SSL Pending After 96 Hours (Squarespace to Shopify)

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Domain transfer from Squarespace to Shopify led to an extended “SSL pending” state, leaving the site inaccessible (security warning) for about 96–98 hours, spanning Thursday to Monday. Support advised waiting in successive 48-hour windows, with uncertainty whether weekends affect the timeline. Squarespace still showed the domain as “Connected,” and the poster was unsure if DNS changes were needed.

The poster cautions that Shopify’s “up to 48 hours” expectation may be unreliable and suggests others consider DNS forwarding instead of transferring domains to avoid downtime.

Workaround reported: duplicating the current theme, updating to a newer theme version, and setting the duplicated theme as public. After doing this, the URL began working. The poster isn’t sure if this was causal or coincidental timing.

Status: Site became accessible after the theme switch, but the root cause remains unclear. No confirmed guidance on weekend delays or whether Squarespace’s connection status/DNS contributed.

Summarized with AI on December 24. AI used: gpt-5.
1

I’ve contacted support 48 hours ago and they said to give it another 48 hours.

Feels like we’re just throwing “48 hours” around with no actual knowledge of how long SSL pending takes. I’d personally expect something to work after its “Up to 48 hours” processing time. I am unsure if the weekend plays a factor and it’s 48 business hours?

My store has been down since Thursday and it’s currently Monday - and I have no domain that is visitable due to the SSL block message about my site not being secured.

www.Sesohq.com - Domain in question as of 7/22/24 @11 :29 AM EST - Post 98 hours after initial transfer.

I went to look over at Squarespace to see their domain settings and see it still says “Connected” although I had a successful transfer to Shopify 96 hours ago. Not sure if that matters, or if I should delete or edit all my DNS records to better the process.

Just feels like I should not have transferred my domain and just forwarded the domain from a third party. I can’t say confidently that Shopify has a true to timeline transfer schedule - so if it’s important to you please forward your DNS and do not transfer to shopify.

2

I just tried one of the most random “solutions” to this. Not sure if it’s a solution for everyone but I am so curious if it was magic timing or a fix.

What I noticed was when I went to preview the website via the current theme I was on, I had the SSL block notification that the site was unsafe. So I ended up duplicating the theme/updating to a newer theme version - then making that new duplicated theme public. Then suddenly I went to test the URL again and it worked?

I’d love if someone else is having this issue that they try this in hopes that it helps!