1581992 - SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT not explained at "Learn More..."

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Content, enhancement)

Description

[Jeffrey Walton]

Attachment: Screen capture of the error before following "Learn More"

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:69.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/69.0

Steps to reproduce:

Visit https://www.opensc-project.org/opensc/wiki/SupportedHardware . When the error is encountered, follow the link to "Learn More".

"Learn More" takes us to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-does-your-connection-is-not-secure-mean .

Then, search for "SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT".

Actual results:

An error occurred during a connection to www.opensc-project.org. Peer reports it experienced an internal error. Error code: SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT...

Learn More (hyperlink)

Expected results:

I expected either (1) to view the supported hardware list; or (2) understand what SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT means so I can try to fix it (and then view the supported hardware list).

For (2) maybe the "Learn More" page can explain the SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT. I have no idea what an internal alert is in this context and I don't feel like grepping sources.

Comment 1

[Jeffrey Walton]

In case it is helpful:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

Comment 2

[Jeffrey Walton]

Also see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=905309 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1555627 . They were search results that involved the "Learn More" page, but the did not discuss the SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT.

Comment 3

[Simona Badau, Desktop QA]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:71.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0

I can confirm that the error "SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT" is not explained when accessing the "Learn more" link. Tested on the latest Nightly 71.0a1, latest Firefox 70 beta 8 and Firefox 69.0.1 on Windows 10 x64, Ubuntu 18.04 x64 and Mac OS X 10.15.

Comment 4

[Alice Wyman]

(In reply to Jeffrey Walton from comment #0)

"Learn More" takes us to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-does-your-connection-is-not-secure-mean .

Your attachment, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=9093473 shows a "Secure Connection Failed" error page. I'm not sure why the Learn more link goes to an article titled, "What do the security warning codes mean?", which is about the "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" error. That article does include a note below the yellow-bordered image of the error:
Note: If Firefox shows you a Secure Connection Failed or Did Not Connect: Potential Security Issue error page instead, see the article
[Secure connection failed and Firefox did not connect] (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/secure-connection-failed-firefox-did-not-connect).

I'm going to NeedInfo Joni for her input.

Comment 5

[Joni Chan]

Thanks for reporting this. I've changed the learn more link so it points to the right page. We still need to add content on what SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT means.

Comment 6

[Joni Chan]

On second look, information about SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT is already included in the article under the "Secure connection failed..." section. It's not the same error code in verbatim but it's the same type of issue.

In this case, as the article mentions, you'll need to contact the website owner. The cause of the problem is mentioned on the error page itself.

Comment 7

[michael.chomicz]

(In reply to Joni Savage ("need info" me) from comment #6)

On second look, information about SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT is already included in the article under the "Secure connection failed..." section. It's not the same error code in verbatim but it's the same type of issue.

In this case, as the article mentions, you'll need to contact the website owner. The cause of the problem is mentioned on the error page itself.

There is no error description apart from "SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT" - how is the website owner supposed to fix the issue with that information?

Comment 8

[martin.zackrisson]

I'm not sure this is the place, but there are only a few mentions of SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT on the internet in general...

Though I haven't really solved the root cause of my issue I've found that it relates to VPN-connections in some way on my system. I get the error when not connected to my VPN trying to access https://store.steampowered.com and I get similar errors in Edge and in the steam client, but when connecting through my VPN with the OpenVPN Client, I have no issues.

Other devices have no issue connecting to steam's store page with or without VPN. So I suspect a system-wide certificate error due to previous vpn-connections on this one computer.