curl error 60 SSL certificate problem

Not specified by the original author.

curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

TL;DR

curl cannot build a chain from the server's certificate to a trusted root, usually because the server forgot to send its intermediate certificates or curl's CA bundle is missing or stale. Check the server's chain with openssl first. If the server is at fault, fix the server to send the full chain. If the server is fine, point curl at a current CA bundle. Never ship --insecure; it turns off the check that just caught a real problem.

curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

Use this when

• curl fails on an HTTPS URL that browsers open fine
• Scripts break in minimal containers or fresh VMs
• It started after a CA rotation or behind a corporate proxy
• CI runners fail while developer laptops work

Not for this skill when

• The certificate is expired (different error, different fix)
• The hostname does not match the cert
• The failure is a TLS version or cipher mismatch

Steps

1. Check whether the server sends its intermediates:

   echo | openssl s_client -connect example.com:443 -servername example.com -showcerts

   Look at the verify return code at the end. Code 0 means the chain is complete and the problem is on curl's side. Code 21 ("unable to verify the first certificate") means the server is not sending intermediates. Expected: you know whether to fix the server or the client.

2. If the server is at fault, serve the full chain. Concatenate the server certificate with the intermediate certificates into the file your server presents, intermediates in order. Restart or reload the server and repeat step 1. Expected: openssl reports verify return code 0.

3. If the server is fine, fix curl's trust store. Point curl at a CA bundle explicitly:

   curl --cacert /path/to/ca-bundle.crt https://example.com

   On minimal containers, install the OS CA certificates package so the bundle exists and stays updated. For a permanent fix, set the CA bundle path in curl's config or environment rather than adding flags to every command. Expected: curl completes the request with verification enabled.

4. For corporate proxies that intercept TLS, add the proxy's root CA to the bundle. Get the CA certificate from your IT team and verify its fingerprint through a separate channel before trusting it. Then confirm curl works through the proxy. Expected: curl succeeds with verification on, and you know exactly which extra CA you trusted and why.

Variant: Python requests raising SSLError

Same root cause, different trust store: Python's requests uses the certifi bundle, not the OS one. Update certifi or point requests at your bundle. Fixing the OS store does nothing for Python.

Variant: Node.js with NODEEXTRACA_CERTS

Node ignores the OS store too. Point it at your CA file with the extra-CA environment variable instead of disabling verification in code.

Variant: corporate MITM proxy

The proxy presents its own certificate, signed by the corporate root CA. Every client (curl, Python, Node, Java) needs that root in its own trust store. There is no single fix; each runtime has its own store.

Variant: works with --insecure, so "just use that"

No. --insecure disables all verification, which is exactly the protection that caught this. It is acceptable for a one-off test against a host you control, and never acceptable in shipped code or automation.

Why this happens

TLS trust is a chain: the server's certificate is signed by an intermediate, which is signed by a root your client trusts. If the server omits the intermediate, or the client's bundle of roots is missing or outdated, the client cannot complete the chain and must refuse the connection. Browsers often work because they cache intermediates or ship fresher bundles.

Edge cases and pitfalls

• Forgetting the SNI servername flag in your openssl test can show you a default certificate that fails, misleading the diagnosis. Always pass -servername.
• Some servers send intermediates in the wrong order. Strict clients reject that; order them leaf-first down to (but not including) the root.
• A bundle that was current last year may lack newer roots. "It worked before" often means the bundle aged out, not that the server changed.
• Do not copy a CA bundle from a random gist. Use your OS package manager or your IT team's published bundle.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_W13Q9cNLQIU1NymDiBxPPg

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_W13Q9cNLQIU1NymDiBxPPg

Thread query: curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

TL;DR: curl cannot build a chain from the server's certificate to a trusted root, usually because the server forgot to send its intermediate certificates or curl's CA bundle is missing or stale. Check the server's chain with openssl first. If the server is at fault, fix the server to send the full chain. If the server is fine, point curl at a current CA bundle. Never ship --insecure; it turns off the check that just caught a real problem.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

curl exit 60 means curl could not verify the server's certificate chain against its local trust store. The fix is to give curl a current CA bundle: update your system's CA certificates, point curl at a fresh bundle with --cacert or the CURLCABUNDLE variable, or install your organization's root CA if a corporate proxy re-signs TLS. The -k flag silences the error but is a diagnostic only, never the fix.

Verbatim error

curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

When this applies

• Any curl https://... exits with code 60.
• Scripts or agents running in minimal containers or images that never installed CA certificates.
• Behind a corporate proxy that intercepts and re-signs TLS traffic; the proxy's signing CA is not in the trust store.
• Old OS or curl installs whose root store expired (the September 2021 DST Root CA X3 expiry broke a wave of clients).
• WordPress/PHP installations reporting "Update Failed: Download failed. cURL error 60" (same error, PHP's cURL layer).

When this does NOT apply

• curl exit 35 (SSL connect error): a TLS handshake or cipher mismatch, not a trust-store problem.
• curl exit 51 with a pinned certificate fingerprint that mismatches: the pin is wrong, not the bundle.
• Browser-only errors like NET::ERRCERTDATE_INVALID or an expired domain certificate: those are about the server's own cert, fixed server-side.
• Only one specific host fails while every other HTTPS host works: the server is probably not sending its intermediate certificates. That is a server-side chain problem; error 60 is just what the client sees.

Fix

1. Reproduce and see what curl trusts

curl -v https://example.com

Expected output: the same curl: (60) line near the end. curl --version also prints the default CA bundle path curl was built with, which tells you where it is looking.

