El Capitan. no packages were eligible for install.

Just got my 2008 Mac Pro back into action with this tip! Initially I had to load Snow Leopard first and upgraded through the App Store download, then got the “no upgradable packages found” error in the El Capitan installer. After changing the date to 15 July 2017 @ 1:30PM (0715133017) the installer worked without an issue! Thanks a ton.

Charlie,

Just completer reinstall of El Capitan on my 2009 MacBook Pro after having same issue. The problem is that the certificate for El Capitan expired on Oct. 24, 2019 (as did some others). GolyApple is correct, reset the date through the terminal to something prior to cert expiration and it should work. (I used 090911552019). Mine worked and I had called Apple twice, they couldn't figure it out.

Glad that worked for you. I tried several times before I got it to work. Read about 20 articles that didn’t work. Most said change the date but not to what or why it’s necessary. Finally stumbled on an article (on an Australian site) that said the cert for El Cap expired on the 24th of October and you needed to change the date to before that. Then it all made sense and finally worked! Since I’m selling my Mac, I’m leaving a note with that info included. Next owner will be covered.

Thank you so much. I wish I would have seen this 8 hours ago and before I spent nearly an hour on the phone with Apple only to get an appointment scheduled to meet with the Geniuses at the Apple store.

I am soooo happy, thanks again.

You need a bootable usb with the El Capitan installer, download in other computer and make the usb

find the “how to create a bootable installer for macOS”

and the restart with “alt” until you see the usb installer

I actually had to tweak this... after changing the date via the terminal, I would meet with the same issue. My iMac continued to revert back to current date after restart. I simply turned off my wifi in my office and restarted to install, which it did flawlessly. I turned the wifi back on in the office when the set up asked for that. All is well now.

Thx to all the suggestions here. I followed the directions without needing USB. i changed my date to a 2017 date as suggested and kept internet offline to successfully install el capitan. I was upgrading a computer from snow leopard. my computer did not allow me to "erase" my HD to install but I was able to install anyway.

I also found another youtube video that was helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5ANojBtn9w

does anyone have a step by step on how to do this? when I changed my date it wouldn't let me download El Capitan until I changed the date back to the correct time. at what point do you change the date?

does anyone have a step by step on how to do this? when I changed my date it wouldn't let me download El Capitan until I changed the date back to the correct time. at what point do you change the date?

Having problems with Safari mail, i hit send and it goes to the out box. Then i have to send it again from the out box. My Daughter said she never got any e-mails from me yesterday , but i sent her 3.

I am running a 2019 27 inch I Mac with OS Catalina 10.15.3

Thanks for any help

Thank you Jmaiers. I logged in just to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I followed your instructions and it worked. I am so thankful I don’t have to send my cousin’s computer to Apple to have a technician look at it. I don’t know why sometimes these things get so complicated. I spoke with 5 agents for 2 days and nobody was able to help me , and it was a very simple fix. Thank you again.

Go to disk utility and there go to terminal type date and press enter it will show you the current date of the system to change the date you type date space then type the date you want mmddhhmmyr in this format and press enter.

In terminal screen you first type date and press enter it would show you the current date of the system to change you again type date space and the date you want in this format mmddhhmmyr press enter if you are trying this to install OS X El Capitan make sure you are switching off the WiFi

Total legend, thanks sooo much you just saves me hours of head scratching. This works (as seems to have done for some many others). I'd sold it on eBay and the poor buyer spent hours on the phone with Apple as coudl not get it re-installed. Finally gave up and send it back to me

I think maybe you made a mistake somewhere along the line it should work. What date did you set it to?

did you turn WiFi off after the message comes up?

1) message comes

2) reboot back into recovery mode and open terminal to set new date in 2017

3) turn WiFi off

4) reboot it and it should pickup where it left off but this time with a date that is in scope of the old Apple certificate (on the Apple servers)