You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
What does this mean? I’m trying to reinstall macOS High Sierra! Can’t get past this error message “the recovery server could not be contacted”
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
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 guess you’ve already checked: but ensure that the wi-fi is connected by checking the wi-fi icon on the top right of the screen. If it’s grey (i.e. not connected), then select the right network and ensure it’s connected.
While on the screen with an error on top left you should see a menu. “Utilities” section will have “Network...” section. I tried to ping google.com and got no response meaning no internet connection (even though this Mac has already been connected to my Wi-Fi). I have plugged in Ethernet cable (I am using iMac) and tested ping again. This time it worked. After that I was able to successfully recover OS with no error message. Hope that helps.
thank you for the ntpdate post but the issue of wifi not appearing still persists. There are no network appearing on the network list that is why I can't get connected. Even if I use an ethernet cable, i am unable to connect. Any help on how to resolve network issues when installing sierra. I am using a macbook pro mid 2010
To find out if it's system wide or user specific, try this...
Open System Preferences>Users & Groups, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.
Does it work in the new account?
Happy new year to all
I was able to download it i think is the wi-fi connectivity issue. I also tried Ethernet but to no avail. For sure I have no network issues because i can use in prior to initiating because i can use in prior to initiating Sierra installation
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)
I suggest you contact Apple support directly. I had to find someone who had the actual thing on a flash drive and downloaded it that way but Apple support should be able to guide you through it
THANK YOU! I was this close to losing it
This worked.
How did you get you system working
In my case I had to reconnect to my wifi network (I noticed the signal icon in the upper right of my screen was greyed out).
It's been 3 weeks and i still got this problem. "The server cannot be contacted" :(
Go back to terminal and try this command
csrutil disable
reboot1. Launch Terminal and type:
ntpdate -u time.apple.com
2. Close terminal and proceed normally.
Does this work?
Go to #4 in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208969 to download High Sierra. It should download the 10.13.6 installer.
"Recovery server could not be contacted" Error Message
