Fix minimum OS version check

[tplobo]

Configuration

mas ▁▁▁▁ 5.2.0
slice ▁▁ arm64
slices ▁ arm64
dist ▁▁▁ homebrew/core/mas
origin ▁ https://github.com/mas-cli/mas.git
rev ▁▁▁▁ e84c0658e1dfff2fd1eaf0fc8ef338a2a99b8f67
swift ▁▁ 6.2.3 (swift-6.2.3-RELEASE)
driver ▁ unknown
store ▁▁ DE
region ▁ DE
macos ▁▁ 14.8.4 (23J319)
mac ▁▁▁▁ Mac15,9
cpu ▁▁▁▁ Apple M3 Max
arch ▁▁▁ arm64

Bug description

I am running macOS in a previous version, but using the latest mas. Every time I run mas upgrade, I receive the same set of messages:

and then iMovie 10.4.3 starts downloading again, even if that is already the version I have installed:

I'd like the same app to not be accused as out-of-date and re-downloaded every time I run mas upgrade. here's the relevant line of the output of mas list:

> mas list
...
 408981434  iMovie                      (10.4.3)
...

Steps to reproduce

Run mas upgrade on macOS 14.x.

[rgoldberg]

The following command should prevent that old version from repeatedly being reinstalled:

mas update --accurate

Does that fix the issue for you?

mas update shouldn't behave like you've seen, so, regardless of if the new command line solves your issue or not, I'll investigate to see why mas is not detecting that the latest version of iMovie requires a newer version of macOS.

[tplobo]

hi @rgoldberg, thanks for the reply

When running mas update --accurate, the "Download and older version..." pop-up still appears, but nothing is downloaded. But running mas upgrade again afterwards still repeats the download.

I don't know if this is relevant, but mas has started taking a long time (e.g. ~2min) to output anything when I run mas upgrade, even if it outputs nothing (i.e. nothing to update). I cannot remember when this started happening, but maybe since v5 was released. This is also true in my other mac, which is running the latest macOS:

mas ▁▁▁▁ 5.2.0
slice ▁▁ arm64
slices ▁ arm64
dist ▁▁▁ homebrew/core/mas
origin ▁ https://github.com/mas-cli/mas.git
rev ▁▁▁▁ e84c0658e1dfff2fd1eaf0fc8ef338a2a99b8f67
swift ▁▁ 6.2.3 (swiftlang-6.2.3.3.21 clang-1700.6.3.2)
driver ▁ 1.127.14.1
store ▁▁ DE
region ▁ DE
macos ▁▁ 26.3 (25D125)
mac ▁▁▁▁ Mac16,11
cpu ▁▁▁▁ Apple M4 Pro
arch ▁▁▁ arm64

Is this expected?

[rgoldberg]

@tplobo Thanks for the feedback.

Since the Apple function that updates App Store apps is undocumented closed source, and since I only have one Mac (which runs latest macOS), I didn't know if the new --accurate flag would prevent an out-of-date macOS dialog & didn't have an out-of-date macOS to test it on.

I mistakenly thought that --accurate had avoided that dialog for someone a while ago, but, now that I think back, it was a different dialog that --accurate prevented.

Thanks for letting me know it doesn't prevent the dialog.

I'll investigate why the inaccurate default logic is showing that dialog when it shouldn't, if all App Store data is correct & consistent (it's possible, however, that Apple is returning incorrect or inconsistent data).

Once the minimum macOS version check has been fixed, I'll run that also for the accurate logic, not just for the default inaccurate logic.

I'll probably add flags to disable/enable the minimum macOS check (it will be enabled by default), since it can only be run for the current version of an app; a version of an app might exist that is newer than your installed version but older than the current App Store version. That intermediate version might work on your macOS, while the current version doesn't. Disabling the check will allow you to install such a version, at the price of the dialog popping up.

For the performance issue:

--accurate should slow down commands, especially if you have many installed App Store apps, but you haven't been using that on your M4 Pro.

Can you open a second issue for the slowness, so we can track that separately?

When you open that issue, please note approximately how many App Store apps are installed on you M4 Pro.

Also, if there's any way you could install different versions of mas from the GitHub Releases (or build different versions from a clone of the repo, which is easier for many versions if you're familiar with git tags & building Swift code: check out the appropriate tag, run Scripts/build if you have Xcode 26+ installed, and run .build/debug/mas) to find the first version that slowed down, that would be incredibly helpful.

[tplobo]

Can you open a second issue for the slowness, so we can track that separately?

Done! I'll check in again once I manage to investigate the issue on a version-basis.

I'll investigate why the inaccurate default logic is showing that dialog when it shouldn't...

I'll wait for your update on this!

[rgoldberg]

@tplobo Can you update to the recently released mas 6.0.0, then run the following commands to ensure that auto indexing is no longer slow & that the minimum macOS version check works now?

Thanks for the help.

## should be quick & without dialogs
$ time mas update
$ time mas update --check-min-os

## should be quick, but show dialog & try to install iMovie
$ time mas update --no-check-min-os

## should be slow, but without dialogs
$ time mas update --accurate
$ time mas update --accurate --check-min-os

## should be slow, but show dialog & try to install iMovie
$ time mas update --accurate --no-check-min-os