App Store: "There is not enough disk space available to install the product."

[Ratsima]

Starting a few days ago I started getting the notice:

We could not complete your purchase.

There is not enough disk space available to install the product.​

This is on a product called Mimeo Photos which I deleted some time ago.

I have around 165GB free space on my boot drive.

Here's what I've tried:

• Rebooting
• Rebooting into Safe Mode
• Forcing Spotlight to reindex the boot volume

The forced Spotlight reindex works for a while. Mimeo Photos disappears from the Updates page, but reappears with the same error message few hours later.

Note that I recently updated to Xcode 11.1 which has been problematic in terms of disk space for some users. Went fine for me.

It's not a huge deal, but it is a bit annoying.

Any ideas?

 

[ferrarr]

Can you just tell us about your device/setup? Also, what have you tried?

 

[Ratsima]

It's a 2017 iMac on 10.14.6, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD with about 165GB free.

I recently installed a whole slew of updates, including Xcode 11.1 and didn't get that error message with any of them. This was an automatic update of an already-deleted app that just showed up a few days ago.

I listed in the OP what I've tried:

Here's what I've tried:

• Rebooting
• Rebooting into Safe Mode
• Forcing Spotlight to reindex the boot volume

 

[ferrarr]

Ok, thanks.

Try Disk Utility > First Aid?
Or restart?
Have you checked for any Apple Software Updates?

 

[Ratsima]

Try Disk Utility > First Aid?
Or restart?
Have you checked for any Apple Software Updates?

DU found nothing wrong. I have rebooted (restarted) several times both normally and in Safe Mode. The only software update available is Catalina for which I am not yet ready.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I'm getting an update error with XCode. Slack was also ready for update at the same time and it updated without any issues. I'm not getting a out of space error, just that the update can't be installed. I've tried it twice now and not interested in doing it a third time at nearly 8GB.

 

[Ratsima]

I'm getting an update error with XCode. Slack was also ready for update at the same time and it updated without any issues. I'm not getting a out of space error, just that the update can't be installed. I've tried it twice now and not interested in doing it a third time at nearly 8GB.

Right. Many people are reporting Xcode update errors. It was unattended and trouble free for me.

My guess is that the problem I described is an App Store database problem, but I'm clueless as to how to fix it.

 

[ferrarr]

Right. Many people are reporting Xcode update errors. It was unattended and trouble free for me.

My guess is that the problem I described is an App Store database problem, but I'm clueless as to how to fix it.

What is your version of Xcode? I’m just wondering if it is a Catalina/Mojave issue, and not really an Xcode issue?

 

[Ratsima]

What is your version of Xcode? I’m just wondering if it is a Catalina/Mojave issue, and not really an Xcode issue?

My Xcode is Version 11.1 (11A1027)

 

[Ratsima]

Mimeo finally disappeared from the Update panel, but this morning it was Spark. I deleted Spark a long time ago and have no idea why it suddenly appears in the Update panel.

Anyway, turning Spotlight indexing off removed it.

Something is happening here but I don't know what it is. (To misquote a famous philosopher.)

 

[MacInWin]

The update process looks at Spotlight to see what you have installed anywhere. If you let Spotlight index your backup drives, it sees all the stuff in all those backups and calls for them to be updated. So by turning off Spotlight, you basically zeroed out the database, so the updater now thinks you have nothing installed. No more notices of updates, good or bad. What I would suggest is to turn it back on, then go to System Preferences/Spotlight/Privacy and drag the backup drive to the window to prevent it being indexed. That should let you get appropriate notices for things that you DO have installed.

 

[Ratsima]

Thank you. I had a backup drive failure recently and forgot to exclude the new drive from Spotlight indexing.

Actually, my CCC scheduled clone is supposed to unmount the backup drive after the clone is made. For some reason it failed to do this.

 

[Ratsima]

Thanks to MacInWin for clarifying the Spotlight issue.

I'm still wondering why App Store says I don't have enough disk space to install the update. My boot drive has over 170GB of free space and my backup drive (CCC clone) has 506GB

 

[MacInWin]

Try unmounting all of your externals, unplugging them and then do the install. It may be trying to install to one of the externals that doesn't have the room. (Yes, this is a long shot, but doesn't cost anything to try.)

 

[Ratsima]

The only external I have with less than 100GB of free space is my Time Machine drive which has 15GB.

Too late to test as I've deleted the app that wouldn't update. (Spark, which I never used.)

 

[MacInWin]

You could reinstall it. That should get you the version with the update included.

 

[Ratsima]

Intereresting. I tried to reinstall Spark which I had deleted from my boot drive and from my backup drive.

When I tried to reinstall I get the same message:

We could not complete your purchase.

There is not enough disk space available to install the product.​

I tried to install something else (ToDoIst) and it installed without difficulty.

Something about Spark….

 

[MacInWin]

Might this help?

How to clean install Spark | Spark Help Center

It actually doesn't say how to install it, but if you clean out as it says, then try the install again maybe something in that folder is triggering the error?

 

[Ratsima]

I'll give that a shot. I also tried to reinstall Mimeo Photos which is the other one that gave me the disk space error. It also would not reinstall for the same, erroneous, disk space issue.

 

[MacInWin]

Maybe boot to Recovery and run First Aid on the drive? I'm clutching for straws here...