SOLUTION to the "Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message (macOS recovery can’t download macOS High Sierra)

Background:

There are hundreds of threads and thousands of people on Apple Support Communities not being able to use their Mac because of the error message “Recovery server could not be contacted” that a lot of people are getting with macOS Recovery when trying to reinstall macOS High Sierra after having wiped their Mac. Apple didn’t allow me to reply to these threads since they are now locked, so I created this one instead to finally solve this!

Explanation:

This happens due to the server URL that the Mac is trying to download macOS High Sierra having a typo in it. It’s trying to download macOS High Sierra from a https server, but’s it’s actually hosted on a http server.

Solution:

1 - Go to YouTube on another device (like your iPhone).

2 - Go to the video titled “[FIXED] The Recovery Server Could Not Be Contacted Error! High Sierra Internet Recovery Error” by “Mr. Macintosh” (published on January 1st 2024).

3 - Skip over solution 1 & 2 (they don’t work) and skip to solution 3 (which is 3 minutes and 59 seconds into the video).

4 - Unlike what he demonstrated in the video, I had to type in the whole download URL manually since pasting it in just caused the command to be entered without me having the chance to remove the s first.

5 - Now you can download macOS High Sierra!

The solution he demonstrates in the video is basically changing the download URL from https to http, therefore successfully downloading it from the correct server. It takes less than 5 minutes to fix and worked perfectly on my 17” MacBook Pro from 2010.

Happy to help!