"Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message

And just to further clarify, use UTC, NOT your own time zone. If you don’t know what time it currently is in UTC use this: https://time.is/UTC

I just went through the same issue and couldn’t get past it until I used UTC time.

Thanks for the tip!

mostly it means migration assistant (because let's face it, you are here trying to reinstall macos because migration assistant already failed for you and insisted on keeping a botched transfer of your main account and now will not let you try that again but instead wants you to send your real account to some made-up name that does not conflict with the botched initial transfer that is somehow really really important to preserve), anyway, where were we? right, reinstall macOS. Because Migration Assistant just got confused enough to toast your machine and you can't think of anything better than scrubbing it all and starting over, and like me you are frustrated that there seems no way to do that.

I am searching for the the jealously guarded really-really-wipe-my-machine-and-start-over option, and promise to update this post if i ever find it. They have hidden it well. Does this ever turn out ok?

Ge to recovery menu (restart your machine and press cmd + R). when at the recovery window, look for terminal window, frome the recovery menu. if you can't find it, check under window. 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.

Just copy the above instructions as they are. Curtesy Jo Desmet

Restart your laptop, after the chime, press Command + R. You will likely have a globe that will prompt you to log to a network, choose your network and wait for it to get to the next screen. When you get to the recovery screen, look for Terminal and follow these instructions:

Type the following commands;

date 1112203217

which is November 12th 20:32 2017.

Just use the your correct time. That's my local time. If it still does not work;

type the following:

csrutil disable

reboot

and repeat the process above after restarting. Hope it works

THE CORRECT TERMINAL COMMAND IS: ntpdate -u time.apple.com

Credit to levlaz here: https://gist.github.com/levlaz/16b63384bd5e1bee3593be0d91aedbd7

Full post below:

I was trying to reinstall High Sierra on an older MacBook Air using internet recovery and I kept on getting an error message when trying to reinstall High Sierra.

The recovery server could not be contacted

It appears that this has to do with the time on the machine not being synchronized, so when the MacBook tries to reach out to the recovery server the certificates do not validate and we get this useless error message.

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™.

Hi I’m having the same problem and I’ve tried everything you guys have and it still says “recover server could not be contacted” what do I do ? I need to use my laptop for homework!

SOLUTION:

1.Boot Mac while holding Command and R(enter recovery mode)

2.Once the loading bar appears you can let go of Command and R

3.Once at the recovery screen go to Utilites in the top menu Bar

4. Open Terminal

5. Type

ntpdate -u time.apple.com

6. Press enter, wait for a response, then go to Finder Quit Terminal

7. install Mac OS

8.Need more help? Check out the link below

REASON AND ISSUE:

The time on your Mac is off, mine was off by .00356 sec or something and this solved it

SOURCE:

https://becomethesolution.com/blogs/mac/the-recovery-server-could-not-be-contact ed-mac-os-sierra

The issue, is most likely, that their Apple ID is still assigned to this Mac.

Have them take a look at the following link to try to remove it:

What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support

There's one thing I'm missing... since when is an INTERNET CONNECTION required to install software I purchased on a device I purchased!?

This discussion string is misleading—Apple shows that their servers being busy "solved" this problem. Jo's answer here solved the problem for me. It seems if your computer does not have the correct date and time it can't properly connect to the server. Thanks Jo. This worked.

Just saw this post and haven't been able to try this yet. My issue is that when I try to erase and do the APFS (encrypted) it asks for a password...well I just bought the computer used and have no clue what the password would be since there is no user- or at least I thought. I'm assuming they reset it. I'm getting ready to ask the seller, but it's a refurbed computer so it's hard telling if anyone is going to have access to a password. I need help 😕

As with others in this thread, setting the date using the date command in Terminal worked for me too.

Even though my battery was fully charged (and normally the date is fine) it still showed as an incorrect date when I typed date at the prompt.

To fix it I typed date 1215115317 at the prompt which set the date and time to December 15 2017 at 11:53 AM, closed the Terminal and then tried to install the OS again. This time it worked!

In the recovery window mac does not connect to wireless by default. On the top right click on wireless icon, connect to your network then give it a try again. As the other user suggested I also set the date thru terminal before installing. It worked for me.

You are probably not connected to the Internet. You may need to sign in every time you do the Command R. (There is no prompt!). So the message "the recovery server could not be contacted", really means you are not online or connected to the internet.