As of 2024, both macOS Sierra & High Sierra Recovery + Internet Recovery are still online but are currently broken in two different ways.
In late December of 2023, I started an investigation as to why macOS High Sierra Internet recovery was broken. After figuring out the root issue, OpenCore Legacy Patcher Co-Devloper dhinakg helped me with a wonderful workaround. https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-fix-the-recovery-server-could-not-be-contacted-error-high-sierra-recovery-is-still-online-but-broken
That’s not all, now macOS Sierra 10.12.6 Recovery & Internet Recovery are also broken! Keep in mind, the is NOT the date and time issue. This is different issue that can be reproduced every single time. If attempt to install Sierra in recovery, the full installer will download (4.7GB) and then fail with this error:
An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again.
What the heck could this be? What’s going on?
Table of contents
- What is the root problem?
- How to fix the issue?
- Fix #1 Boot to a NEWER version macOS Internet Recovery!
- Fix #2 Create a macOS Sierra 10.12.6 bootable installer USB (NOTE: this has additional problems as the
createinstallmedia
installer is BROKEN!) - Fix #3 Download the ONLY working version of macOS Sierra from Apple to recovery and use it to install Sierra!