it complains that I need to sign in to the account.

Fail.

[pbenham]

I've been working on this today too.
I have successfully deployed Garageband 10.0.1 with it's extra content by using this process:

1• Grab the Garageband pkg from the App Store using the pause/resume/copy method (make sure the package is around 985MB). Let the install complete on the machine. Upload the pkg with Casper Admin and set to install on boot drive after imaging (I gave it a priority of 10)

2• Grab the additional content using the links from mistacabbage's post on https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=8751 Upload all the pkg's with Casper Admin and set to install on boot drive after imaging (I gave the the big package a priority of 11 and the small ones a priority of 12).

3• Launch Garageband and dismiss the 'Welcome to Garageband' and 'New in Garageband' screens. Set any other preferences you might have.

1. Using Composer make a DMG (or pkg) that includes : A) a blank receipt file : /Applications/Garageband/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt (this can be a blank file as long as it's called 'receipt'. B) the preference file contained in /Users/your_user/Library/Containers/com.apple.garageband10/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.garageband10.plist

5• Upload the resulting dmg/pkg using Casper Admin and set to install on boot drive after imaging (I gave it a priority of 13.

1. Image a machine. With the priorities set the post image process should install the Garageband app, then the Core Content, then the Loops, then the MAS receipt and the preference file.

A bit of a chore (especially as the app still won't find any updates that Apple makes available), but as this years imaging time gets ever closer it's the best I've got for now.

Hope that helps.

Paul

[mm2270]

As Greg Neagle pointed out, some apps are designed to look for and require a valid _MASReceipt file and others aren't. Unfortunately there's no easy way to know this until you try removing the receipt file and seeing if it works.
If it doesn't, I don't know if there's anything you can do, other than contact the developer and see if they offer some kind of volume license deal outside of the App Store that you can deploy and manage.

[ImAMacGuy]

That's what I figured @mm2270 oh well. worth a shot.

[scottb]

@pbenham: Thanks for the detailed process. Guess I'll give that a shot and see if it works.

[bentoms]

FWIW, we just deploy with the apps under a company Apple ID.

These apps are made available via Self Service.

For GB, IIRC the extra content is hosted via Apple Software Update.. So if you host your own, the clients will just download it from their set ASUS.

[scottb]

Has anyone noticed any changes to this lately? No matter what I do now, the iPhoto and iMovie updates show in MAS. I used dummy receipt, no receipt and original receipt (when signed in to MAS) and the only way now that it doesn't appear as an update is to put the clean original receipt in.

[cdenoia]

Hey guys,
I've been seeing the same thing. We usually delete [_MASReceipts]. This works fine for most AppStore apps. However Garageband v.10.0.2 doesn't like it. Error: "damaged and can't be opened".
If I keep _MASReceipts in the app bundle, it works fine.

[bentoms]

This is why I just deploy with our company AppleID, but someone did mention that another app then requires logging in with those details to 1st run the app.

If we get that, we'll probably do a snapshot to see what additional files are created on 1st launch.