macOS High Sierra installer says "The recovery server could not be contacted." Why?

In the menu bar, look for "terminal" and open. At command line, type: ntpdate -u time.apple.com

Then hit enter. Wait about 5 seconds and you'll see the command executed. Then exit out of terminal. Proceed with installing macOS High Sierra. It will take roughly 30 minutes to install so be patient.

A more robust version of the answer might be:

1. Ensure you have a working internet connection - WiFi or Ethernet
2. Open Terminal from the Utilities menu
3. Enter the following command

ntpdate -u time.apple.com

Try again to install

It’s because you aren’t connected to WiFi. Look upper right corner and then connect to your WiFi. Then it will work. I had same issue and it resolved once connected to WiFi.

Connecting directly via cable (rather than wifi) solved the issue for me. Thanks.

I found the Internet cone icon in faint ink in the far right corner. I connected to the Internet and then could proceed.

This solved my problem. Don't forget to set time to UTC

funkymedinaNov 14, 2017 1:10 PM in response to marjeo

Level 1 (9 points)

Nov 14, 2017 1:10 PM Re: macOS High Sierra installer says "The recovery server could not be contacted." Why?in response to marjeo

Solved.

In my case I was trying to do a re-install of the OS form the startup utilities and kept getting this error.

The trick was to set the clock. Start the Terminal app from utilities to get a bash terminal. Type `date` to display the current date/time. In my case it was set to January 1st. I remember it was common with Windows Update to fail to update your system if the system clock was not "close" to the correct time.

Set the date with:

date 1114125317

(this example sets the date to November 14th, 12:53 2017)

Re-run the recover OS option and it should work.

I had this problem before,

it was a firewall related problem, disabling the firewall when updating the os worked for me.

Wanted to upgrade Macbook Air 6,2 from El Capitan to High Sierra. None of the remedies mentioned here worked for me. In the end I downloaded the full High Sierra Installer as described here: http://osxdaily.com/2017/09/27/download-complete-macos-high-sierra-installer/. Running that worked flawlessly.

Solved.

In my case I was trying to do a re-install of the OS form the startup utilities and kept getting this error.

The trick was to set the clock. Start the Terminal app from utilities to get a bash terminal. Type `date` to display the current date/time. In my case it was set to January 1st. I remember it was common with Windows Update to fail to update your system if the system clock was not "close" to the correct time.

Set the date with:

date 1114125317

(this example sets the date to November 14th, 12:53 2017)

Re-run the recover OS option and it should work.

I was trying to upgrade directly from Yosemite to High Sierra and I got the 14MB installer and the same problem about being unable to contact the recovery server. I tried a number of times over a couple of weeks (even deleting the installer and downloading a new copy in case it had been updated) but got no joy - I was never able to contact the recovery server.

In the end, I decided to try an upgrade to Sierra. Although not immediately visible in the App store, this page:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208202

gives a link from where you can download Sierra. The Sierra upgrade went without a hitch, after which I tried the High Sierra upgrade. This time, I got the full upgrade package and updated without a problem.

Worked for me. Thanks.

Did your problem solve ?? Can u help me ? I have this problem

Help me pls , what did u do to solve this problem ?

Solved!

Thanks for your post! I was getting the error on my 13" 2010 MacBook and could not figure what was wrong.

Whats means “the recovery server could not be contacted” ..!!??