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User profile for user: keefhenderson
keefhenderson Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

cant upgrade macbook pro OS

Hi everyone,


After a recent HD failure I have had to replace my HD and reinstall with a new ssd, however my mac is stuck at mac os lion.


my machine is a 15” early 2011 that used to run high sierra. I have reinstalled the machine using internet recovery but it always defaults to lion.


although the machine is running lion I cannot update it despite having a working internet connection.


The mac cannot display certain webpages nor connect to the app store to upgrade the os.


i have tried manually downloading the mountain lion installer however when going to install is ‘cannot verify the update’.


this suggests that the date and time are wrong however they are not. I have set the date and time both automatically and manually. I have also set the date and time via command line. Still nothing despite showing the correct time.


what is interesting is that when trying to set the region it ‘cant find me’ and i have to set this manually however this is set correctly.


I am all out of ideas. I was planning to upgrade it to mountain lion and then continue to update it to high sierra however i am defeated. I cant think what else could be causing this.


thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jan 3, 2022 11:38 PM

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User profile for user: keefhenderson
keefhenderson Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Posted on Jan 6, 2022 3:30 AM

One step ahead :)


So in summary Mac os Lion + Mountain Lion can no longer be updated at all due to incompatible SSL certificates.


The operating systems are simply 'too out of date' to be able to communicate over the internet to apples servers due to outdated ssl certificates or the web protocols built in to the OS. Any other person that unfortunately has a hard drive failure that will have to do a complete re install will suffer this issue as internet recovery will always default to Mac os Lion.


The 'verify update' problem was nothing to do with the clock being set 'wrong' as it was accurately set, nor was the internal battery so depleted that it couldn't keep charge enough to keep the time, it was simply the lack of backwards compatibility.


If you find yourself in this situation you have to manually download installers on another machine and then copy them across to the machine to be installed. - Be warned however - mountain lion will still try to verify the update and is still too out of date to communicate with apple servers. To avoid this you need to go into the installer by right clicking and showing package contents, contents --> shared support --> install ESD and copy and paste this disk image to the desktop. Once copied double click open and install mountain lion.


After this you will be able to hop to high sierra in one jump. Download the installer on another machine copy it over. This time luckily you can install this one direct without any of the process above. Once this is complete you can use the machine and update it as normal.


I hope no one else has to work this out again as its taken me many hours to work out a way to get round this! Once on high sierra it will work as normal.

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User profile for user: keefhenderson
keefhenderson Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Jan 6, 2022 3:30 AM in response to mingoslkd

One step ahead :)


So in summary Mac os Lion + Mountain Lion can no longer be updated at all due to incompatible SSL certificates.


The operating systems are simply 'too out of date' to be able to communicate over the internet to apples servers due to outdated ssl certificates or the web protocols built in to the OS. Any other person that unfortunately has a hard drive failure that will have to do a complete re install will suffer this issue as internet recovery will always default to Mac os Lion.


The 'verify update' problem was nothing to do with the clock being set 'wrong' as it was accurately set, nor was the internal battery so depleted that it couldn't keep charge enough to keep the time, it was simply the lack of backwards compatibility.


If you find yourself in this situation you have to manually download installers on another machine and then copy them across to the machine to be installed. - Be warned however - mountain lion will still try to verify the update and is still too out of date to communicate with apple servers. To avoid this you need to go into the installer by right clicking and showing package contents, contents --> shared support --> install ESD and copy and paste this disk image to the desktop. Once copied double click open and install mountain lion.


After this you will be able to hop to high sierra in one jump. Download the installer on another machine copy it over. This time luckily you can install this one direct without any of the process above. Once this is complete you can use the machine and update it as normal.


I hope no one else has to work this out again as its taken me many hours to work out a way to get round this! Once on high sierra it will work as normal.

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cant upgrade macbook pro OS

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