Fix the “Cannot Connect to App Store” Error Message in Mac App Store

If you’re trying to access the Mac App Store and you are getting the “Cannot Connect to App Store” error, you can typically resolve the issue with a few simple troubleshooting steps.

This article will walk through some simple solutions to reconnect to the Mac App Store.

First, make sure the Mac in question is successfully connected to the internet (that may be a duh no brainer, but being disconnected is a surprisingly common reason to have the App Store be inaccessible).

If you’re absolutely online in Mac OS and the App Store still throws the error message, proceed with the following troubleshooting fixes:

How to Fix the “Cannot Connect to App Store” Error Message in Mac OS X

There are a few simple ways to resolve the ‘cannot connect to Mac App Store’ error, try these four tips:

1. Relaunch Mac App Store – Try this first, this is usually enough to resolve the connection problem. Just quit and re-open the Mac App Store application.
2. Logout & Login – You can logout of the Mac App Store by selecting “Log Out” from the ‘Store’ menu. Re-enter your credentials and log back in, and you should connect as usual
3. Make sure Date & Time is correct – if the Mac has an improperly set date and time, the App Store often will not be able to connect. Therefore you should check this in System Preferences > Date & Time
4. Reboot the Mac – restarting the computer can often remedy problems with App Store connections as well.

At this point, the Mac App Store should be accessible again.

The main things to try are relaunching the Mac App Store app itself, insuring the date and time are correct, and rebooting the computer. Those will typically resolve connection issues with the App Store for Mac OS.

You can also try and update system software on the Mac to resolve App Store connection issues, though you’ll want to be sure you backup before doing that so that you can roll back and not lose any data if something goes wrong.

If you’re still having problems connecting to the Mac App Store the store itself might actually be down, this happens from time to time when Apple is updating things. If you suspect this is to be the case, try connecting again in about an hour.

Sometimes remote servers go down, that’s the nature of the internet, and if that’s the case, there’s nothing you can do other than wait to be able to reconnect and access the App Store, downloads, and updates again. You can manually check the status of Apple servers if you suspect the issue is on their side rather than yours, here is how you can check if Apple services like iCloud, iMessage, App Store, and other functions are down or not using these instructions.

Did these tips work to fix your Mac App Store connection issue? Have any other solutions or experiences resolving Mac App Store connectivity issues in Mac OS X? Let us know in the comments.