`update` to penultimate version, no output, hang

[toddwayne]

Configuration

% mas config
mas ▁▁▁▁ 7.0.0
slice ▁▁ arm64
slices ▁ arm64
dist ▁▁▁ MacPorts
origin ▁ https://github.com/mas-cli/mas.git
rev ▁▁▁▁ 7c70ffd
swift ▁▁ 6.3.2 (swiftlang-6.3.2.1.108 clang-2100.1.1.101)
driver ▁ 1.148.6
store ▁▁ US
region ▁ US
macos ▁▁ 26.6.1 (25G76)
mac ▁▁▁▁ Mac16,11
cpu ▁▁▁▁ Apple M4 Pro
arch ▁▁▁ arm64

Bug description

Logic Pro on one of my machines was at v12.1 and needed multiple updates to get to 12.3.1:
first update to 12.3, then another update to 12.3.1

mas update ran with no output, completed the update to 12.3 with no output, and was terminated via Ctl-C
At cmdline I could:

$ mas outdated
634148309  Logic Pro  (12.3 -> 12.3.1)

And the rerun to get:

$ mas update
Executing: /opt/local/bin/mas upgrade
==> Downloading Logic Pro (12.3.1)
==> Downloaded Logic Pro (12.3.1)
==> Updating Logic Pro (12.3.1)
==> Updated Logic Pro (12.3.1) in /Applications/Logic Pro.app

Ideally, this would have printed the usual status for updating from 12.1 to 12.3, and auto-executed again, with usual status, to get from 12.3 to 12.3.1

I consider the silent hang (with update underneath, but no message) a bug; the auto-update to next might be considered a feature. I have no idea how the app store manages (or why it required) multiple sequential upgrades to get to current.

Steps to reproduce

To reproduce, you need something in the appstore that is so many versions out of date that it requires multiple updates to get to current. Then simply 'mas update' and it should never return to the command line prompt (yet 'mas list' or 'mas outdated' in a parallel shell should show you that actual present version changed as described above)

[rgoldberg]

Thanks for reporting this.

Unfortunately, I doubt there's much mas can or should do here without more info, which will probably only come from other users suffering the same issue.

Note that the upcoming mas 7.1.0 has massively refactored a lot of related code, so any issues in mas itself might already be fixed in main. I have 1 more refactor that will definitely need to be finished for 7.1.0, and a 2nd that I'd like to include, too. Both of these refactorings touch code that is used for outdated & update.

Given that I doubt that I'll be able to reproduce these issues, probably best to wait for similar issues being reported for 7.1.0. Obviously, if we do isolate causes, I'll fix them, but I doubt that will happen before 7.1.0.

4 main issues:

1. 12.3.1 was released on 08-13. The App Store uses eventual consistency, so different servers aren't guaranteed to know the same current version for the same app. You probably connected to a server that thought 12.3 was current, so it updated to that. Afterwards, you connected to a server aware of 12.3.1, so it updated to that. I can't guarantee that is what happened, but it seems plausible.
   1. It's best to run mas outdated or mas update until nothing new is shown. mas internally rechecking after updating would complicate matters, and users might not want to update to the later versions. Simplest to just run mas until no output. Maybe I could add an option that makes mas return a certain non-zero exit status if no apps were updated / are outdated, so you could iterate until the exit status is non-zero (or it could be non-zero if apps were updated / are outdated; either way, you'd be able to know when to stop iterating), but you could also check stdout for no output for now.
2. When you say no output, do you mean absolutely nothing at all? For macOS 26.1+, the line right before the call to the function that runs installer should print an update status not available message to stdout. I don't recall having seen or heard of no output before. I would doubt it's related to the 12.3 / 12.3.1 issue, but maybe… Without a reproducible scenario, it will be hard to diagnose.
   1. How did you get root permissions to update? Via sudoers? sudo in the command line? Existing sudo credentials? Etc. Most people would probably get a password prompt, which is why I was asking about there being absolutely no output.
3. I don't know why the app would be updated without mas returning.
4. Apple has recently offered some of its existing apps in new versions from Creative Studio. Maybe that's involved in all this. I haven't purchased it, but I switched over from the prior versions of Pages, Numbers & Keynote to the Creative Studio ones to get the new features still available for free. I forget the symptoms and/or resolution to them (other than uninstalling the old apps & installing the Creative Studio apps, IIRC).

