How To Change Common Name In Ssl Certificate

Common Name Mismatch Error: effective ways to solve a problem

Common Name Mismatch Error effective ways to solve a problem

Common Name Mismatch Error is a widespread error that occurs when the Common Name or SAN value of your SSL / TLS certificate does not correspond to the domain name. The error message may have different content depending on the browser used.

For example, Internet Explorer will display following error message: "There is a problem with this website's security certificate. The security certificate presented by this website was issued for a different website's address.

In Chrome, the error message looks like: "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from the URL (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards) NET: ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID.

If you encounter any of the above mentioned or similar error messages, you should not disregard them and proceed further to such a web site. It is most likely that you will eventually end up on a fraudulent site. Recommendations for fixing an error for site owners are given below.

How to fix Common Name Mismatch problem

Possible causes of error:

1.The site address was not included in the common name of the certificate.

This reason is one of the most commonly occurred. For example, if you purchase an SSL certificate that extends to www.example.com, however URL without www was not included as a SAN.

Most often, when an SSL certificate is purchased for a domain name such as www.example.com, certifying authorities also include a domain without leading www prefix (after successfully validating it). Required domain name can be added after the issuance of the certificate (for multi-domain certificates). In order to accomplish that, you will need to reissue the certificate with the new SAN names.

2.The certificate is not installed or is incorrectly installed on the server.

Make sure that the certificate was properly installed on the server. This can be verified via our SSL-checker.

3.The website does not have SSL certificate installed, however it has the same IP address as another site with a properly installed SSL certificate.

Some hosting services may require static IP address for SSL installation. If an SSL certificate will be installed on a web site with a dynamic IP address, it may interfere with operations of other web sites.

In addition, there are certain cases when the client connection or hosting servers do not support SNI (Server Name Indication). However, almost every modern hosting provider supports SNI.

Above issue can be resolved by obtaining static IP address (and alter the DNS settings).

4.You are trying to access the IP address.

An error can occur if someone tries to establish an HTTPS connection for an IP address. The HTTPS request to the IP address does not contain the server name, which results in a similar error.

To solve the problem, simply go to the page and specify the host name, not the IP address.

5.Hosting parameters override certificate settings.

Your hosting provider may apply settings that bind SSL to each of the domains. If you purchase an SSL / TLS certificate from a third-party provider and install it, you will see a Common Name Mismatch error.

Go to the SSL certificate checker and overview an entire information about the certificate. In case if you find that a common name or SAN includes the name of your hosting provider, most likely that it is the root causing the issue.

You will need to contact the hosting provider and ask them to remove the SSL certificate. If he does not, then in this case you will need to find another provider. Your web hosting provider should not restrict your ability of installing an SSL certificate.

6. The domain name is associated with an old IP address used with another installed certificate.

If the domain name is associated with an old IP address that has not been changed and a different certificate is referring to the same IP address, then you may encounter a Common Name Mismatch Error. You can solve this problem by changing DNS record.

7.DNS records were recently changed.

An error may occur if the IP address with associated web domain has been recently changed. If you purchased a static IP address and installed an SSL certificate, the domain may still be linked to the previously used IP address.

Correct solution to the issue, would be to wait until DNS records will be updated. The error will disappear afterwards.

Summary

To summarize the above, we may conclude that the Common Name Mismatch Error occurs because of incorrect server settings or providing incorrect information when buying an SSL certificate. Should you require adding a SAN, you are welcome to contact us, and we will provide you our technical expertise on how to arrange this.

In case if problem is associated with the server configuration, you will need to seek for advice from your web hosting or IT-specialists.