file_get_contents SSL operation failed with code 1 SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE certificate verify failed

Posted by on 29 Apr 2017 in PHP

Recently got this message while I was trying to use get_file_contents in PHP.

file_get_contents(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages: error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed

This is caused by PHP being unable to verify the certificate as the message says! The reason why it can't verify the certificate is almost certainly related to file certificate authorities file (aka the CA file). Take a look at phpinfo and look for openssl.cafile. If it is empty then this is your problem.

If it's not empty then check that the file exists. If it does then it may be out of date. You can download the latest version from here:

https://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

The simplest way to fix this problem is to add the CA file to PHP's configuration (php.ini) with the following line:

openssl.cafile=/path/to/cacert.pem

There are times when you want to ignore the verification failure such as in a development environment where wasting your life trying to fix SSL related problems is just a distraction from your real work. So here is how you ignore those errors.

$stream_opts = [
    "ssl" => [
        "verify_peer"=>false,
        "verify_peer_name"=>false,
    ]
];  

$response = file_get_contents("https://www.example.com",
               false, stream_context_create($stream_opts));

8 comments

Comment from: Hosting [Visitor]

If you are using NGINX and your SSL certificate comes with an “intermediate certificate", you need to combine the intermediate cert file with your main “mydomain. Apache has a setting specific for intermediate certs, but NGINX does not so it must be within same file as your regular cert.