[toddwayne]

First: thanks for the quick followup, and I do understand about the difficulty without other specific evidence.

2nd: I was unaware that I might attach to different servers (which might have slightly different content) each time I attach to the Apple Store.

As for your 4 issues:

1. I like the idea of a mode that provides more extensive exit codes. I noticed the issue when this was being executed from 'topgrade', and confirmed by running directly. The option/status might allow an external agent or other loop to make better decisions. (It's clear to me that that would be a low-priority/nice-to-have feature request)
2. really: mas update and then no output to the screen, at all. That's why I reported it; unclear to me what might have hung.
3. Agree, successful update to intermediate revision was a surprise I discovered in the course of repeated Ctrl-C / 'what's the state' / try again loops.
4. Logic Pro (for which I have an older, single one-time purchase license. I have no interest in subscription model ware (from Microsoft365, AppleCreativeStudio, or anyplace else.) This may be related to the issue because...

• available info claims that iOS and iPad Creative Studio Apps completely replace previous versions with new Creative Studio apps with new versions
• on Mac, Creative Studio apps can live side-by-side with previous one-time purchase licensed versions.
• In the case of logic pro, both one-time and creative app versions (since 12.0) are tracking identical version numbers.
• presumably mas keys of the id# (not the name/version) but I can see this being messy depending on what the store actually returns
• there are two items with almost identical names and identical versions:
  -- Creative: "Logic Pro: Make Music" / v12.3.1
  -- One-Time: "Logic Pro" / v12.3.1 (with id 634148309 shown by 'mas list')

Thanks for your understanding, hope this helps (and that 'creative studio' apps don't start creating havoc)

[rgoldberg]

Thanks for all the info.

1. How did you get root privileges to update? Via sudoers? sudo in the command line? Existing sudo credentials? Etc. Most people would probably get a password prompt.
2. When you noticed the problem in topgrade, was it just that the mas step silently wasn't completing, or were there other indications of problems?
3. mas does indeed key off ADAM IDs (bundle IDs are also acceptable as input, but they are converted to ADAM IDs for updating, etc.)
4. The Creative Studio version (1615087040) wasn't installed on your Mac alongside (or replacing) the standalone version (634148309), right?
5. Do you happen to have a backup of any versions of Logic Pro before 12.3.1? If so, then maybe you code move 12.3.1 to an external drive, then copy the old version to /Applications, then try updating again.

Besides discussing, and possibly either testing of getting more user reports, I think the current takeaway is to possibly add a flag to return a specific non-zero return status iff nothing is outdated/was updated (or maybe non-zero iff something is outdated/was updated). I will postpone this because:

1. Baring output issues like you reported, no stdout output indicates nothing outdated/updated. When nothing was output when it should have been output, mas hung, so would never have provided an exit status.
2. This situation seems incredibly rare.
3. If the problem is from eventual consistency, the next iteration isn't guaranteed to connect to a server that knows about the current version that the previous server didn't know, so the loop might be useless.
4. The loop might become infinite, because the default inaccurate outdated check uses a iTunes Search, which can know different current versions than the App Store install/update servers (so you continually see 12.3 as outdated compared to 12.3.1 from iTunes Search, but continually get 12.3 from the update server).
5. I want to think through which direction the non-zero should be, what the flag should be named, etc.
6. I'm in the middle of many large-scale refactorings & improvements, so I'd prefer to finish them first. See the milestones; I've started working on all the issues through 8.0; note that 7.1.0 might be renamed 8.0.0, so all versions would be renamed, but the roadmap is the same, except shell completion will probably be moved until after the current (not renamed) 8.0.0 milestone.

Have I omitted any other concrete takeaways?

[toddwayne]

Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough response (and I understand about wanting to think through potential fixes).

The one question I hadn't answered was root priv's; sudo -v before starting mas or topgrade (topgrade also knows to ask for sudo permissions for various tools). I've been trying to do less with a "exec sudo bash"...

Also, I did not have the two versions of logic pro co-resident; never downloaded the Creative licensed one.

No other concrete takeaways; dispatch as you see fit :-)

[rgoldberg]

Thanks for all the info.

As of now, this will unfortunately go in the TBD milestone (unless more reports provide more info & indicate higher frequency), but I'll probably think about the exit status sometime in the northern hemisphere spring, given the existing stdout method & the other mas workload.

Whenever I touch related code, I'll keep a lookout for anything that might cause/allow any of this.

Thanks again.