SSL cert "err_cert_authority_invalid" on mobile chrome only

Domain: https://www.amz2btc.com

Analysis from SSL Labs: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=amz2btc.com

All my desktop browsers open this fine. Mobile Firefox opens this fine. Only when I tried with mobile Chrome did I get the error: err_cert_authority_invalid

I know very little about SSL, so I can't really make sense of the SSL report or why this error is coming up. If someone could ELI5, that would be ideal. :)

Solution 1:

I just spent the morning dealing with this. The problem wasn't that I had a certificate missing. It was that I had an extra.

I started out with my ssl.conf containing my server key and three files provided by my SSL certificate authority:

#   Server Certificate:
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/myserver.cer

#   Server Private Key:
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/myserver.key

#   Server Certificate Chain:
SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/AddTrustExternalCARoot.pem

#   Certificate Authority (CA):
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/InCommonServerCA.pem

It worked fine on desktops, but Chrome on Android gave me err_cert_authority_invalid

A lot of headaches, searching and poor documentation later, I figured out that it was the Server Certificate Chain:

SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/AddTrustExternalCARoot.pem

That was creating a second certificate chain which was incomplete. I commented out that line, leaving me with

#   Server Certificate:
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/myserver.cer

#   Server Private Key:
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/myserver.key

#   Certificate Authority (CA):
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/InCommonServerCA.pem

and now it's working on Android again. This was on Linux running Apache 2.2.

Solution 2:

I had this same problem while hosting a web site via Parse and using a Comodo SSL cert resold by NameCheap.

You will receive two cert files inside of a zip folder: www_yourdomain_com.ca-bundle www_yourdomain_com.crt

You can only upload one file to Parse: Parse SSL Cert Input Box

In terminal combine the two files using:

cat www_yourdomain_com.crt www_yourdomain_com.ca-bundle > www_yourdomain_com_combine.crt

Then upload to Parse. This should fix the issue with Android Chrome and Firefox browsers. You can verify that it worked by testing it at https://www.sslchecker.com/sslchecker

Solution 3:

For those having this problem on IIS servers.

Explanation: sometimes certificates carry an URL of an intermediate certificate instead of the actual certificate. Desktop browsers can DOWNLOAD the missing intermediate certificate using this URL. But older mobile browsers are unable to do that. So they throw this warning.

You need to

1) make sure all intermediate certificates are served by the server

2) disable unneeded certification paths in IIS - Under "Trusted Root Certification Authorities", you need to "disable all purposes" for the certificate that triggers the download.

PS. my colleague has wrote a blog post with more detailed steps: https://www.jitbit.com/maxblog/21-errcertauthorityinvalid-on-android-and-iis/

Solution 4:

The report from SSLabs says:

  This server's certificate chain is incomplete. Grade capped to B.
  ....
  Chain Issues                  Incomplete

Desktop browsers often have chain certificates cached from previous connections or download them from the URL specified in the certificate. Mobile browsers and other applications usually don't.

Fix your chain by including the missing certificates and everything should be right.

Solution 5:

I hope i am not too late, this solution here worked for me, i am using COMODO SSL, the above solutions seem invalid over time, my website lifetanstic.co.ke

Instead of contacting Comodo Support and gain a CA bundle file You can do the following:

When You get your new SSL cert from Comodo (by mail) they have a zip file attached. You need to unzip the zip-file and open the following files in a text editor like notepad:

AddTrustExternalCARoot.crt
COMODORSAAddTrustCA.crt
COMODORSADomainValidationSecureServerCA.crt

Then copy the text of each ".crt" file and paste the texts above eachother in the "Certificate Authority Bundle (optional)" field.

After that just add the SSL cert as usual in the "Certificate" field and click at "Autofil by Certificate" button and hit "Install".

Inspired by this gist: https://gist.github.com/ipedrazas/6d6c31144636d586dcc3