Ssl3_read_bytes:sslv3 alert handshake failure

I have a group of 12 sites that are different locations of company. I have previously had all 12 of these sites running in MainWP.

I’ve been updating the site designs, but I’ve been using a separate temp website to build the new design then I move it over to the live site location via Updraft.

However when I move the new design over (full file/db move) MainWP will no longer work. The connection is lost and when I try to reconnect I get the following error:

Error message: error:14094410:SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:sslv3 alert handshake failure

This has happened on every site I’ve done this to. I’ve tried turning off the SSL option on the WPMain dashboard but no joy. It’s using Let’s Encrypt on SiteGround.

Any ideas what causes this and how I may fix it?

Can you please post the community system report from your MainWP Dashboard for review? The report is located in your Dashboard under Status → Server, on the top right of the page.

Be sure to use the button like the one below; this button hides all your private information:

image

Pressing the button auto-copies the report to your clipboard then just paste it in a reply here.

1 Like

### Server Info                    Required                                               Detected                                     Status   ###

MainWP Dashboard                   
MainWP Dashboard Version           4.1.6                                                  4.1.6                                        Pass        
MainWP Upload Directory            Writable                                               Writable                                     Pass        
MainWP Extensions                  
No installed extensions            
WordPress                          
WordPress Version                  >=3.6                                                  5.7.2                                        Pass        
WordPress Memory Limit             >=64M                                                  768M                                         Pass        
MultiSite Disabled                 =true                                                  true                                         Pass        
FileSystem Method                  = direct                                               direct                                       Pass        
PHP                                
PHP Version                        >=5.6                                                  7.3.27                                       Pass        
PHP Safe Mode Disabled             =true                                                  true                                         Pass        
PHP Max Execution Time             >=30 seconds                                           120                                          Pass        
PHP Max Input Time                 >=30 seconds                                           120                                          Pass        
PHP Memory Limit                   >=128M                                                 768M                                         Pass        
PCRE Backtracking Limit            >=10000                                                1000000                                      Pass        
PHP Upload Max Filesize            >=2M                                                   256M                                         Pass        
PHP Post Max Size                  >=2M                                                   256M                                         Pass        
SSL Extension Enabled              =true                                                  true                                         Pass        
SSL Warnings                       = empty                                                                                             Pass        
cURL Extension Enabled             =true                                                  true                                         Pass        
cURL Timeout                       >=300 seconds                                          20                                           Warning     
cURL Version                       >=7.18.1                                               7.66.0                                       Pass        
cURL SSL Version                   >=OpenSSL/0.9.8l                                       OpenSSL/1.1.1k-fips                          Pass        
PHP Allow URL fopen                YES                                                    
PHP Exif Support                   YES ( V7.3.)                                           
PHP IPTC Support                   YES                                                    
PHP XML Support                    YES                                                    
PHP Disabled Functions             No functions disabled.                                 
PHP Loaded Extensions              Core, PDO, Phar, Reflection, SPL, SimpleXML, Zend OPcache, bcmath, bz2, calendar, cgi-fcgi, ctype, curl, date, dba, dom, enchant, exif, fileinfo, filter, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, hash, iconv, imap, intl, ionCube Loader, json, libxml, mbstring, memcached, mysqli, mysqlnd, openssl, pcntl, pcre, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, posix, pspell, readline, session, shmop, soap, sockets, sodium, sqlite3, standard, sysvmsg, sysvsem, tidy, tokenizer, wddx, xml, xmlreader, xmlrpc, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, zlib
MySQL                              
MySQL Version                      >=5.0                                                  5.7.32-35-log                                Pass        
MySQL Mode                         NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION                                 
MySQL Client Encoding              utf8mb4                                                
Server Info                        
Server Software                    Apache                                                 
Operating System                   Linux                                                  
Architecture                       64		 bit                                               
Server Protocol                    HTTP/1.0                                               
HTTPS                              ON                                                     
Server self connect                Response Test O.K.                                     
User Agent                         Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/90.0.4430.93 Safari/537.36
Gateway Interface                  CGI/1.1                                                
Memory Usage                       17.36 MB                                               
Request Time                       1620996141                                             
Accept Content                     text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.9
Accept-Charset Content             N/A                                                    
MainWP Settings                    
Number Of Child Sites              8                                                      
Use WP-Cron                        Yes                                                    
Optimize for Shared Hosting or Big NetworksYes                                                    
Automatic Daily Update             Install trusted updates                                
Abandoned Plugins/Themes Tolerance 365                                                    
Maximum number of posts to return                                                         
Maximum number of pages to return  50                                                     
Primary Backup System              Default MainWP Backups                                 
Maximum simultaneous requests      4                                                      
Minimum delay between requests     200                                                    
Maximum simultaneous requests per ip1                                                      
Minimum delay between requests to the same ip1000                                                   
Maximum simultaneous sync requests                                                        
Minimum simultaneous install/update requests                                                       
Active Plugins                     
Akismet Anti-Spam                  4.1.9                                                  Inactive                                     
All 404 Redirect  to Homepage      1.21                                                   Active                                       
Better Search Replace              1.3.4                                                  Inactive                                     
Check and Enable GZIP compression  1.1.11                                                 Active                                       
Cognito Forms                      1.1.8                                                  Active                                       
Ditty News Ticker                  2.3.8                                                  Active                                       
Divi Booster                       3.3.4                                                  Inactive                                     
Divi Popup Builder                 1.6                                                    Inactive                                     
Elegant Themes Updater             1.1                                                    Inactive                                     
Enable jQuery Migrate Helper       1.3.0                                                  Inactive                                     
EWWW Image Optimizer               6.1.4                                                  Inactive                                     
Google Analytics                   5.1.3                                                  Inactive                                     
Instant Images                     4.4.0.1                                                Active                                       
Jetpack by WordPress.com           9.7                                                    Inactive                                     
Leverage Browser Caching           2.1                                                    Inactive                                     
MainWP Dashboard                   4.1.6                                                  Active                                       
Newsletter, SMTP, Email marketing and Subscribe forms by Sendinblue3.1.13                                                 Active                                       
Popup Maker                        1.16.1                                                 Active                                       
Really Simple SSL                  4.0.15                                                 Inactive                                     
Sendinblue - WooCommerce Email Marketing2.0.17                                                 Active                                       
SG Optimizer                       5.7.20                                                 Active                                       
Sitemap                            4.3                                                    Active                                       
UpdraftPlus - Backup/Restore       2.16.57.25                                             Active                                       
User Role Editor                   4.59.1                                                 Active                                       
WC Direct Place Order Without Payment1.0.1                                                  Active                                       
WD manager                         1.3.4                                                  Active                                       
WooCommerce                        5.3.0                                                  Active                                       
WooCommerce Admin                  2.3.0                                                  Inactive                                     
WooCommerce PayPal Checkout Gateway2.1.1                                                  Active                                       
WooCommerce Product Variations Per Page1.0.0                                                  Active                                       
WooCommerce Shipping & Tax         1.25.12                                                Inactive                                     
WP Google Maps                     8.1.11                                                 Active                                       
WP Google Maps - Gold Add-on       5.1.6                                                  Active                                       
WP Google Maps - Pro Add-on        6.41                                                   Inactive                                     
WP Google Maps - Visitor Generated Markers3.31                                                   Active                                       
WP Performance Score Booster       2.0                                                    Inactive                                     
WP Video Popup                     2.9.1                                                  Inactive                                     
Yoast Duplicate Post               4.1.2                                                  Inactive                                     
Yoast SEO                          16.2                                                   Active                                       

