[Mojo]

I contacted iTunes support because the App Store keeps insisting that I need to upgrade a number of apps that are the current versions. Apple tech support had me trash the apps and reinstall them. But when I checked my Applications folder none of the apps were present but one of them was open and functioning properly.

I have an external drive connected via Firewire 800. It has a cloned copy of my Mac Mini internal disk. I never designated the external drive as my boot drive and I see no indication that the Mini was booted from it.

So following a hunch I ejected the external drive. Indications are that the problem apps that were open may have been running from the external drive instead of the internal. After force ejecting the partitions I again downloaded the apps and they are now in the Applications folder on the Mini internal drive. (If the external drive had been the boot drive I would not have been able to eject every partition…)

So it appears that App Store is somehow seeing the external drive apps as needing updating even though they are the current versions. And the apps that are open are on the external drive.

I suppose that I could have mistakenly selected an app on the external drive as a login item, but I doubt it. Plus the apps that have an "automatically open at login" option in their preferences made the same mistake.

I am wondering if anyone else has run into this problem or may have some insight into what is happening. I have replied to iTunes support explaining what I discovered but I haven't heard back as of this writing.