Mac App Store: An Error Occurred During Purchase, Fix

Several Mac users have reported that they are experiencing Mac App Store sign in and purchase problems. Users have further stated that they are unable to download apps because of this problem.

This error message:

An error occurred during purchase. The operation couldn’t be completed (com.apple.commerce.client error 500.)

This short article explains how you can fix Mac App Store download problems, if you are receiving this error message.

If you are receiving  the “Cannot Connect to App Store” problem, see this article.

If you encounter this issue, while using the Mac App Store on your Mac, steps below will help you:

1. On your Mac, click the System Preferences icon in the Dock or click Apple menu > System Preferences, then click iCloud.

And then sign out of iCloud on your Mac by clicking Sign Out. You will be asked to keep a copy of your iCloud data, you may want to do keep a copy. After signing out, wait a few seconds and quit App Store (Command + Q).  and then relaunch the App Store app and sign back in by clicking Sign In at the bottom-left corner.

Then try to download, purchases apps to see if now works.

2. If you are still having problems, please try these steps. Launch the App Store app on your Mac then Click Store and Sign Out. And then sing in.

3. If you are still having this problem, try this step. Log out of the App Store (App Store > Store > Sign Out) and then quit the App Store app. Open the Terminal app (Applications > Utilities; or you can use Spotlight Search) on your Mac, and then type this command (or copy it from here!) and hit Enter:

defaults write com.apple.appstore.commerce Storefront -string "$(defaults read com.apple.appstore.commerce Storefront | sed s/,8/,13/)"

4. Your issue may be caused by corrupted preference files. Please try these steps:

• Quit all your applications on your Mac
• Open the Finder app
• Click Go and Go to Folder
• Enter~/Library/Preferences/ and click Go
• Find the following files:

  • com.apple.storeagent.plist

  • com.apple.appstore.plist

  • com.apple.appstore.commerce.plist

• Delete these files (you may want to save them somewhere, e.g, your desktop, as a backup)
• Restart your Mac
• Launch the App Store and try again.

5. If you are still experiencing issues, please try the following steps:

• Open the Terminal app
• Enter the following command and then hit Enter

• open $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/

• This will open the com.apple.appstore folder
• Now delete everything located in this folder (again, you may want to copy the contents to a separate folder before deleting). DO NOT Delete files outside of this directory.
• Restart your Mac
• Open the App Store and see if your issue is fixed.

Are you still having this problem, after trying the steps above? If so, you may want to contact Apple Support.

See also: Your Account Has Been Disabled in the App Store and iTunes