"Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message

I had the same issue after I wiped the drive on my MacBook Pro. When you wiped the drive you selected the wrong format. All you need to do is simply go to disk utilities and erase the drive again, but this time select APFS (Encrypted) rather than just APFS. You may now click Reinstall macOS High Sierra. Side note, make sure you have internet connection in your status bar.

I have found one other solution to the problem. In disk utilities click on apple add and delete it, not erase, but delete it and everything else that is there. Keep only the OS X base system. Then check to make sure you have a WiFi connection and shut off the computer. You now need to boot into recovery mode and from there go to disk utilities. You should notice your sad is back along with other greets out drives. Click the apple sad and click erase, rename it as Macintosh HD, format it as OS X Extended Journaled, and choose guid partition map underneath that. You may exit utilities and click reinstall OS X, good luck:)

Trying for two weeks now. Is anybody actually sure that this is the answer, like retrying daily solves it? Note that the recovery is connected to the internet as I can open a browser and access Apple help.

Hi,

I just had this problem yesterday (October 26, 2018) and found a quick fix (today, October 27, 2018) on contacting the recovery server.

Check your internet connection first. (We usually have fast internet connection using wired lan, just re-plug it or use a fast wifi internet)

Then you need to update/set your date using the terminal. On the terminal, type ntpdate -u time.apple.com then hit enter. Wait for the command to be executed then close the terminal once finished.

Try to install the OS again.

I hope this helps. It worked for me.

If not, you can check out the following:

High Sierra update error: The Recovery Server could not be contacted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy3SLxT4uH4

Best regards,

Adrian.

What I had to end up doing was recovery booting , open disk utility and completely nuke everything but the recovery partition. Then boot back up into internet recovery mode. This takes forever but eventually you will get back to the recovery menu and from there just reinstall OSX , it will look like it’s hung up on 5 or 6 minutes or whatever but eventually it will finish. It might take a couple hours. Just wait it out and it will reformat your hard drive and your system will be like new. Oh, and you’ll lose any saved data so before you do this try to move your data around with the command line back in recovery mode.(look up copying files via terminal).

Thank you this was my problem. In recovery mode, I did as you mentioned. I accessed the Terminal via drop down menu on the bar. Then used the window that is opened which is blank. I checked the date just to make sure that was the problem. All I had to do is type Date. The date came back to January 1st. It was here that I knew I had to change it. So, I inputted the correct UTC time in the format you provided mmddhrmiyr (month day time in military format and year). WALA! Problem solved! I was able to by pass the RECOVERY SERVER COULD NOT GET CONTACTED prompt.

Note: you will need the current UTC time! All you need to do is google “current UTC” and that is it. Formatted as mentioned above and enter. Quit terminal and go back to reinstall software.

bought used iMac, and trying to reinstall macOS High Sirrra, but keep saying The recovery server could not be contacted

Correcting the date/time did not correct the issue for me. What did was;

1. Create a new admin user

2. Log off as the current user

3. Log back in using the new admin account

4. Go to the Applications folder and run the installation

Hope this helps. -=V=-

are there any other solutions? im about to make my own question because i have tried the new user and setting the time and i still have issues but before that ill ask here. I can't even manually download the patch either. Im on 10.12.6 and it just won't bloody work the support site only has a 10.13.1 update and a 10.13 supplemental which both require 10.13. I am using a mid 2014 macbook pro so it should run it. I swear this happens every time i want to update.

First clicking on the updates button in the app store results in a "an error has occurred" and "can't connect to the apple software update server" but i was able to update Xcode. I can download like a 19mb file from the app store for high sierra but when i run it i get "the recovery server could not be contacted" but i checked the site and everything is running on green! And i do have an internet connection on the mac otherwise i would not be here posting this!

I don't get how i always have so much trouble with a simple freaking OS update. I thought apple was supposed to be more reliable than windows.

Did you ever find a solution? Did anyone ever? I've tried the date thing and no luck. At this point I've found zip on how to fix this so I'm just stuck with a non working mac that I just bought (used).

Get a terminal window, frome the recovery menu. The menu bar at the top, not the window dot in the middle. Then enter the date command and you should see some some old date at January 1st. My MBP has a battery problem and wasn’t plugged in for a while so the system date got reset.

To fix type

date 1016200017

which is October 16th 20:00 (or 8pm) 2017.

So mmddhhmiyy

all two digits.

After that recovery worked. Must have something to do with certificate validity or something maybe.

I just had this problem. Do a restart while holding Option. Ensure that your WiFi network is selected to give the system somewhere to look for the recovery server. Select your recovery drive for the startup.

Thank you. My macbook pro decided to stop reading the ssd I had in it the other day (must need a new cable) but started reading my new one after reformatting the replacement in recovery terminal, but just could not get past this error.

Your comment saved me time and frustration, much appreciated.