How to force OSX High Sierra USB install with no internet connection?

[mmomega]

Just reinstalled direct from USB from a 10.13.4 drive very recently on 3 different machines. A 2013 Mac Pro, a 2012 Mac mini and a 2014 Mac mini.
None were on an internet connection until, once I was in the OS and on the desktop did I connect to Wifi.

To create my installer, my normal routine is download the most up to date macOS from the App Store, and run a terminal command, 2-5 minutes depending on the type of drive, and I have an installer.

I do have several install drives for specific scenarios where I have one for Sierra, one for 10.13.0 - with combo updates on the drive in another folder and the most up to date release on the App Store.

Even outside the normal box (on a hackintosh machine) Use the most up to date App Store macOS, fully install the OS and then load additional kexts/drivers to get internet working after install.

 

[serr]

I've tried the createinstallmedia command in every OSX from 10.9 - 10.13 and all of them give me the "not a valid installer app" error. I've downloaded it a number of times even though every single one verifies with the disdude1 tool. And the dosdude1 tool also successfully creates a bootable USB installer from the .app file every time.

I'll have to review the method to manually download the full installer app (catching before the reboot and so forth) and try that I suppose.

Something is going on here by design it feels like though (or design gone wrong). It looks for all the world that I have an error free download. The dosdude1 tool verifies it and successfully creates an installer from it that successfully installs 10.13.4 with no apparent issues. The dosdude1 tool specifically is disabling wi-fi and there must be a related reason here. Or there's some signing thing with the file that can get missed if you try to download the complete installer?

So I can load machines via this 3rd party fix but I'd still like to know what the heck is going on behind the scenes here. Or what I'm screwing up or missing if that's the case.

 

[Partron22]

All it takes is another 5GB+ download from the App Store.

Plus another hour or two downloading any extra voices you've downloaded for Apple Speech.
Both Sierra and High Sierra installs strip those files for no reason that I can discern. You get them back through "Sys Prefs - Accessibility - Speech - System Voice".

 

[mmomega]

I just had to do a fresh install today on a 2014 Mac Mini and remembered this thread. I re-downloaded High Sierra directly from the app store.
Put in a USB drive, named it "myvolume"
Open terminal and paste in

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app

when it completed, put the USB drive in the mini. Booted with Option held down, chose the installer and just went straight through the install to desktop.
Connected to wifi at that point.

I didn't use any other tools other than Mac App Store and terminal.

 

[serr]

I've found a couple clues but haven't gotten up to speed with the necessary background quite yet.

There's this:
"Many theories and ideas were put forth as to what caused one to get the stub vs the full installer. While I’m still not 100% sure about this, I think we’ve narrowed in on the cause.

It appears that when the App Store is downloading the installer app, it also uses softwareupdate to get the resources that normally reside in Contents/SharedSupport. If com.apple.SoftwareUpdate has been configured to use a CatalogURL that points to a softwareupdate catalog that does not contain product URLs for the needed Install macOS High Sierra resources, you get the “stub” application instead.

If, however, softwareupdate is using either Apple’s default CatalogURL, or is pointed to an internal CatalogURL that contains the needed products, you get the full installer.

Currently, the needed resources are Product 091-34298, “Install macOS High Sierra”, but this will almost certainly change over time.

TL;DR: to get a full High Sierra installer from the App Store, make sure softwareupdate is pointed at Apple’s softwareupdate servers or an internal server in which you have synced and made available the “Install macOS High Sierra” product."

And then comments about downloading the 'stub' and following with running it to download the remainder of the installer and quitting before it does an update style install. The files are apparently downloaded to somewhere in /private/var/folders/.

I neglected to open Activity Monitor to see where the exact file path was while it downloaded and it might just be quicker to download it again.

Then there's the part where I'm just supposed to know how to follow through with these tips! I'd be grateful if someone could help me with some learning curve here! Thanks!

At the end of the day, there must be something going on with signing the file with an Apple ID or some such to make createinstallmedia happy.

 

[Mars911]

I would like to know how can you manually point to an internal CatalogURL instead of the Apple Server