"Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message

@sirqaim Did you verify that the system date is correct, as discussed earlier in the thread? That solved the problem for me. The error message presented is erroneous -- it's not a "server busy" problem, despite what the computer says.

This was extremely helpful. However you have to type “date 0315200018” if that is what today’s date is like it is right now for me. After typing this in the terminal I was able to finally download macOS High Sierra after hours of trying to figure out why the recovery server couldn’t be contacted. The date configuration is weird though. First two digits are the month then the second two is the day and finally the year is whatever year it is with an extra two zeros in it as shown above in my example as well as Jo Desmet’s. Thanks Jo!

I think it has been said before, but without some fine details that make the difference.

Get a terminal window, from the recovery menu by going to the menu bar on top of the screen. Then simply type in the word date and press enter. You will see your system date in the following format: MMDDHHMMYY, probably an old date.

From here, type in the current time/date for example 0322215618 (03 for March, 22 for the date, 2156 for the time 24/hour format and finally 18 for year). Ensure the time you’re entering is in UTC Zone. Then simply press enter and close out and go back to install a fresh copy and it should work. It did for me.

Hope this helps!

Changing the date in terminal is still the answer. I updated from 30/10/2017 to 28/05/2018 & the recovery begins.

What a stupid oversight from Apple. It's an internet-based recovery, putting in a time/date call before checking the recovery server would be trivial. Instead, thousands of frustrated Apple customers have to either find this thread or visit a service agent.

This kind of error is still far too prevalent in the entire computer industry.

Just had the same problem with a MacBook Pro mid2010. Since the thing was collecting dust for a year, the date was back to factory.

So, open terminal and write “date”. If you have the same problem it schould day 2001. Check this article for how to change it back https://bensmann.no/changing-system-date-from-terminal-os-x-recovery

when the message "the recovery server could not be contacted" appears, press ok. You go to the bar above where you see utilities presses terminal where a box will appear. ein which aparce -bash-3.2 # there we proceed to write: date press enter appears the date, then repeats again bash-3.2 # date where we are going to write 05200018 press enter. from there we go to the bar above where it says terminal and we click on remove terminal. We return to click on reinstall mac Os, click continue, continue and from there we just follow the instructions on our computer

In my case this message turned out to be be simply because the machine was not connected to WiFi (WiFi symbol greyed out on the top right of the screen). Clicking on the WiFi symbol, selecting a network and entering the network password did the trick.

Just ran into this myself after the most recent Mojave update screwed it up, the solution for my case was hold option key after powering on and then select your network and retype password. Then press and hold Command R until you see the apple logo to get into recovery mode and do the the OS reinstall. Then go in software update and turn off updates and let others be the beta tester for Apple.

I figured this problem out. It’s sooooo simple. All you have to do is go to the far right hand corner and select the WiFi connection and put your password in. It’s really hard to see because the WiFi symbol is almost camouflaged in the gray bar at the top. Once you do this I’m sure it’ll work.

Click ‘reinstall macos’ before you hit continue, look at the too to see if your wifi is actually connected. Most likely it won’t be. Connect to wifi and then continue.

in case anyone still has this problem, THE SOLUTION is you need to connect to wifi!!!! server can't be contacted because you probably aren't connected to a wifi network. once you connect to wifi IT WILL WORK (at least it did for me)

1. Launch Terminal and type:

ntpdate -u time.apple.com

2. Close terminal and proceed normally.

I got mine fixed by turning on the WiFi in the top right corner of the screen.

Make sure your machine is connected to the internet. I had to manually connect to my wireless using the network control in the top right of the screen.

I received the same message, but realized I wasn’t connected to internet. Look upper right corner to see if you are connected. Once I connected to wi fi it worked perfect.