[ios] iOS9 getting error “an SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made”

Since I upgraded my existing project with iOS 9, I keep getting the error :

An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made.

If you are just targeting specific domains you can try and add this in your application's Info.plist:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
    <dict>
        <key>example.com</key>
        <dict>
            <key>NSExceptionRequiresForwardSecrecy</key>
            <false/>
            <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
            <true/>
        </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>

My issue was NSURLConnection and that was deprecated in iOS9 so i changed all the API to NSURLSession and that fixed my problem.

NSURLConnection deprecated in iOS9

I was getting this error for some network calls and not others. I was connected to a public wifi. That free wifi seemed to bee tampering with certain URLs and hence the error.

When I connected to LTE that error went away!

Xcode project -> goto info.plist and Click + Button then Add (App Transport Security Settings)Expand, Allow Arbitrary Loads Set YES. Thanks

Even though allowing arbitrary loads (NSAllowsArbitraryLoads = true) is a good workaround, you shouldn't entirely disable ATS but rather enable the HTTP connection you want to allow:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <key>NSExceptionDomains</key>
  <dict>
    <key>yourserver.com</key>
    <dict>
      <!--Include to allow subdomains-->
      <key>NSIncludesSubdomains</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to allow HTTP requests-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads</key>
      <true/>
      <!--Include to specify minimum TLS version-->
      <key>NSTemporaryExceptionMinimumTLSVersion</key>
      <string>TLSv1.1</string>
    </dict>
  </dict>
</dict>

iOS 9 forces connections that are using HTTPS to be TLS 1.2 to avoid recent vulnerabilities. In iOS 8 even unencrypted HTTP connections were supported, so that older versions of TLS didn't make any problems either. As a workaround, you can add this code snippet to your Info.plist:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

*referenced to App Transport Security (ATS)

It appears that iOS 9.0.2 breaks requests to valid HTTPS endpoints. My current suspicion is that it is requiring SHA-256 certs or it fails with this error.

To reproduce, inspect your UIWebView with safari, and try navigating to an arbitrary HTTPS endpoint:

location.href = "https://d37gvrvc0wt4s1.cloudfront.net/js/v1.4/rollbar.min.js"
// [Error] Failed to load resource: An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made. (rollbar.min.js, line 0)

Now try going to google (because of course they have a SHA-256 cert):

location.href = "https://google.com"
// no problemo

Adding an exception to transport security (as outlined by @stéphane-bruckert's answer above) works to fix this. I also assume that completely disabling NSAppTransportSecurity would work too, though I've read that completely disabling it can jeopardize your app review.

[EDIT] I've found that simply enumerating the domains I'm connecting to in the NSExceptionDomains dict fixes this problem, even when leaving NSExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads set to true. :\

In my case I faced this issue in my simulator because my computer's date was behind of current date. So do check this case too when you face SSL error.

I was getting below error on playback

finished with error [-1200] Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1200 "An SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made." UserInfo={NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://remote-abcabc-svc.an.abc.com:1935/abr/_definst_/smil:v2/video/492F2F82592F59EA74ABAA6B9D6E6F42/F6B1BD452132329FBACD32730862CAE0/091EAD80FE9BEDD52A2F33840CA3CBAC.v3.eng.smil/playlist.m3u8, NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=Would you like to connect to the server anyway?, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=3, _NSURLErrorFailingURLSessionTaskErrorKey=LocalDataTask <692A1174-DA1C-4267-9560-9020A79F8458>.<1>, _NSURLErrorRelatedURLSessionTaskErrorKey=(
    "LocalDataTask <692A1174-DA1C-4267-9560-9020A79F8458>

I made sure that I added entry in exception domains in plist file and NSAllowsArbitraryLoads is set to true and still I was seeing an error.

Then I realized that I am playing URL with https and not http.

I set video url to http and problem solved.

The problem is the ssl certificate on server side. Either something is interfering or the certificate doesn't match the service. For instance when a site has a ssl cert for www.mydomain.com while the service you use runs on myservice.mydomain.com. That is a different machine.

I get the same error when I specify my HTTPS URL as : https://www.mywebsite.com . However it works fine when I specify it without the three W's as : https://mywebsite.com .