"Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message

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

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:)

Have you tried the solution from this post: Re: The recovery server could not be contacted.

If yes and it didn't work out, you can try searching for the solution out of the apple discussion.

I have searched and found different things, I don't know if these might help you since I can't test them but, you can just check it out:

http://blog.peschla.net/2011/09/trouble-with-ntpdate/

https://www.martin-brennan.com/set-timezone-from-terminal-osx/

https://slaptijack.com/system-administration/set-mac-os-x-time-zone-from-the-com mand-line/

I am not sure why it won't let you change the time. I am not a mac expert here or anything, just willing to share what I've figured.

I apple, it's either you DIY, bring your mac to them to fix it, have a geek friend to fix it for you, or nothing else. I'll leave the rest to you.

Best of luck.

How are you trying to reinstall macOS High Sierra? What OS is currently running on your Mac? Are you trying to perform an upgrade or fresh install of High Sierra? What steps have you taken, so far, to try to resolve this yourself?

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.

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.

Hi Markus,

You have to wait for the promt again and if you are running Recovery from Internet this might be slow.

Just wait for the bash promt after you have hit enter, close the Terminal and try again - do not reboot or do anything else in between. Should work.

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).

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 😕

Jo Desmet, brilliant. This worked.

In Windows Server if a machine is off from the UTC date/time the server won't communicate with the machine. The server is like, "Hey wow, if your time doesn't jive with mine then there is no way you are from my network: Stranger Danger!!!"

Thanks for the elegant solution. I'm going to have to save this in my brain and notes!!

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.

Question, every time I type that code in I press enter. I then close the window and try to download the OS again. After it still refuses to download i go back to terminal and the code is gone. what is the actual way to save the code in terminal because it keeps erasing it. Thanks.