How do i fix “the recovery server could not be contacted” when i try reinstalling high sierra

An investigation by Mr. Macintosh reveals that a change to Apple's recovery servers has rendered them inaccessible over HTTPS to macOS 10.13. But as they're still accessible over plain HTTP, setting a new IASUCatalogURL value in NVRAM is all that's required to get Internet Recovery for High Sierra working again. (A separate post details how to fix Internet Recovery for Sierra, which is also broken but in a different way.)

After 2 days of working on erasing and rebooting my old MacBook Pro 2010 this finally got the High Sierra Install to work! Here is what I had to do all in all as I was using a 2023 MacBook Air to download an incompatible High Sierra file to create a bootable usb.

Download Mist, find the macOS High Sierra download. Follow instructions on creating a Bootable USB from Apple's website. The code we're supposed to enter on Apple's website would give me, "zsh: killed" After more research, I found that I needed to enter the following code in 4 steps.

Step 1 in Terminal enter the following command and press Return:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume/Volumes/MyVolume

Step 2 type the following command and press Return:

cd /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/

Step 3 type the following command and press Return:

codesign -s - -f createinstallmedia

If you get back the following code

createinstallmedia: replacing existing signature

you are good to go, to type in the following code again (Step 4) and follow the prompts to format your USB Drive.

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

• Before disconnecting your USB from the computer, go into the USB (in my case "MyVolume"), right click on the install file and select "Show Package Contents > Contents > Shared Support" then delete the file "Installinfo.plist." Empty the trash bin on your computer. Eject the USB and plug it into your older Mac. The process in this bullet point was to avoid the error message, "this copy of the install macOS High Sierra application is damaged and can't be used to install macOS" on the old computer. The end of this video lays it all out.

• From there, the next issue I ran into was the error message, "The recovery server could not be contacted." I made sure I was connected to Wifi and I checked the time on my computer a million times. The only thing that worked was Mr. Macintosh's Step 3 as mentioned above.

My laptop is finally up and running.

The Mr.Macintosh's post works for me. Just use "Option + Command + R" instead of "Command + R".

2 suggestions...

Like many others, I ran into the dreaded “The recovery server could not be contacted” message when trying to do a restore of Mac OS High Sierra for a 2010 13 inch MBP that I was selling (yes I know it’s worth almost nothing, but someone wanted to buy it from me)…

MacOS High Sierra Problem - Apple Community

1. Start up from macOS Recovery

Option-⌘-R

Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.

APFS won't work for Sierra, Sierra needs MacOS Extended Journaled. High Sierra won't work fir APFS on earlier Macs.

What has often worked for others is to use this Restore Method instead of CMD+r keys...

Option-⌘-R

Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.

2017 iMac failing to install Sierra in re… - Apple Community

Clean Install of High Sierra: Multiple Fa… - Apple Community

I have the same problem. I have tried doing this method below multiple times but it doesn't work. I have restarted each time. I can open in Recovery mode but if I try 'Apple, Option & R' I just get a no entry sign. Has anyone managed to do it? I am trying to get it to work on my Mac Pro 2012, having just wiped it ready to re-sale but now I can't get it to download High Sierra. Yes I am connected to the internet & have tried with an ethernet cable too. Can anyone help? Thank you.

"To fix this.

1. Open up a Terminal from the utilities menu
2. Enter the following command

ntpdate -u time.apple.com

1. Try to install High Sierra again. It should just work™."

We have been seeing these reports for about a month now. Some of the regular contributors notified those in charge of the forums, but we still see these reports and have not had any status updates from Apple.

Either Apple doesn't care to fix the problem, or Apple has secretly & quietly taken those servers offline for the older macOS online installers....seems to affect macOS 10.7 to 10.13, and I think maybe even 10.14 & 10.15. I'm thinking this may be intentional by Apple due to the excruciating silence.

You can provide Apple with product feedback here (Apple won't respond):

Product Feedback - Apple

You can also contact Apple corporate to let them know your displeasure about this sudden & unexpected removal of a critical feature (Apple may respond):

Contact - How to Contact Us - Apple

You may also want to check out your local consumer protection laws to see if any apply since Apple did make Internet Recovery Mode the main option for reinstalling the OS on many of their Macs. Many people don't have access to a working compatible Mac in order to download & create bootable macOS USB installers.

In the mean time, your only option is to create & use a bootable macOS USB installer, but this requires access to another Mac compatible with the OS installer you want to create. If you have access to a compatible Mac, then you can use the instructions in this Apple article for creating a bootable macOS USB installer:

Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support

Another possibility if you have access to another Mac, but it is not compatible with any OS for your 2012 Mac would be to try using MDS. I've never personally used it, but saw another respected forum contributor suggest it recently.

deryuga wrote:

even here i've got an error! "no servers can be used, exiting"

Did you set the system time as mentioned by @Glitterglow?

Can you provide a picture of the error? And what version of macOS installer was booted?

And the exact model of your Mac? You can get the exact model by entering the system serial number here:

Check Your Service and Support Coverage - Apple Support

Also, how are you booting this Mac into Recovery Mode (which key combinations)?

And which OS was last installed?

There have been numerous reports for the last few months which seem to indicate Apple may have turned off the online macOS servers, but the details are not clear if this is only affecting certain versions of macOS or just certain older "Obsolete" hardware. If you are reporting the exact error message, then I have never seen that particular wording before unless it is a translation into English. The usual error message is something like "Recovery server not available", or "Recovery server could not be contacted".

even here i've got an error! "no servers can be used, exiting"