FCPX & Motion unavailable from App Store after clean install

I have a MacBook Air 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2Gb RAM, not the fastest portable I grant you. Previously I had Final Cut Pro X and Motion installed and running happily.

Today I did a clean install of Mavericks and now the App Store will not allow me to download the software I purchased as I don't have 4Gb of RAM.

I haven't used FCPX much but I do use Motion a lot. Anyone got any ideas as to how I can get at least Motion running on my Mac again?

 

By MAS do you mean the Mac App Store?

I am signed in to the App Store, I'm looking at my purchases and I can download all the rest of the software but not FCPX or Motion. When I click to install them I get a message saying I need 4Gb RAM to use them.

I have had FCPX and Motion installed and working on my machine since their release but Apple seem to have changed the specs so I can no longer use the software I paid for.

I have given feedback about FCPX via the Apple website but they state that they can't respond. Any ideas how else I can resolve this?

 

No. It was a clean reinstall so there's nearly 200Gb free.

Apparently the issue is that Apple released an update of FCPX to coincide with the launch of the Mac Pro. When they did this they increased the minimum RAM requirement to 4Gb. My MBA only has 2Gb so I can no longer use the software.

I gave feedback to Apple and hopefully if enough people do Apple may allow users to download the previous compatible version from the App Store until then I'm stuffed.

It is a stupid situation but there's no way around it. I might be able to reinstall FCPX if I downgraded to Mountain Lion but I can't be bothered and more importantly shouldn't have to.

 

Yeah I did. It now lists 4Gb.

Nope. I foolishly believed the App Store meant that I didn't need to back up Apple Apps.

Nope. My model (Late 2010) is not upgradeable.

 

No. That's the problem.

 

Yep, that was the conclusion I had arrived at.

 

LOL! Not really an option right now.

Maybe Apple will see sense. If I wasn't so invested in Apple this would be enough to make me consider switching away.

 

Unfortunately there is no guarantee that a clean install of Lion or Mountain Lion will resolve the issue. If the App Store only offer the latest releases of each App then I will end up in the same situation having wasted even more time.

I will hold out hope that Apple will address this. While I understand that there probably aren't many MacBook Air users that run FCPX or Motion it seems unfair to stop them accessing the software that they have paid for. Especially as it has always worked surprisingly well for small projects in the past.

 

It used to be minimum 2Gb RAM so my Mac just squeaked in there. I know that it worked on my Mac with 10.9 installed as it was running fine prior to my reinstall.

Has anyone installed FCPX on 10.8 recently? I wonder if you wouldn't just get a message telling you that you have to upgrade to 10.9 to install it.

If that's not the case and you are correct then it gives some hope that Apple just need to update the App Store to serve the last compatible version for the system configuration of each machine. In which case it gives me hope that it was just an oversight as it's probably not a common configuration for this software.

 

Thanks for that. I have since found a solution by acquiring the previous versions but hopefully this will be helpful to anyone else that stumbles upon this thread.

I am fortunate to have incredibly fast internet access so the time difference in copying the app to an external drive and back on versus downloading it is not enough to worry about. Plus I like a clean install as it gives me a chance to get rid of the things I don't use. I just backup my files, copy back what I need and archive the rest. The machine always seems so much faster afterwards too, although that may be psychosomatic.