MacOS – OS X El Capitan installation error: AMD-Action:authenticate:SP

apple-idinstallmacosusb

When doing a clean re-installation of El Capitan (highest supported version) from a bootable USB on an older Mac (MBP, 15-inch, Late 2008), I get this error:

An unexpected error occured while signing in.

AMD-Action:authenticate:SP

The error shows up, while logging in with the Apple ID into the App Store in the installer.

  • I tried with different Apple IDs,

  • Also tried running these commands
    in the Recovery Terminal and restarting:

    csrutil clear

    csrutil enable

Best Answer

The problem was that the old Mac did not have its date set correctly.

  1. Hold Option (ALT) + Command + R at Mac startup to start internet recovery

  2. Going into Utilities > Terminal starts the recovery terminal

  3. Run date mmddHHMMyy - this solves the problem (date must be in PST!)

  4. Run csrutil enable

  5. Run csrutil clear

  6. Exit the recovery terminal and continue OS X installation normally.

Here is the full step-by-step solution to solve the problem.

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