“SSL certificate error: An unknown error occurred. Please try again later.”
Other Information
This ticket is pretty much a duplicate of my own ticket from 16/12/2021:
Setting CName works as expected, just like in the past.
Requesting certificate goes from status “Pending” to “Failed” with the above error message (unknown error occurred).
In said previous ticket, Admin confirmed there was a huge delay on ZeroSSL side, and the consuming code on Infinity side couldn’t handle the delay very well. Conclusion for that ticket was that the certificate creation simply started working again after a week of failures. Personally, I’ve never seen an actual confirmation from Admin that the code has been improved, so it could be that the previous ticket was just solved because ZeroSSL managed to remove their lag if so that might mean we are at their mercy again.
Comment: Just like last ticket, let us refrain from suggesting workarounds, since there are plenty of those - using a different SSL provider e.g. GoGetSSL, using CloudFlare, etc. The only point for this ticket is to discuss and follow the status of ZeroSSL, whether it is stable, and whether there is something that either Admin as service provider or we as users can improve in our process in order to make ZeroSSL certificate creation work better.
I think what we have determined now is that ZeroSSL is easy (with the CNAME setup) but unreliable. I was about to suggest GoGetSSL, but then I remembered what you said above .
I have never personally used ZeroSSL here, so I have never had one of these errors.
Have a good day!
The error handling on our end has been improved. But the client area handling the error correctly doesn’t remove the fact that there is an error.
I checked our logs, and I see that your domain was validated by ZeroSSL, but at the point where ZeroSSL actually needed to generate the certificate, our system repeatedly asked ZeroSSL whether the certificate was ready, and gave up after half an hour.
I just checked the order status, and it’s still “processing” on the side of ZeroSSL.
Sometimes ZeroSSL works well, sometimes it doesn’t work so well. Right now, it doesn’t work so well.
Our system works as intended and is doing the best it can under the circumstances. But if ZeroSSL doesn’t provide the certificate to us, we cannot provide it to you.
Makes perfect sense, thank you Admin.
Then I suppose @wackyblackie’s assessment was right on the money: ZeroSSL is easier, but unfortunately their API seems unreliable.
Are you interested in opening some sort of ticket with them to improve their service? If yes, I can keep this ticket open so we (Infinity users) can track their response. If not, I suppose ZeroSSL may remain unstable long-term, and I will therefore fall back to the comparable and more stable GoGetSSL, and we can close this ticket.
Either way, so long as ZeroSSL is known to be unreliable, I can only give my feedback as a user - I would suggest to show some big red letters somewhere when Infinity users choose ZeroSSL “Dear user, pay attention: This service provider occasionally has serious lags which could lead to failures, if issuing a certificate doesn’t work as expected please consider GoGetSSL as an alternative.”
Quick update: All my 3 domains:
epiz_26669064 - clever.42web.io
epiz_27910743 - twice-as-clever.42web.io
epiz_26669064 - clever-cubed.42web.io
have now been issued (and installed) SSL certificates within minutes. So the only reason for this ticket to still live is if Admin is interested in opening a ticket for instability with ZeroSSL, and let Infinity users track its status.
if so that might mean we are at their mercy again.
.