What does "Recovery server could not be contacted" mean?

Dannymac22 wrote:

I needed to reinstall High Sierra on a 13" MacBook Pro 8,1 (early 2011). I do all of this - Erase and reinstall macOS - Apple Support, and get to the point where I select "Reinstall MacOS". It presents a window for High Sierra, and I tell it to go do it. It thinks for a while, and then comes back with an error "The recovery server could not be contacted". My wifi/internet is working fine, and connected.

What's going on???

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

see if there is anything here—

"Recovery server could not be contacted" … - Apple Community

The older macOS installer backups:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

See Fix #3 in this article:

https://mrmacintosh.com/how-to-fix-the-recovery-server-could-not-be-contacted-error-high-sierra-recovery-is-still-online-but-broken/

Unfortunately Apple doesn't seem to care about supporting older Macs where all restore options require access to Apple's Internet Recovery Mode or to another Mac compatible with that OS in order to create a bootable macOS USB installer.

In this case I believe it is because High Sierra is no longer offered as a download.