Apple users were in for a surprise with the App Store creating troubles for the users updating their application. Marco Arment, Instapaper creator, said yesterday that he faced a number of complaints from users who downloaded Instapaper 4.2.3 which crashed immediately on launch. Even after removal and reinstallation with a clean version of the app, the problem persisted. Arment found that the update he had sent to the App store was working all right, and lodged a complaint with Apple about the situation. He believes the root of the problem to be distribution of a corrupt version of the update through the App Store. The problem was resolved after a new update was uploaded and distributed.
Arment said in his blog that he hasn’t got an answer from App Review, hence, is unaware if the solution was due to his complaint, or a corrupt cache expiring. He further said that people with a bad copy can remedy the problem by deleting the corrupt copy and replacing it with the fresh copy available on the Store.
Instapaper users aren’t the only one affected by this problem. Users of other applications like Pinball Maniacs, Angry Birds Space HD Free and GoodReader, who received updates recently, faced similar problems. GoodReader developers clarified on the issue on their website. After their preliminary investigations, they remarked that Apple had made some modifications in the app distribution system and the issues arose after that modification was made. This has ensued in customers getting a damaged binary on updating apps which don’t start.
It was still not clear how widespread the issue was, with many Apple users experiencing no troubles with their application. Apple later clarified that they have identified and fixed the issue that caused updated applications to crash. They also said that not a large section of users were experiencing the bug. They had earlier acknowledged the problem and had asked developers to inform the customers to directly report the problem to Apple so that it could be determined whether the glitch was rooted in the apps or the Store.
Apple spokesperson said that the temporary problem had originated in a server which had generated a DRM code for the apps being downloaded. He added that the glitch was rectified immediately and is not expected to repeat. He echoed Arment’s suggestion to delete the corrupt app and reinstall with a fresh version from the market.
