Cannot connect to www.flickr.com. Secure connection failed but only affecting this PC. laptop connection fine.
For the past two days I have been unable to connect to my Flickr account on www.flickr.com. I keep getting the following.
Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to www.flickr.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). Error code: SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. Please contact the web site owners to inform them of this problem.
Learn more…
Report errors like this to help Mozilla identify and block malicious sites
I have tried clearing cache, deleting cookies, system restore, router reset. PC restart etc etc. I have switched off the AV and tried again but to no avail. it doesn't happen on any other sites I use and I can access the site from my laptop using the same router connection. One thing to note is that the padlock symbol is absent completely on the address bar on PC but is there and green on my laptop. I have made no changes to any settings either in Firefox or my AV software. Any help would be very much appreciated.
الحل المُختار
I can't think of any other TLS/SSL settings that could cause this.
What about a proxy? You could check whether you have Firefox set to use a proxy server in settings, and switch that off as a test. You can do that on the Options page:
"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
In the left column, click Advanced. On the right side, click the "Network" mini-tab and then the "Settings" button.
The default of "Use system proxy settings" piggybacks on your Windows LAN connection settings, but you could try "No proxy" to see whether that helps.
Also, do you still use BitDefender? Could you test turning off its filtering feature for secure connections? I think this article has the steps: How to troubleshoot security error codes on secure websites.
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photoman1 said
One thing to note is that the padlock symbol is absent completely on the address bar on PC but is there and green on my laptop.
I assume that is only on Flickr? If you view, say, this site on your PC, it has the green lock and the "Mozilla Foundation (US)" indication of verified ownership?
Could you check for any non-default settings for secure connection-related preferences? Here's how:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste TLS and pause while the list is filtered
(3) If you have any "user set" preferences here, try using the default values (right-click the preference, then from the context menu > Reset)
(4) In the search box above the list, type or paste SECURITY.SSL and pause while the list is filtered
(5) If you have any "user set" preferences here, try using the default values (right-click > Reset), however, it's okay to set these to false (this helps mitigate Logjam issues):
- security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_128_sha
- security.ssl3.dhe_rsa_aes_256_sha
I noticed that Flickr uses HTTP/2, the latest version of the HTTP connection protocol. Some intermediaries (possibly your AV filtering feature, but also possibly a proxy or malware) may not be fully compatible with HTTP/2 yet. To test whether that could be the problem, you could try this workaround which stops Firefox from using HTTP/2 (sites should fall back to HTTP/1.1):
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste spd and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the network.http.spdy.enabled.http2 preference to switch the value from true to false
When testing Flickr again, try using Ctrl+Shift+r to bypass the cached error and force a fresh reload.
Hi jscher 2000,
I tried the method in your first reply and in the TLS list opposite Unsecure fallback hosts, Flickr.com was listed so I right clicked and set to default. I then pasted the Security.SSL as instructed and no list appears. I appollogise as I did this before I realised you had posted again underneath the first. Anyway the result is it still won't let me access the flickr site. Now going to try the second mentioned workaround.
Hi jscher 2000,
Did as advised in you're second post and changed the values as instructed then did Ctrl+shift+r. Still the same so I closed Firefox and re-started but still no access to flickr.
الحل المُختار
I can't think of any other TLS/SSL settings that could cause this.
What about a proxy? You could check whether you have Firefox set to use a proxy server in settings, and switch that off as a test. You can do that on the Options page:
"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
In the left column, click Advanced. On the right side, click the "Network" mini-tab and then the "Settings" button.
The default of "Use system proxy settings" piggybacks on your Windows LAN connection settings, but you could try "No proxy" to see whether that helps.
Also, do you still use BitDefender? Could you test turning off its filtering feature for secure connections? I think this article has the steps: How to troubleshoot security error codes on secure websites.
Thanks I'll give it a try now and get back as soon as i can.
Success!! By switching off the scan SSL in Bitdefender the padlock has returned and is green and access has been restored. Is there anything further that I need to do now we've established the culprit.
What's odd is why it only affects Flickr. ???
You could post on the BitDefender forums about how to make that feature work in Firefox. We do not have a lot of threads about issues with BitDefender here, and when I searched for threads there many months ago, forums regulars just kept saying to turn off the scanning. Maybe they have a better solution by now...
Odd indeed. Maybe I'll change my AV software as this is not the first issue I've had with it. First scan it did it wiped most of my saved mails in live mail. I've not trustsed it to scan since.
Ok. Many, many thanks for your help, I really appreciate the assistance. At least I'm able to access the site on my PC again. Have a great day. It's 23:16 here now so it's lights out time.