Fixing common SSL certificate errors

Your SSL certificate ensures that your site’s traffic stays safe and secure. If it’s misconfigured or expired, it could prevent Jetpack from connecting to your site, so it’s important to keep it up and running okay.

When the SSL certificate doesn’t work as expected, it can affect the Jetpack to your site. Although SSL certificate issues are beyond the scope of the Jetpack support team, we’d like to share some pointers to help you solve those issues.

We highly recommend reaching out to your hosting provider for SSL certificate issues, but here are some common SSL certificate errors and troubleshooting solutions to help you address them.

Diagnosing issues with SSL Certificates

One of the first signs of a problem with the certificate on your website is when you or others see an error when simply visiting the site. The error usually mentions that your connection is not private or that there’s a potential security risk ahead.

When these happen, please check your SSL certificate for more detailed errors with this SSL Checker and test its overall health with this SSL Server Test. Aim to see your certificate graded as A or A+ as anything lower may be the cause of problems.

Server misconfiguration

Server misconfiguration problems occur when the server is set up to use an older, less secure encryption method not supported by modern web browsers or when the certificate simply doesn’t exist or hasn’t been set up at all.

In such cases, please contact your web host to have them reinstall the certificate and ensure they use the most updated encryption method when they serve it.

Certificates are incorrect or expired

When encountering errors about an incorrect or expired certificate, it means there’s an issue with the certificates themselves. They may not have been set up correctly, or those that previously worked weren’t renewed on time. Below are some of the most common related scenarios.

Expired certificate

Error example: Certificate has expired.

Like a domain, an SSL certificate needs to be renewed each year; otherwise, it will expire.

Certificate renewals usually happen without you having to do anything, but sometimes, automatic systems at your web host may fail to do it.

You’ll need to contact your hosting provider and ask them to renew the current certificate or install a new one. Here’s a detailed guide on how to install a free SSL certificate.

Self-signed certificate

Error examples:

• Self signed certificate
• Self signed certificate in certificate chain

When you see these errors, the certificate was not created using standard security practices and is considered unsafe.

Ask your host to add a fully trusted certificate to your site. They usually offer different options, both paid and free.

Name matches

Error example: No alternative certificate subject name matches target host name.

Most hosting providers share a large server between multiple sites. If your site doesn’t have an SSL certificate assigned to it, the server can return a default certificate under the host’s domain instead of yours, causing the browser to believe there is a security issue because it doesn’t match your site.

When this happens, your host needs to reinstall your SSL certificate.

Miscellaneous errors

Error examples:

• Unable to get local issuer certificate
• EE certificate key too weak
• SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:tlsv1 alert internal error
• SSL routines:tls12_check_peer_sigalg:wrong signature type

Whenever you see a random error regarding a certificate on your site, the next best step is to contact your web host. Issues like these usually relate to the hosting configuration itself.

Trouble With Your Device

Error example: Net::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID.

This issue rarely occurs with automatic updates, but identifying it early can save you much troubleshooting time.

The two biggest causes for this error are:

• Using a web browser that hasn’t been updated in quite a long time: in this case, try updating your browser and restarting it to see if that helps.
• Your device’s clock is being set incorrectly: in this case, check to see if your date and time are correct and make sure it’s set to automatically sync.