Most of you know my extreme pleasure of using URLMPro to keep all my bookmarks, no matter where I might be on my computer or what browser I might (or might not) have open. Mr. Blom seems to have recovered from his health problems of the past few years and started working on the app to make it Lion capable last year. Unlike some apps which will remain nameless, but whose initials are 1Pw, the newest versions of URLMPro are exactly like the earlier ones!
Nothing new to learn, it just works...like always!
Mr. Blom was enticed (not buy his users, of course!) into putting his great app in the App Store. It was there for a few weeks at $15 and he encouraged his faithful users to suggest that new people buy through the store. Obviously, he gets much wider publicity but he, like some other developers, claims there are a lot of expenses, even if mainly in man-hours, of maintaining the servers for downloading from the original sites.
Knowing that I'd received well more than my feeble payments for the last several years, I decided to go get the App Store version of his app. No difficulties, they
do make initial purchases very easy (
as long as you upgrade to at least Snow Leopard...). However, for some unknown reason (meaning I forgot!!), I returned to his site to download what turned out to be the same version. That was some weeks ago (I forget how long ago, also!). But yesterday, I got a request to register the app and noticed that several folders and even a few sites I'd book marked were now called "unregistered!"
Knowing that I had downloaded from the App Store, I foolishly said, "
No problem! Just go download it, again."
Sure enough, URLMPro was listed in my "
Purchases" list and labeled "
Installed." "
See, I told you it was easy as falling off a log!" Little did I realize that I had 'fallen' into a snake pit!!!
The falling
was easy, of course!
Various posts around the interwebs say all one needs to do to force the Store to enable re-downloading is to use the
option key at various places and times. To make this shorter, I ended up welding my option key down! Well, almost, anyway. But nothing ever happened differently. The App Store continuously insisted that while I had URLMPro installed, it hadn't come from them and they weren't interested in anything the
option key might do. I swear that at one point, there was some suggestion that I might not actually have a valid
option...
I decided that the solution was to remove any and all references to the app from my drive, obviously the App Store was 'seeing' it and checking for its 'magic code' to satisfy itself that the app was not of its universe but some like-named, alien mutant!
After several find, zip, trash, empty trash, Restart, open App Store, getting the same "
Who are you trying to fool?!" messages, I reverted to searching the webz.
Found all the "use the option key, stupid!" posts (
approximately 3,941) but, finally read one that mentioned un-mounting external drives! Apparently, Apple is so concerned about letting people have only one copy of a program (which they can then install on as many Mac's as they can find...
) that they not only check the boot volume but every partition on every drive that might be attached/on/mounted!!! Sure enough, ejecting the backup drive, opening the App Store and there was the "Install" button along side URLMPro. Click, download, installed, done. Not even a Restart needed! Only took the better part of a couple of hours!!!
Lessons learned:1. Never download an App-Store-purchased app from anywhere else, even if the developer still provides that option at his own site.
2. Never weld the option key down. It doesn't help in this case but I'm sure it has other uses besides keeping the control and command key from fighting.
3. See lesson #1.
Write this on a rock: Disconnect external drives before attempting to re-download from the App Store.
