Trouble connecting to major sites without VPN

nirzor20 · May 17, 2020

For the past couple of days I have been having trouble connecting to several major sites, including Facebook, Gmail, Skype, and anything that requires a password to login really, over multiple devices and browsers. When I try to connect with Firefox, it shows an error message titled "Did Not Connect: Potential Security Issue" with the code SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER. Similarly on Chrome, it shows NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID.

Interestingly, these error messages go away when I'm using a VPN like protonvpn. Furthermore, the apps for the aforementioned sites seem to work fine on mobile. Since multiple devices are affected, I presume its NOT a malware problem (still checked with malwarebytes just to be sure, didn't solve it). Other than windows defender, there's no anti-virus.

So far, I've tried changing date and time settings, my DNS address, used the Internet repair tool, along with the advice of reddit user jscher2000 which shows this, Based on all the green signs I guess there's no one spying on me?

I'm trying to solve the problem by myself without getting the ISP people involved since they will likely want to come into my home, which, considering present circumstances, I'm trying to avoid. Hence any help would be highly appreciated.

dxzone12 · May 18, 2020

Sounds like a man in the middle certificate type issue. In chrome if you click on the little lock when you see this error can you send a screenshot of the certificate chain and the various issuers.

nirzor20 · May 18, 2020

Your suggestion to look into the certificate chain led me to an unexplored error message called "Peer Certificate issuer is not recognized", and following this bit of advice the problem seems to have gone away on all devices for now. Don't know what was causing it in the first place still, but oh well.

Thanks for the inspiration!

dxzone12 · May 18, 2020

35 minutes ago, nirzor20 said:

Your suggestion to look into the certificate chain led me to an unexplored error message called "Peer Certificate issuer is not recognized", and following this bit of advice the problem seems to have gone away on all devices for now. Don't know what was causing it in the first place still, but oh well.

Thanks for the inspiration!

No worries, Glad you got it sorted.