I recently tried installing a fresh copy of MacOS Mojave on a student’s MacBook. After selecting the “Install MacOS” option, I received a message saying “This copy of the install MacOS Mojave application is damaged and can’t be used to install MacOS.” For some reason, this seems to be caused by an incompatible time showing in the system. There are similar error messages that seem to be resolvable by the same method. These messages include:
- The installer payload failed signature check.
- This copy of the install MacOS Mojave application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading.
To resolve the issue, restart, booting to your install flash drive, connect to WiFi, and run the Terminal app from the Utilities dropdown. In Terminal, enter the following:
ntpdate -u time.apple.com
Then try installing MacOS.