Why did a 'cert common name invalid' error occur on my SSL certificate?

[LA-ecomm]

Hi everyone,

Last week our shopify site was inaccessible for several hours due to a "cert common name invalid" error on our SSL.

It was really difficult getting in touch with Shopify as when I would login to contact support, it just gave me articles or the forum options.

Finally a chat popped up where the agent said she would "reprovision the certificate"...which worked.

I asked why this happened and she couldn't answer...I asked how to prevent it from happening...she couldn't answer.

I asked to be referred to someone else in support...she said she couldn't do that.  And then told me I can call them but couldn't give me a number...so she gave me a link that just led back to articles and this forum.

My concern is that I still don't know what happened with this SSL certificate and if it will happen again and I can't get in touch with a human at shopify

Can you someone help explain?  (we are hosted by shopify obviously and the SSL certficate as far as I know is cloudflare provided by shopify).

Thank you!

[FrazierChristie]

I'm currently having the same issue with the www version of our site. 

So: 

https://domain.com works fine

but 

https://www.domain.com is throwing up a privacy error. 

We've had our domain and Shopify account for nearly 5 years. Waiting for someone form support to get back to me. Very strange

[LA-ecomm]

wish we could get some sort of reply.

i also cannot get in touch with shopify support.

when i try to contact them it takes me to knowledge base or forum - no option to chat or call!

[Shay]

Hi @LA-ecomm and @FrazierChristie 

Thank you so much for reaching out about this issue you have been experiencing with your domains and the struggles you have had contacting our live support team. I should be able to provide some additional clarification for you on the SSL certificates and also assist you in contacting our live support for any future support needs you might have. 

Regarding the SSL security certificates and the error message "cert common name invalid", there are a few reasons why the SSL may become unavailable. If you have recently updates your DNS settings the security certificate may need to repopulate or the DNS changes could be setup incorrectly, stopping the SSL certificate from propagating. Then when the system goes to provision the new SSL certificate it ends up timing out. While we aren't necessarily able to see WHY a certificate timed out, we are able to see that it has happened. From there, we are able to ask the system to reprovision the certificate (as long as the DNS settings all check out) and the SSL is recreated within 48 hours.

I recognize that this may not be all the information you were looking for on this topic. Essentially, if an SSL certificate times out it is usually because of a miscommunication somewhere in the backend system and it requires someone from your domain host (aka Shopify Support) to reprovision the certificate for your account. 

For contacting our live support through the Help Center, you are correct that the first step in the process is to sign in and search for a topic for support. You are then provided with a list of documents that may help you resolve your issue. If you need to chat with out support still, at the bottom of the list will be a "Contact Support" button which will take you to the available live support options.

If you are not able to access the contact support button please let me know what the last step you are able to get to is along with a full screen screenshot of what you see at the bottom of the search results. 

I'm happy to help with any other questions you might have about your domains.

-Shay