Powershell Invoke-WebRequest Fails with SSL/TLS Secure Channel

I'm trying to execute this powershell command

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

and I get this error. "Invoke-WebRequest : The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel." https requests appear to work ("https://google.com") but not this one in question. How can I get this to work or use other powershell command to read the page contents?

try using this one

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

In a shameless attempt to steal some votes, SecurityProtocol is an Enum with the [Flags] attribute. So you can do this:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 
  [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12 -bor `
  [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls11 -bor `
  [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls

Or since this is PowerShell, you can let it parse a string for you:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = "tls12, tls11, tls"

Then you don't technically need to know the TLS version.

I copied and pasted this from a script I created after reading this answer because I didn't want to cycle through all the available protocols to find one that worked. Of course, you could do that if you wanted to.

Final note - I have the original (minus SO edits) statement in my PowerShell profile so it's in every session I start now. It's not totally foolproof since there are still some sites that just fail but I surely see the message in question much less frequently.

The cause of the error is Powershell by default uses TLS 1.0 to connect to website, but website security requires TLS 1.2. You can change this behavior with running any of the below command to use all protocols. You can also specify single protocol.

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls, [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls11, [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12, [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Ssl3
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = "Tls, Tls11, Tls12, Ssl3"

After running these commands, try running your command:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

then it will work.

If, like me, none of the above quite works, it might be worth also specifically trying a lower TLS version alone. I had tried both of the following, but didn't seem to solve my problem:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = "tls12, tls11, tls"
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12 -bor [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls11 -bor [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls

In the end, it was only when I targetted TLS 1.0 (specifically remove 1.1 and 1.2 in the code) that it worked:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls

The local server (that this was being attempted on) is fine with TLS 1.2, although the remote server (which was previously "confirmed" as fine for TLS 1.2 by a 3rd party) seems not to be.

Hope this helps someone.

It works for me...

if (-not ([System.Management.Automation.PSTypeName]'ServerCertificateValidationCallback').Type)
    {
    $certCallback = @"
        using System;
        using System.Net;
        using System.Net.Security;
        using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
        public class ServerCertificateValidationCallback
        {
            public static void Ignore()
            {
                if(ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback ==null)
                {
                    ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback += 
                        delegate
                        (
                            Object obj, 
                            X509Certificate certificate, 
                            X509Chain chain, 
                            SslPolicyErrors errors
                        )
                        {
                            return true;
                        };
                }
            }
        }
    "@
        Add-Type $certCallback
     }
    [ServerCertificateValidationCallback]::Ignore()

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/