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SSL Error · Firefox

Expired certificate (Firefox)

SEC_ERROR_EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE

Firefox's way of saying the certificate is past its expiry date or the system clock is wrong.

What it means

SEC_ERROR_EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE is Firefox's equivalent of Chrome's date error. The certificate's validity window has ended relative to the current time, so Firefox blocks the connection. As with the Chrome version, this is either a certificate that genuinely lapsed or a device whose clock is set wrong enough to make a valid certificate look expired.

When it happens

It happens when a certificate expired and wasn't renewed, or when automated renewal failed without anyone noticing. If the site works in other browsers or on other machines, suspect the local clock: a wrong date, time, or time zone, often after a battery or OS reset.

How to fix it

  1. Check the certificate's expiry date. If it's in the past, renew or reissue it and install the new certificate.
  2. If renewal is automated, find out why it didn't run and fix the underlying job or hook.
  3. If only one machine is affected, correct its date and time and turn on automatic time sync.
  4. Reload the web server after installing the new certificate so it stops serving the expired one.
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