All You Need To Learn About Top 10 SSL Issues And Their Solutions

You might encounter several issues using your SSL certificates on your website. Even the most efficient webmasters face difficulties in choosing the right SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificate. You may get into trouble while you have to create a CSR or download it. There are several errors you might fall into when you try to add an SSL certificate to your website. If this is a recurrent scenario with you, this article is surely going to help you make the process much simpler than you think. To ease your ordeal, let’s look deep into the top 10 SSL issues you may find during the installation of your SSL certificates to your website and the solutions you can apply to combat the issues.

What Are SSL Certificates And Why They Are Used?

SSL or Secure Socket Layer is the cryptographic protocol that works efficiently to establish an encrypted connection between a client and a server. We use these certificates on our websites to encrypt the connections between web and mail servers or smartphone and manufacturer servers.

 

Top 10 SSL Issues That You Might Encounter

There are several issues that you might encounter while using the SSL certificates. Among them, we have listed here the top 10 SSL issues with their solutions. Please have a quick look at them.

Didn’t Choose Right Approver Email

Sometimes, you might face the issue because you didn’t choose the right approval email address for the SSL certificate. Whenever you try to order for the SSL certificate, the supplier of the certificate might need the official email address of your domain.

Therefore, to prevent such issues, you have to choose the right approver email while buying the SSL certificate. If you have chosen the wrong email then, you can cancel the order and buy it with right approver email.

DNS TXT Record Is Not Present

If your website doesn’t have the DNS TXT record, then you might have a problem implementing the SSL certificates on your website. In order to prevent such issues, you have to avail the DNS TXT record service.
You can check the DNS TXT status of your website by running the following command in your command prompt.

‘nslookup -type=txt www.domain.com‘

SAN Compatibility

Sometimes, your domain may not be compatible with SAN or Subject Alternative Name. SAN is used mainly to incorporate multiple qualified domain names within a single SSL certificate. It allows you to secure the primary domain of your website. It also allows you to add additional domains to your primary domain.
So, if you are having SSL issues with the additional domains of your website, then please check whether the domain comes with SAN compatibility.

Private Key Is Missing

It may happen that CSR or Certificate Signing Request and the private key are not generated on the same server where you have installed the SSL certificate. In such cases, the private key may be missing, and for that reason, you might have to reissue a new CSR for the SSL certificate. If you have re-issued a new CSR, then please check if the issue is still there.

The Common Name Mismatches With The Base Name You Entered

When you are trying to order an SSL certificate you might face the error. The problem mainly arises due to the reason that you have not entered ‘*’ before the common name. The ‘*’ means, you can include all your sub-domains with this certificate. However, you have to keep in mind one thing while ordering for a new SSL certificate which is, always use the ‘*’ before the primary domain.

Invalid CSR

In case, you are creating a renewal of the CSR for your domain you might face the error of ‘Invalid CSR’. If this is the case, then you have to ensure that information is the same in both the CSRs. If the information of the original CSR varies with the new one, then that makes a problem. The new CSR may not look identical to the old one because the private key may be changed.

Key Duplicate Error

Sometimes, you may face the error that says something like that the key is duplicate. This problem mainly occurs if you are currently using an already used private key. This happens because you can use the CSR and the private key only once.
In order to prevent this error, you should create a new CSR with a private key.

Entered SAN Options Mismatch With The Original SAN Options

You may face this issue because you might have added a space after the SAN. So, you need to be very careful at the time of entering SAN options. You should check if you have entered the Common Name (CN) of the certificate as SAN. If so, then change it. You have to choose the correct SAN to prevent such issues.

Certificate Is Not Trusted In Your Web Browser

If you have completely installed the SSL certificate and still facing the error as mentioned above. It happens because you have not installed the intermediate certificate in your system. There are different ways to install the intermediate certificate that you can find on the website of your service provider.

Mixed Content Error

Sometimes, you may face the mixed content error on your website. It means that every item of the content of your website is not secure. Usually, this error appears with a confirm dialog box in the browser.
To prevent such an error, you should avoid calling insecure content over HTTP. To do so, please change all the references and links of your domain into HTTPS. One more thing you can do is, you can deploy the SSL throughout the entire website.

Concluding Remark

In this article, we discussed the top 10 SSL issues you might face at the time of implementing SSL certificate on your website. We hope that the article helped you.