Hi Chris,

the report looks ok. I can’t see anything unusual.

Are you able to try to reinstall the SSL cert of the child site and see if that helps?

I will try that and see what happens. I will report back when I can do that.

Deleted SSL for child site, purged cache, added SSL back. Same error:
HTTP error - error:14094410:SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:sslv3 alert handshake failure

Besides all the plugins that are installed and in my opinion not used by MainWP (you should use a separate (sub)domain for your MainWP Dashboard), I’ve seen these errors when the OpenSSL setup on one of the servers is incorrect. If it’s using protocols that are too old, it can’t communicate with newer servers that stopped supporting these deprecated/abandoned protocols. If the child site is moved and introducing the issue, it’s probably the server where your Dashboard is running on.

You can test the status on SSL Server Test (Powered by Qualys SSL Labs)

Hi Jos, ran it through the suggested site. It received an “A” rating with TLS 1.3.

And just to be sure: what’s the result when you test the child site?

Yes, same result. All of these sites are in the Same SiteGround account and I would assume (but maybe not) on the same server.

This is my process: www.somesubsite. com is working, child theme is working. MainWP connection working.
Using www.sometempdomainassignedbySG. com I build the new site
I move the site from said temp domain to www.somesubsite. com using Updraft (pro version)
Site no longer connected and cannot reconnect in MainWP dashboard.

Then I’m out of ideas. Did you contact Siteground? It’s mostly hosting related, so hopefully they know what the issue is and how you can solve it.

2 Likes

I would agree with Jos, it may be best to check with the SG support and have them verify that everything is set correctly on their side.

2 Likes

OK, thanks all. Will contact SG.

3 Likes

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