Ok, so you just formatted your MacBook, and are about to do a clean install of Apple´s new operating system “Lion”. You have initiated the installation process, and the computer starts to download Lion from Apple´s servers. When this has finished, you will be prompted for some finishing touches, meaning you should tell Lion where you live, what language you want to use, and so on. You progress to the tab at which you have to enter your Apple ID, and you press “next”. BUT, even though it says “communicating with apple”, nothing really happens. The computer tells you it´s communicating, but if you ask me there is more of a monologue than a dialoge. The mac doesn´t really stop responding, but it doesn’t do anything productive either. What to do!???

Solution

I have come across several possible solution to this problem, although neither have worked for me personally. What did the trick in my situation, was leaving the “Apple ID” and “Password” input fields totally blank, and then hit “next”. What happened then, was that the “next” button turned grey. Nothing else happened though, including the expected “communicating with Apple” dialog (iow: it did not appear). Now, when this button has turned grey, hit CMD+Q, and then “Skip”. This will take you to the “account settings” tab, in which you are supposed to type name of your account to be created and so on. The rest worked fine for me, and Lion starts up like it should have done in the first place, without problems like those we encountered.

I hope this can help you guys like it helped me. Have a good day, and happy lion-ing!