The correct way to reinstall macOS Catalina is to use your Mac’s Recovery Mode: Restart your Mac and then hold down ⌘ + R to activate Recovery Mode. In the first window, select Reinstall macOS ➙ Continue. Agree to the Terms & Conditions.
To reinstall macOS, including the latest Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, without losing data, you can follow the professional guide to update the OS, which will not cause data loss in most of the case. If you still have worries, back up your Mac in advance or recover the lost files with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.

Easy & simple way to reinstall Mac if you are thinking about selling your computer or simply need to install a fresh copy macOS Catalina follow the tutorial.

Hi – I have been having some issues on my late 2013 Imac since upgrading to Catalina. A lot of library messages in the logs for example. Sometimes if I go to shutdown I get a black screen for a while then it reboots, other times it’s fine. Sometimes when emptying the bin it just sits there on the screen and other odd behaviours. Have run Malwarebytes and nothing untoward there.

It’s got very frustrating so I thought I might try and download Catalina again and refresh it. Using the Recovery, Installed OS option, does this download a new copy of the OS to the Macintosh HD partition while keeping Macintosh HD-Data partition separate? I have a Time Machine backup and also other separate copies of the three users Photos library from the iMac but wanted to know if I can re-install the OS without specifically doing anything else to keep my data. Alice madness returns steam key. Sorry if this is basic question but in Mac terms I am not that experienced.
—–
Gregory

Summary :

When you want to reinstall macOS on your Mac computer, you may encounter different kinds of issues like the recovery server could not be contacted. Do you know the reason for this issue and how to fix it? In this post, MiniTool Software will show you the information you want to know.

Quick Navigation :

Why the Recovery Server Could Not Be Contacted on Your Mac?

The recovery server could not be contacted is an error message that you may receive when you want to reinstall macOS 10.13 High Sierra/macOS 10.14 Mojave/macOS 10.15 Catalina/macOS 11 Big Sur in recovery mode or update your macOS. When this issue occurs, you will see the following interface. This issue stops you from installing macOS you want to use.

Top Reasons for the Recovery Server Could Not Be Contacted on Mac

During the macOS installation process, your computer needs to establish a connection with the Apple recovery server. If you receive the Mac recovery server could not be contacted error, it usually means that the connection between your Mac computer and the Apple recovery server is not successful.

The main causes are here:

Your Mac computer is not connected to the network, or the network connection is not stable, or the network connection is faulty.
Your Mac computer’s date and time are not correctly synced with the Apple recovery server.
Too many users are trying to install the macOS update, bringing heavy burdens to the Apple recovery server and making your Mac can’t connect to the Apple recovery server.
Some other reasons….

When you look for solutions to solve this issue on the internet, you will find that many users have been bothered by it or are getting into this trouble currently. That is to say, it is a common problem.

The solutions from the internet are various. Which is the best method to solve this issue? We have collected some approaches that are proved to be effective. If you are not sure which situation you are facing, you can try all these solutions to find the most suitable one.

Recommendations:

Here are some other issues (as follows) you may encounter when you want to reinstall or upgrade macOS. We hope the following guides can help you out:

How to Fix the Recovery Server Could Not Be Contacted on Mac?

Check Your Network Connection
Check Your Date and Time on Mac
Use the macOS Installer
Try Reinstalling or Updating Your macOS Later
Erase Your Mac Disk and Reinstall macOS

Method 1: Check Your Network Connection

The first thing you need to do is to check your Mac network connection.

Whether Your Mac Is Connected to an Available Network

Click the Wi-Fi icon at the right end of the menu bar to unfold the list of the available networks.
If the Wi-Fi is off, you need to click Turn Wi-Fi on to enable it. Wait and see whether your Mac is connected to an available Wi-Fi. If not, you need to manually add one.

Whether the Network Connection Is Stable

If your network connection is not stable or the signal is weak, you can also encounter a Mac recovery server could not be contacted issue. So, when your Mac is using an available Wi-Fi connection but the issue persists, you need to check whether the connection is stable and strong.

It is easy to do this: press and hold the Option key on the keyboard while clicking the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar. Then, you can see the signal strength in decibels of the Wi-Fi network you are using.

Whether the Network Connection Has Issues

If your Mac can’t connect to a Wi-Fi network even after you turn Wi-Fi on, you need to take some measures to fix the connection issue. This post is helpful: If your Mac doesn't connect to the Internet over Wi-Fi.

Method 2: Check Your Date and Time on Mac

If your Mac computer’s date and time are not properly synced to the Apple recovery server, you can following these steps to correct the issue:

1. Click the OK button to close the error interface and you will return to the macOS Utilities interface.

2. Click Utilities from the top Apple menu bar and then select Terminal to open it.

3. Type ntpdate -u time.apple.com and press Enter.

The whole process will last for a while. You need to wait until it ends. After that, you can trying reinstalling macOS again to see whether the issue is solved.

If the above command doesn’t work for you, you can try the other command:

Use the method mentioned above to open Terminal on your Mac.
Type date and press Enter to see the data of your Mac computer.
If your date and time are wrong, you need to type the current time with the following command date mmddhhssyy. Take 22 February 22, 10:10 am, 2021 as an example, the command should be date 0222101021.
Press Enter.

After these steps, you need to exit your Mac Terminal and then reinstall macOS to see whether the process is successful.

Method 3: Use the macOS Installer

To avoid the recovery server could not be contacted Mojave/High Sierra/Catalina/Big Sur, you can also reinstall macOS via the full version of the macOS installer rather than using the Reinstall macOS option in Mac Recovery Mode.

If your Mac won’t boot into Recovery Mode or Command-R not working, do you know how to fix it? In this post, we will show you some effective solutions.

You need to first create a bootable installer for macOS and then use it to reinstall or update your macOS. This article shows you the detailed steps: How to create a bootable installer for macOS.

Method 4: Try Reinstalling or Updating Your macOS Later

Another method to solve the recovery server could not be contacted High Sierra/Mojave Catalina/Big Sur is to just quit the macOS installation process and select another time to do the job. You can use this method when the latest macOS has just been released because there should be many users are updating macOS, causing busy and crowded usage of the Apple recovery server.

Method 5: Erase Your Mac Disk and Reinstall macOS

If all of the above methods can’t solve the issue, you may need to erase your Mac disk and then reinstall your macOS in recovery mode.

Back up your Mac using Time Machine.
Close your Mac.
Press the Power button and immediately press & hold Command-R<

Mac Reinstall Catalina