I have the same issue for my 2017 macbook pro with touch bar. I've spent a few days trying all sorts of re-installs to different OSX version, and then updating through the app store to later versions, hoping that one of them would restore the touchbar firmware for me, to no avail. There's an in-depth write-up about the issue https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/27/the-untouchables-apples-new-os-activation-for-touch-bar-macbook-pros/ and part 2 with a "solution" is https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/30/the-untouchables-pt-2-offline-touchbar-activation-with-a-purged-disk/ Based on those write-ups, it sounds as though if someone who has a working touch bar could take the following steps: https://blog.eriknicolasgomez.com/2016/11/30/the-untouchables-pt-2-offline-touchbar-activation-with-a-purged-disk/#baking-the-cake and post a working upload of their EFI partition to share, then those who have this issue could simply place the firmware into their EFI partition and circumvent the Apple downloader, which doesn't seem to connect for most of us. If someone who has a working macbook touch bar would be willing to post a copy of their EFI partition, I will try it on my 2017 macbook pro and repost back with results.