Solution for errors in macOS High Sierra installation. These instructions are based on my personal experience. Installation stuck at "Retrying http://swcdn.apple.com/.../InstallESDDmg.pkg after 1 failure(s)"
- Upgrade from previous macOS. In my case, macOS Sierra.
- Upgrade using macOS High Sierra Installer downloaded from App Store.
- Upgrade went wrong during its progress. Black screen appeared. It tells you should diagnose or restart.
But after you restart it...
- Not able to boot. Screen shows question mark folder.
- Not able to boot in Safe Mode either.
- Able to boot in Recovery Mode.
- Able to reinstall in Recovery Mode.
- But it takes forever. The progress stops.
- Last log says
Retrying http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/InstallESDDmg.pkg after 1 failure(s)or something similar.
If your condition follows all above then follow Downloading Stuck
If you're experiencing only the last step, then follow Downloading Stuck except DNS part.
If you somehow passed above situations, but still...
- Requires
disk password. - Your password doesn't work. Including your Account password, FileValut password, iCloud password.
- Reset Password Mode doesn't help. All the three options are not available.
- Safe Mode results the same.
- Able/Not able to boot in Recovery Mode.
- Previously encrypted your disk using FileValut. (maybe doesn't matter)
If your condition follows all above then follow Disk Password is Required
You can get into Recovery Mode by following this method. Start up from macOS Recovery I tried all options. Command (⌘)-R and Option-Command-R were showing the same result, while Shift-Option-Command-R didn't work at all since my disk format was already converted info APFS. I kept using Command (⌘)-R since then.
You can show log window by Command (⌘)-L or at the menu bar. Make it show your all logs instead of only errors. It helps you identify your problem more precisely.
At this point your installation progress should be stopped for hours. When you check the last log it will probably say something like
Retrying http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/InstallESDDmg.pkg after 1 failure(s)
The part InstallESDDmg.pkg may be different but you should see the pattern
Retrying http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/.../[filename] after # failure(s)
Then this instructions may help you out from the problem.
Note that my solution is pretty complicated than it supposed to be considering the problem caused by a network issue. There might be some other solutions, but this is the only one that I found so far.
If you're on normal boot or able to boot on safe mode, you would be able to modify /etc/hosts file. Meaning that you're not required to run DNS server. I will mark all DNS parts with (DNS) symbol so that you can easily skip them.
You need another PC. I used Ubuntu. Open terminal.
Clone this git repo.
git clone https://github.com/Jinsung-L/install-macos-high-sierra.git
Move to the folder.
cd install-macos-high-sierra
Install python requirements. I used python3.
pip install -r requirements.txt
Install DNSMasq. (DNS)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install dnsmasq
Now you need to pre-download and place it under right position.
You download them from http://swcdn.apple.com
But you will have to use curl to continue the downloading when it stops.
Example curl -O -C - http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/InstallESDDmg.pkg
Monitor if the current download speed drops to 0. If that happens, cancel the process with Ctrl + C and rerun the command again. It will autometically continue downloading from where you ended.
| SIZE (B) | FILENAME |
|---|---|
| 2613171 | AppleDiagnostics.dmg |
| 490961728 | BaseSystem.dmg |
| 4668317536 | InstallESDDmg.pkg |
| SIZE (B) | FILENAME |
|---|---|
| 10849613 | InstallAssistantAuto.pkg |
| 492474212 | RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg |
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/InstallInfo.plist
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/OSInstall.mpkg
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/AppleDiagnostics.dmg
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/AppleDiagnostics.chunklist
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/InstallESDDmg.pkg
/content/downloads/62/30/091-05077/8243xxpqrcv69hakbdhxdlw1iiffa9yi18/OSX_10_13_IncompatibleAppList.pkg
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/BaseSystem.dmg
/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/BaseSystem.chunklist
As you can see, I skipped downloading few small files. It worked fine for me. But maybe not for your case. It's your choice.
| MD5 | Filename |
|---|---|
| e8d471a8807e3c9bae08e57018ac6aeb | AppleDiagnostics.dmg |
| 83b0c9aab879e7e4c1930f8a691bd8a4 | BaseSystem.dmg |
| 1fdf3ef7735a081648c589b933517c65 | InstallAssistantAuto.pkg |
| 7df5594a3a9830377147a48fc09edf9b | InstallESDDmg.pkg |
| 3b9d5ee01af925485c111375bbc576c8 | RecoveryHDMetaDmg.pkg |
Once you downloaded all files you need, place them in the exact same directory as its url under the storage folder.
Copy the configuration file then restart DNSMasq. (DNS)
sudo cp swcdn.apple.com.conf /etc/dnsmasq.d/
sudo service restart dnsmasq
If you're going without DNS server, instead you need to modify the /etc/hosts file on your mac. At the end of the file add the following line.
127.0.0.1 swcdn.apple.com
or this if you're running your file server on other machine.
<YOUR FILE SERVER IP> swcdn.apple.com
Start flask server
sudo python server.py
Now you're File server and DNS server is running. You can test that by running
curl -O http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/04/61/091-34298/almpfkbhyxnsgbxxqhoqo7sb40w3uip0wk/AppleDiagnostics.dmg
md5sum AppleDiagnostics.dmg
The download should've done in a second and the checksum must match with the original.
Now you have to make your MacBook connect to your DNS server. Since it's impossible to modify /etc/hosts or /etc/resolv.config in Recovery Mode, you'll have to find a way to configure your router. Change the DNS Server Setting of your router to use your DNS Server's IP address. You'll easily find a way to do this by searching from google.
Now everything is setup. Restart your mac to boot in Recovery Mode if you haven't yet. Retry reinstall macOS. It will work fine. After the reinstallation gets done, your system will get rebooted then it will continue the installation process.
If you see the same problem occuring at this step, check the log. Find out at which file you're stuck, download that file into your File server, close installer, restart installation again.
You follow this: Re: High Sierra asking for ‘disk password’ and won’t accept any with some modifications For people who are suffering from finding Open Directory Database. or error -69569 or -69568