Frickin' iTunes App update system going wonky-frickin'-bonkers

News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

August 7, 2008

Frickin’ iTunes App update system going wonky-frickin’-bonkers

Posted Aug. 7, ’08, 7:47 AM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Troubleshooting

I checked my iTunes app updates today—lo and behold, there were 24 updates waiting for me. I thought it was app update Christmas and Santa Jobs had come down the App Store Tree with lots of presents for us nice iPhone users.

But no. Frickin’ iTunes just frickin’ told me I had multiple frickin’ updates to the same apps—5 for AIM 1.2, for example, 4 for OneTap, 7 for PhoneSaber, and so on.

Frickin’ iTunes with its stupid frickin’ app update rubbish.

Why could this frickin’ be? I asked myself with the curiosity of a frickin’ cat. I did some investigating: Turns out that when you update an app in iTunes, it doesn’t actually overwrite the older version—it just throws it into your iTunes/Mobile Applications/ folder with the standard duplicate-file number suffix (so AIM would be AIM.ipa, AIM 1.ipa, AIM 2.ipa, etc.).

Some research showed that I’m not the only frickin’ one with this problem (thank-frickin’-God), and some folks have figured out temporary solutions. Let’s take a look.

This guy from the frickin’ Chicago RedEye, for example, followed this procedure to alleviate his frickin’ app-dupe woes:

Delete all duplicate app files, EXCEPT the last duplicate of each app (ie, for AIM.ipa, AIM 1.ipa, AIM 2.ipa, AIM 3.ipa, delete all of them except AIM 3.ipa).
Move that last dupe file to another location—your desktop, or a new folder somewhere.
Rename that file and remove the number suffix—so “AIM 3.ipa” would be renamed “AIM.ipa.”
Drag the renamed file into iTunes itself, and say yes when it asks you if you want to replace the current app.

That should chill your frickin’ iTunes app updates, since it replaces the apps in your iTunes Applications list with the newest versions you’ve downloaded.

Now, of course, I’m frickin’ lazy, so I didn’t want to frickin’ do that with every frickin’ app that had dupes. So I wrote an AppleScript to do it for me (a pretty frickin’ stupid idea, though, since it took way more frickin’ time than just doing it manually). The advantage of having this script is I can share it with you, our dear readers, since I love you so much and want to make your lives as easy as frickin’ possible.

Download it here, unzip it, and frickin’ unleash it on those frickin’ dupes.* To ensure that it works properly, make sure you close all your open Finder windows, and don’t frickin’ mess with anything while it runs. It’ll ask for your Mobile Applications folder (usually located at ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/), and someplace to put the fixed app files—I’d suggest creating a new folder on your desktop or something. When the script finishes, drag all those new files directly to iTunes.

Voila. That should fix things up…for now, until app updates borks it again. But at least you have the newest version of the app in iTunes, the files won’t keep building up, and you’re clearing up the disk space gobbled by the frickin’ flaw.

So check your Mobile Applications folder, see if you’ve got the frickin’ problem too. Then feel free to use the AppleScript to do some frickin’ house cleaning.*

(*Dan Pourhadi and MacUser are not responsible for any complications that may arise as a result of using said AppleScript. We suggest that prior to running the AppleScript, you create a backup of your Mobile Applications folder. You know. Just in case.)

7 Comments

Kurt said:

Frickin' A!

August 7, 2008 8:13 AM

Philippe Azimzadeh said:

This happened to me too. It's always with the same apps (AIM, WritingPad, Cube Runner etc..)

Anyways I found that it's not that big of a deal...just click Install all Updates and iTunes will install the most recent update for each. It doesn't install every clone, it just installs one, because once one is installed it detects that the app is up to date. So no big deal even though it looks weird.

August 7, 2008 8:21 AM

Walt

said: