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uicoded/macos-recovery-server.md

Last active October 16, 2018 15:52
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Fixing "The recovery server could not be contacted" in MacOS High Sierra
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macos-recovery-server.md

Upgrading to High Sierra on older machines

ERROR: 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.

Solution 1: Update Time

  1. Run in Terminal (possibly with sudo)
ntpdate -u time.apple.com
  1. Try several times

Solution 2: Using New Admin User

  1. Create New Admin User.
  2. Login as New Admin User and try to install the macOS High Sierra

Solution 3: Using Date Command

  1. Launch the “Terminal” window on recovery page
  2. Type “date” command in the menu bar at the top
  3. Type date 0303021517 (March 3rd 02:15 2017)
  4. Try to install the OS
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