If you encounter an error message saying, “ERR SSL VERSION OR CIPHER MISMATCH” while visiting a website, then it is not primarily your fault as an end-user. In fact, it can happen on any website like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and even Internet Explorer. Getting this error means that the website you are visiting is using an SSL certificate which your browser seems to be rejected because there is some issue with the certificate. It is also possible that the certificate that’s downloaded on your computer is corrupted or that your computer configuration for TSL/SSL is misconfigured.
Here are the complete details of the error message:
“A secure connection cannot be established because this site uses an unsupported protocol, Error code ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH”
To resolve the ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH error, refer to the options given below and see which one works for you.
Option 1 – Try to access the website with the only HTTP
The first thing you can do is to try accessing the website using HTTP instead of HTTPS. If you can open the website using HTTP then it means that the problem is in the website itself. And if you are the website owner, you can check the following:
- Check if your website’s SSL certificate name is mismatched. Here you need to ensure that the name and alias of the websites match with the actual website URL where the certificate is installed.
- Second, check if your server is using the RC4 Cipher. If it is, then you need to fix that.
On the other hand, you may also check if your CDN also supports SSL since most of the CDN nowadays supports SSL. All you have to do is configure it correctly and it should be good to go.
Option 2 – Try enabling SSL 3 / TLS and disable QUIC Protocol
If you were using Google Chrome when you got the ERR SSL VERSION OR CIPHER MISMATCH error, then you need to follow the protocol fixes for SSL3/TLS and QUIC which are usually some of the reasons that cause the SSL version / Cipher Mismatch. It also has a few fixes for Windows 10 computer where you can clear the certificates and make sure that your computer date and time is in sync with your time zone and so on.
If you were using Edge or Internet Explorer when you got the error, then you have to follow the steps below.
- Type “Internet” in the search box of your browser. After that, you should see the Internet Options from the search results.
- Next, open the Internet Properties window and switch to the Advanced tab and then scroll down to the Security section.
- From there, check the “Use TLS 1.1” checkbox as well as the “Use TLS 1.2” checkbox and then click OK to save the changes made.
- Restart the browser.
On the other hand, if you were using Firefox when you go the error, here’s what you have to do.
- Open Firefox and in the address bar, type “about:config” and hit Enter.
- If a warning appears, just click on the “I accept the risk!” button to proceed.
- Next, type in “TLS” in the search field and hit Enter.
- Then look for “security.tls.version.min” and double click on it and set its integer value to 3 to force the protocol of TLS 1.3.
- Now click OK and restart Firefox and do the same thing with SSL.