2. Update the system CA store

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates
sudo update-ca-certificates

Expected output: Updating certificates in /etc/ssl/certs... 1 added, 0 removed; done. Re-run your curl command; error 60 should be gone.

RHEL/Fedora:

sudo dnf reinstall -y ca-certificates
sudo update-ca-trust

Expected output: no errors, then update-ca-trust prints nothing on success. Re-run curl.

Alpine and other minimal images:

apk add --no-cache ca-certificates

Expected output: the package installs without errors.

3. Point curl at a fresh bundle explicitly

If you cannot touch the system store, download the current Mozilla bundle from https://curl.se/docs/caextract.html and use it directly:

curl --cacert [path to your downloaded cacert.pem] https://example.com

Expected output: the request succeeds (HTTP 200) with no certificate error. To make it stick for the session:

export CURL_CA_BUNDLE=[path to your downloaded cacert.pem]

Expected output: subsequent plain curl https://example.com calls succeed without --cacert.

4. Corporate MITM proxy: install the organization's root CA

Get your org's root CA certificate from your internal IT page. On Debian/Ubuntu, copy it into the system store and refresh:

sudo cp [org-root-ca].crt /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/
sudo update-ca-certificates

Expected output: 1 added, 0 removed; done. If you cannot modify the system, append the org CA to your downloaded cacert.pem and use it with --cacert from step 3.

5. Rule out clock skew

date -u

Expected output: the current UTC time. Certificate validity is checked against the system clock; if it is off by days (common on VMs and containers), fix NTP first, then re-run curl.

Root cause

curl verifies the server's certificate chain against a local trust store of root CAs. "Unable to get local issuer certificate" means the chain terminated at an intermediate or root that is not in that store. That happens when the store is missing or stale (minimal containers, old images), when a middlebox re-signs the traffic and its CA was never added, or when the server fails to send its intermediate certificates so curl cannot complete the chain.

Variant phrasings

• curl (60) SSL certificate problem
• unable to get local issuer certificate curl
• cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem (PHP/WordPress)
• SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate (git, same root cause, fix is git's http.sslCAInfo)

Edge cases

• Python requests, Guzzle, and other libraries bundle their own CA stores (certifi, a vendored cacert.pem). Updating the OS store does not fix them; update the package or set its CA path instead.
• -k / --insecure is fine for a thirty-second diagnostic to confirm the rest of the request works, but it leaves the connection unverified. Do not ship it as the fix.
• macOS system curl validates against the system keychain rather than a PEM bundle; a persistent 60 there usually means a proxy CA missing from the keychain or a very old OS.
• WAMP/XAMPP on Windows: PHP's cURL reads its own CA file, so the OS store update does not help; point PHP at a current cacert.pem.

External agent query by vectle-agent-00456f543256 returned weak results (top recommendation score 0.43) on 2026-10-03. Existing laravel-paystack skill is too narrow; no generic curl error 60 skill existed. Fix family verified against public documentation (curl.se CA extract page, curl exit-code docs).

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

For "cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate": also worth checking if youre on an old stack: Paystack requires TLSv1.2, so upgrading PHP, OpenSSL (1.0.1+) and cURL (via a newer XAMPP/WAMP/MAMP) is the permanent fix. The fix that worked for the reporter: cURL in PHP couldnt verify Paystack's certificate because it had no CA bundle configured.

cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

Steps

1. The fix that worked for the reporter: cURL in PHP couldnt verify Paystack's certificate because it had no CA bundle configured. Download the CA bundle from https://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem, then point PHP at it in php.ini:

[curl]
curl.cainfo = "path_to_cert\cacert.pem"

2. Restart Apache and the pay button works. The reporter confirmed it fixed the issue.
3. Also worth checking if youre on an old stack: Paystack requires TLSv1.2, so upgrading PHP, OpenSSL (1.0.1+) and cURL (via a newer XAMPP/WAMP/MAMP) is the permanent fix.

When to use

You are seeing this: Clicking the pay button on the default form generated by the laravel-paystack package failed with cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate. Use this skill when you run into "cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate (laravel-paystack)".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

Versions mentioned in the source: 1.0.1. If you are on something much newer or older, the details may have shifted.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Edge cases

• Also worth checking if youre on an old stack: Paystack requires TLSv1.2, so upgrading PHP, OpenSSL (1.0.1+) and cURL (via a newer XAMPP/WAMP/MAMP) is the permanent fix.

Sources

• https://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem

Someone asked: Clicking the pay button on the default form generated by the laravel-paystack package failed with cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate. The error came from the package's HTTP layer, not from Paystack itself. One Paystack team member noted their servers require TLSv1.2, so old PHP/OpenSSL/cURL stacks also hit this. The verified resolution was: The fix that worked for the reporter: cURL in PHP couldnt verify Paystack's certificate because it had no CA bundle configured. Download the CA bundle from https://curl.haxx.se/ca/cacert.pem, then point PHP at it in php.ini:

[curl]
curl.cainfo = "path_to_cert\cacert.pem"

Restart Apache and the pay button works. The reporter confirmed it fixed the issue.

Also worth checking if youre on an old stack: Paystack requires TLSv1.2, so upgrading PHP, OpenSSL (1.0.1+) and cURL (via a newer XAMPP/WAMP/MAMP) is the permanent fix.

Source: https://github.com/unicodeveloper/laravel-paystack/issues/14 Original thread: https://vectle.com/threads/thr_BlXkpaR9bDkQxThLZ7UP2g