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Question

RSS feed error - SSL error, certificate verify failed

  • 26 May 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 229 views
gregxx

App: RSS by Zapier

Event: New Item in Feed

Feed URL: https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/feed/

Trigger: Different Guid/URL (recommended)

Test Result:

Failed to fetch an item from your feed
Error while retrieving: ExternalHTTPSConnectionPool(host='georgerrmartin.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /notablog/feed/ (Caused by SSLError(SSLError("bad handshake: Error([('SSL routines', 'tls_process_server_certificate', 'certificate verify failed')])")))

 

I also have an identical RSS feed (same URL) on my Slack channel and it is working fine. Why is the feed failing on Zapier?

5 replies

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @gregxx, thanks for joining our community!

Hmm, that error makes a reference to “Max retries exceeded with url” so it sounds like may not be an issue with the SSL certificate for the feed necessarily. But more that the server didn't respond to the Zap’s requests quick enough. Which could explain why the same URL worked for another one of your Zaps.

Is it just one other Zap that uses the same RSS feed or are there more? Just wondering if there’s multiple Zaps that are sending requests to the feed’s server to look for new items, perhaps that’s causing the response times to slow down and cause this error? Do you think that might be the case here? 

Though I’d expect that you’d also start seeing that error for your other Zap as well. Have you had any similar errors on the other Zap or is it just this one that’s affected? This sort of issue is usually only temporary and any items that were missed due to that error should be picked up on the next time it’s able to successfully check for new items.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

gregxx

Hi @SamB! Sorry, just to be clear, I don't have any other active Zaps. I meant that I have an RSS feed on Slack, using a Slack app (not Zapier) that pulls updates from the same URL above. The Slack app is able to post RSS updates but Zapier runs into this error.

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @gregxx,

I’m jumping in to see if I can help!

Could you please do me a favor and provide a screenshot of the error you're encountering? This will allow us to get a better understanding of the problem and provide you with an accurate solution.

Thank you! 😊

gregxx

Hi @ken.a, I included the full error message in my post above. 

Unfortunately I am beginning to think that the website server has a misconfigured certificate. Many other RSS services also no longer work with this particular RSS feed. A couple of the RSS services do still work (including my slack channel) but maybe that is because they are able to handle the certificate issue on their own.

christina.d
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hey there, @gregxx - thanks for those extra details.You may be onto something there. 

While I can’t imagine this being the case (it’s GRRM y’know?), looking at the help article Sam linked above Zapier only supports SSL certificates which are issued by public certificate authorities. It’s possible Slack (and other services) have different requirements, explaining why it’s working in some places and not others. 😔 There’s also a note on extra cert downloads which could result in some RSS services working while ours doesn’t.

Sorry we weren’t able to arrive at a proper solution here! Let us know if you have any other questions though - we're always happy to help.

Reply


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