Q: system can't be installed

Restart, listen for the tone, then press cmd-r and hold until the gray screen. You'll be in the recovery hd or internet recovery. Either way you can reinstall Lion.

See, About Lion Recovery.

I found some info googling that code indicates your ISP is blocking the ports to allow internet recovery to work.

Can  you connect from another network?

I solved it by simply connecting the MBA to the wired network via Apple thunderbolt to ethernet adapter.

I have this happening at the moment on my iMac 27" Later 2012.

But, I use wireless AND ethernet (wifi is for testing).  When I am booting, I think it is using wireless... but it shouldn't.

How do I force it to use ethernet?

SkeeveS wrote:

 

I have this happening at the moment on my iMac 27" Later 2012.

 

But, I use wireless AND ethernet (wifi is for testing).  When I am booting, I think it is using wireless... but it shouldn't.

 

How do I force it to use ethernet?

For Internet Recovery, this article seems to imply that you must use WiFi, but I'm not certain about that.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718

For regular recovery, you should be able to use Ethernet.

If this helps anyone else, I had the same issue with my MacBook Air 13" Mid 2011.  I am using a pfSense firewall.  Even allowing all outbound traffic on the WiFi interface did not help.

Only disabling squid (the proxy server) fixed it for me.

It helped me! Thanks!

No Barney..  it isn't a port being blocked by the ISP..  and think about it.. why would they huh ? 

I have three DIFFERENT internets..  one at home - office - second home..  ALL do the same thing... so I went deeper and checked it with packet capture and APPLE just plain isn't responding to the requests.. 

Its no help if people just arbitrary do some Googling and "think" they helped someone..  

I'm in the same boat.  I don't have any Time Machine backups - I've just been using Crash Plan and my external HD - and have found that El Capitan makes Photoshop and Corel Painter lag really badly on my mid-2010 Macbook Pro, which research tells me came with 10.6 Snow Leopard.  I replaced my original HD with an SSD and it didn't help.  The only option seems to be Internet Recovery, but I get the 4403f error. 

I understand the issue is likely due to the ISP and/or a firewall.  I'm in China, and the whole country is basically behind a firewall, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I feel like my only three options now are to either buy a second-hand Snow Leopard DVD, or a black market USB stick loaded with a bootable version of OSX pre-El Capitan.  Or book a day trip to Hong Kong where the internet is "free" and attempt Internet Recovery again from there, where I guess I'd be back to Snow Leopard. 

Although I've backed everything up, my version of Painter for instance, needs a minimum of OSX 10.7 Lion.  So if I have 10.6, how am I supposed to upgrade to Lion or better (but not El Capitan)?

This is frustrating.  In hindsight, I should have had Time Machine.  But I didn't, so here I am, and I don't exactly know what to do.

A retail Snow Leopard DVD may boot that Mac, but the mid 2010 Macbook Pro shipped with a special build of 10.6.3. The retail disk is 10.6.3, but the modifications in the build that shipped with that Mac may be required for it to boot. The only way to ensure it will work is to contact Apple and order replacement disks for that Mac. They just need the serial number, and I think they charge a small fee for shipping.

But, that won't help you with Painter if it needs Lion.

I can't speak to either of those programs, but it may be some conflict with other software you have installed that is not compatible with El Capitan. Have you searched to see if anyone else has the same issues with your versions of Photoshop and Painter?