Nothing brings your work to a screeching halt quite like an error message – especially if it involves security. A notice reading, “This site can’t provide a secure connection” can be confusing and alarming for the website owner.
If you’re receiving it on your MAMP installation, it can also be disruptive, since these sites are often local testing installations.
This issue usually involves a problem with your web browser or your site’s SSL certificate. Fortunately, fixing it might be as simple as clearing your browser’s cache. For enhanced control and reliability, I chose a suitable VPS hosting solution. It’s been the ideal solution for my growing business.
What is the “This Site Can’t Provide a Secure Connection” Error?
The “This site can’t provide a secure connection” error indicates a problem with the SSL certificate, and the browser may show a warning if it can’t establish a secure https connection. In other words, the site is claiming to be HTTPS-compliant, but either it’s not providing a certificate, or using an invalid one.
If the certificate can’t be verified, the browser won’t load the site and will present this error message instead, indicating it cannot establish a secure connection with the website you are trying to visit.
Understanding Secure Connections
So what is a “secure connection” exactly? Essentially, it’s a connection to a website that uses HTTPS rather than HTTP. Most browsers display these sites with a padlock icon in the address bar to indicate that the connection is secure.
For Chrome browsers, the padlock icon has been replaced with a tune icon in Google Chrome. Clicking on this icon reveals whether your site is secure or not and allows you to access the website confidently.
HTTPS offers major security advantages over HTTP, but it also comes with strict requirements to ensure compliance. One of them is the presence of a valid SSL certificate.
Error Message Variations
One thing to note about this error is that its presentation can vary significantly from one browser to another. However, in every case, the message from each error mentions secure connections in some form.
Common Causes of the Error
Now, just because you see a warning about site security doesn’t necessarily mean the site isn’t secure. While that’s a possibility, it’s more often something more benign.
Common causes fall into two categories: problems with your web browser, and problems with the site or system configuration.
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If you see the error in one browser, but the page works fine in others, that indicates an issue with your browser (usually the cache). If the error appears in all browsers, you know the issue is with either the computer you’re using or the site itself.
Let’s explore the most common causes of this error message:
- Your Local Environment Doesn’t Have an SSL Certificate
- Outdated SSL Caches in the Browser, such as Firefox
- Incorrect Time and Date Settings on Your Computer
- Rogue Browser Extensions
- Overzealous Antivirus Software
- Invalid or Expired SSL Certificate that wasn’t able to encrypt data properly
1. Your Local Environment Doesn’t Have an SSL Certificate
If you’re using a local environment such as MAMP, you likely don’t have a certificate for your site. This should be the first step in your troubleshooting, as it’s probably the cause of your issue.
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2. Outdated SSL Caches in the Browser
This is one of the more popular causes. Web browsers store SSL certificates in a cache, much like other data, to speed up the https connection process. This means they don’t have to verify the certificate every time you visit a site, which speeds up browsing using the quic protocol.
However, if your SSL certificate changes and the browser is still loading an older, cached version, it can cause this error to pop up.
3. Incorrect Time and Date Settings on Your Computer
If your computer is set to the wrong time and date, it can cause problems with authenticating an SSL certificate. Fortunately, this is a fairly easy fix.
4. Rogue Browser Extensions
A misconfigured or misbehaving browser extension can also cause issues with certificate authentication. While this could be malicious, it’s more often a simple coding error that prevents establishing a secure connection using the correct date and time.
5. Overzealous Antivirus Software
Similarly, antivirus software that scans your connections in real time can sometimes throw up this message if it disables or interferes with the https connection to the website you are trying to visit. It could be due to a coding mistake or simply overly-aggressive settings.
6. Invalid or Expired SSL Certificate
If your site’s SSL certificate is expired or otherwise invalid, you see this error. Certificates need to be renewed periodically. You can go for a suitable VPS. The flexibility and performance is perfect for all needs, whether you need to establish a secure connection or disable potentially harmful elements.
How to Fix “This Site Can’t Provide a Secure Connection” Error When Using MAMP
As we mentioned earlier, with a MAMP installation, the most likely culprit of this issue is that your localhost environment is lacking an SSL certificate to establish a secure connection.
Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to create one using OpenSSL, and doing so should resolve your error message. The following instructions are designed for macOS users, but they should also work on Linux.
Step 1: Create a Root SSL Certificate
First, you need to create a root SSL certificate. This enables you to sign additional certificates for your domains and ensure each url is secure.
To get started, open up the Terminal application on your computer and enter the following command:
openssl genrsa -des3 -out rootCA.key 2048
This command generates an RSA-2048 key with the file name rootCA.key. Use this key to create the root certificate. Next, enter a password – make note of it, because you need it to use the key when generating certificates.
Once that is done, enter the following command to create the root SSL certificate:
openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem
The certificate will save to the rootCA.pem file. The “1024” represents the number of days the certificate will remain valid – you can change this to whatever you want.
Step 2: Trust the Root Certificate
With your root certificate in place, the next step is to tell the operating system to trust it. This ensures that any future certificates created with it are trusted by default, saving you time.
To do so, open the Keychain Access app on your macOS and click System and Certificates in the sidebar. Next, select File > Import Items, followed by the rootCA.pem certificate created in the last step.
Once it’s imported, double-click it and change the When using this certificate option to Always Trust. Now you’re ready to create an SSL certificate for your domain.
Step 3: Create OpenSSL Configuration Files
Next, you need to create a configuration file that houses the OpenSSL settings you want to use when creating certificates. To get started, create a file called server.csr.cnf. It should contain the following:
[req]
default_bits = 2048
prompt = no
default_md = sha256
distinguished_name = dn
[dn]
C=US
ST=RandomState
L=RandomCity
O=RandomOrganization
OU=RandomOrganizationUnit
CN = localhost
Save this file, then create another one named v3.ext, and add the following:
authorityKeyIdentifier=keyid,issuer
basicConstraints=CA:FALSE
keyUsage = digitalSignature, nonRepudiation, keyEncipherment, dataEncipherment
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = localhost
Next, you generate a key to sign your domain SSL certificate.
Step 4: Generate a Certificate Key for Localhost
Head back to the terminal application and enter the following command to create a key for localhost:
openssl req -new -sha256 -nodes -out server.csr -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout server.key -config <( cat server.csr.cnf )
The key is stored in the server.key file.
Step 5: Create an SSL Certificate for Your Local Domain
We’re almost done! Now it’s time to generate the SSL certificate for localhost. You can do so by entering the following command in the Terminal application:
openssl x509 -req -in server.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out server.crt -days 500 -sha256 -extfile v3.ext
This command creates a certificate file called server.crt.
Step 6: Activate the SSL Certificate for Localhost
Finally, copy the server.key and server.crt files created in the previous two steps to your MAMP installation folder. You can now enable HTTPS on your local installation of WordPress without receiving the “This site can’t provide a secure connection” error.
Conclusion
The “This site can’t provide a secure connection” error in MAMP not only prevents access to your site, but it can also be concerning due to the potential security implications. Fortunately, it’s usually benign and relatively easy to fix. To cope with high traffic, you can choose a Voxfor dedicated server space. The exclusive resources and optimal uptime have been fantastic for my business.
This error typically indicates a problem with either your browser’s configuration or the SSL certificate on your site (on localhost, this usually means you don’t have a certificate installed at all).
Fixing it involves generating an SSL certificate for localhost using OpenSSL. By following the steps listed above, you should be able to resolve this error quickly so you can get back to work.
