macOS App Store Updates Not Showing? Ghost Updates?

It’s a common frustration for macOS users – you open the App Store, expecting to see updates available for your apps, but instead, you just get the message “No updates available.” Even when you know updates exist. These mysterious “ghost updates” can be perplexing and annoying.

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In this article, we’ll explore the causes behind ghost updates on macOS and provide troubleshooting tips to help you fix them. Getting ghost updates is usually a temporary glitch rather than a serious problem, but it helps to understand what’s going on behind the scenes when they occur. We’ll also suggest both manual workarounds and automatic fixes you can try to make your App Store behave normally again.

Whether you’re using an older OS like macOS 10.14 Mojave or the latest macOS 10.15 Catalina, you may encounter ghost updates. Rest assured there are solutions for remedying them on any recent macOS release. Read on to better grasp this peculiar App Store quirk and resolve update issues for good.

Defining Mac Ghost Updates

Before solving ghost updates, let’s outline what precisely they are and what causes them. Ghost updates refer to:

• App or macOS updates failing to appear in the App Store or System Preferences. Despite updates demonstrably existing, your Mac isn’t properly detecting them from Apple’s servers.
• The App Store or System Preferences wrongly indicating all apps/macOS are up to date. There are pending updates, but data transfer issues are hiding them from your Mac.

These false readings happen due to hiccups in internet connections while checking for updates. The App Store relies on a constant data flow between Apple’s update servers and users’ Macs. Interruptions in this pipeline trigger incorrect “no updates” messages — the ghost updates.

Why Ghost Updates Are Usually Temporary

The good news about ghost updates is they’re often fleeting. Causes like overloaded Apple update servers, brief WiFi drops, and transient internet outages typically resolve themselves in hours or a few days at most.

The App Store and System Preferences then automatically re-sync with Apple’s update data, pulling down the real updates list. This self-correction is why ghost updates rarely require drastic troubleshooting steps.

However, in some circumstances, ghost updates linger instead of disappearing on their own. Keep reading to understand the common causes and how to make even stubborn ghosts vanish from your Mac’s App Store.

Fixing Ghost Updates: Effective Troubleshooting Steps

While small, temporary ghost updates often resolve on their own, more stubborn ones require manual troubleshooting. Before diving deep into complex solutions however, try simpler restarting and settings toggles first:

1. Restart Your Mac

Restarting your Mac essentially reboots all connected systems — WiFi/Bluetooth adapters, kernel-level software, the operating system itself, and apps like the App Store. This refresh often kicks it back into properly syncing update data from Apple’s servers.

Ghost updates disappear after a restart in many cases. It’s quick and easy to attempt before anything else!

2. Toggle App Store Update Settings

In the App Store preferences menu, toggle the automatic update check settings off and back on again. Disabling and re-enabling them essentially forces the App Store to grab a fresh copy of your update status instead of relying on a outdated cached one.

The steps are:

1. Open System Preferences > App Store
2. Under Automatic Updates, choose “Do not automatically update apps”
3. Close System Preferences and reopen it
4. Return to App Store preferences and re-enable automatic updates
5. Click “Check Now” to manually trigger an update check

This sync trick clears ghost updates for many users. If you still see the dreaded “All apps are up to date” after trying it however, move on to the more advanced fixes below.

3. Check Your Purchased Apps List

The App Store has a master list of all apps you’ve ever downloaded or updated, even if they’re not actively installed now. There’s a chance ghost updates are hiding in this purchased apps section.

To show it:

1. In the App Store, click your account icon
2. Choose the Purchased list
3. Scan through for apps showing pending updates
4. Manually update any out-of-date apps

This reveals ghost updates that are stuck on older versions in your purchase history. Installing their real updates often resolves any further issues.

4. Update Apps Manually

Instead of relying on the automatic “Updates” tab to work properly, manually search out any problem apps you know have pending updates. Trigger their updates individually.

For example, if Firefox is way behind but not showing up in Updates, search “Firefox” directly and click “Update” on the latest version appearing in results. This may jar loose any stuck ghost updates.

5. Clear Local Data Caches

If ghost updates still plague you after trying the above, clearing all locally stored App Store data often works. Your Mac downloads and saves app info caches to speed up interactions with the store.

If these get corrupted or out of sync, deleting them forces a full refresh next time the App Store launches and communicates with Apple’s servers.

Here are the steps to wipe the App Store caches:

1. Open Finder and hit Shift+Command+G
2. Type in ~/Library/Caches
3. Find and delete the folder named com.apple.appstore
4. Also check /private/var/folders/ for any App Store cache directories and delete them too
5. Relaunch the App Store – it will redownload fresh data

This makes even stubborn ghost updates disappear, outside extremely rare account issues.

6. Contact Apple Support

If no above steps fix a lingering ghost updates problem – especially if you get authentication errors when updating apps too – your Apple ID itself likely has issues. Reach out to Apple support in that case.

They can run diagnostics on your account’s update authentication, purchase history, iCloud sync status, and more. If they detect any corruption or mismatch, Apple can repair it on their end. This ultimately resolves even the most persistent of ghost update conditions.

Major software releases like macOS updates or App Store revamps often overwhelm Apple’s update servers with demand spikes. When millions of Macs simultaneously ping servers checking for the new updates, server capacity gets stretched thin.

The resulting lag and timeouts cause update data transfer issues. For a period after the release, ghost updates are common while Apple scales up server capacity. This usually rights itself within a week or two.

Corrupted Local Data Caches

Your Mac stores App Store data like your account info, app purchase history, update info, and more in local data caches and folders. If these become damaged from an unexpected shutdown, deletion attempt, or file system errors, it can manifest as ghost updates.

The App Store can’t read the update data it needs from the caches anymore to display accurately. The ghost updates won’t resolve themselves until you clear the corrupted caches.

Permissions Problems

Rarely, a system permissions error makes the App Store unable to properly access caches or your user account details. Since it can’t authenticate your account or pull update info, you get stuck with lingering ghost updates.

Resetting permissions can fix this, but it usually points to an account or system issue needing deeper troubleshooting if simple resets don’t work.

Software Bugs

Though uncommon, bugs in the App Store programming can randomly make update requests fail or return empty responses. Since Apple issues frequent App Store patches, any glitches like these rarely last over a week or two before getting fixed.

For maximum reliability, however, it’s wise to keep the App Store app updated to the latest version. Bugs get introduced and squashed all the time.

This covers the major ghost update triggers. Now that you know why they occur, let’s explore the manual fixes and prevention methods to make them disappear for good!