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I am doing development work. We have some test equipment that uses a self-generated SSL certificate. When I try to browse to the equipment in our lab, I get an error that "this connection is not private". However, the only 2 options available are "Show details" and "Go Back".

Show details just lets me look at the info on the certificate, which shows all of the expected self-signed details.

There is no way to tell safari to acknowledge the error and continue onwards. At least not obviously. How do I bypass this error and continue onwards? I'm using safari 11, on OS X sierra.

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    Is your user an admin user on the macOS installation? I've had good luck entering the password to store the untrusted certificate in the keychain and then manually marking it as trusted if Safari doesn't do that automatically as you proceed to view the page.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 16:06
  • I feel like something changed in iOS 16.4 related to the way this works. I'm using a self signed root cert which still shows as installed, but any websites under this certificate stopped working after installing iOS 16.4. Just wanted to put this here to see if anyone else noticed the same.
    – Simon_Weaver
    Commented Feb 16, 2023 at 21:15

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
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Press "Show Details", then press "Visit this website" on the bottom, and the "Visit Website" from the pop up.

Note: if you're still getting this issue after installing the cert, try to edit in keychain access app: locate the cert that you just installed and double click to open the cert, expand "Trust" and change "When using this certificate" option to "Always Trust" close it and refresh the page again, it should work.

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    Holy crap that was obvious. But totally not obvious. The way it was worded I thought "visit this website" would take me to some informational page about how the evil hax0rz are trying to get me. Thanks a lot, I appreciate the dummy check :-)
    – Matthew
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 16:30
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    I'm having the same issue but when I show details and allow it just goes back to the same page, over & over & over again. Its an local link to my synology NAS. The cert is by letsencypt. Its anything internal so far.
    – brinkdad
    Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 5:22
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    Apple has amended this behavior now, and prompts you to authenticate so that it can store the cert in your store as trusted, before allowing you to continue to the site. I don't want to do that. I just want to ignore the warning, and continue. I don't want to clutter up my store with scores of self-signed certs, which I won't recognize or care about. Chrome still allows you to do this. Safari REALLY needs a setting to re-enable this behavior.
    – David Krider
    Commented Feb 7, 2018 at 13:21
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    "Show Details" does nothing
    – William Entriken
    Commented Apr 20, 2018 at 9:30
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    @davidkrider private browsing mode will bypass certificate authentication.
    – anki
    Commented May 16, 2019 at 15:10
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I found that after deleting the certificate, and then first opening a private Safari tab and proceeding worked. After it works on the private Safari tab it should work on the regular tab as well.

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  • Tried this and though I could get to the site in private mode, I am still in the @brinkdad loop on non-private tabs.
    – Matt Hovey
    Commented Mar 18, 2018 at 15:13
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    I tried all keychain hacks mentioned here to no avail, until I tried the Private Mode, then everything worked. Odd but thanks!
    – Hampden123
    Commented Jun 19, 2018 at 12:30
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    This worked for me as well. However to get to the site from the non-private Safari, I had to keep the private one open too. So odd.
    – paul
    Commented Apr 28, 2020 at 22:59
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For those who are having the issue where the warning page reloads over and over such as @brinkdad, check the details of the certificate from the page, then open Keychain Access and find the certificate and delete it. Refresh the page and proceed to access the website anyway. This should install the correct certificate to allow you to access the website.

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  • Just wanted to say, this was the fix for me. I am using minikube and had rebuilt my environment; apparently the old cert was still in my Keychain and caused the infinite loop of 'visit this website' not working. Deleting the minikube cert in Keychain Access then visiting again fixed it for me.
    – geerlingguy
    Commented May 8, 2018 at 14:55
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In my experience, Safari works fine, until it starts doing this. I've learned that once it starts, almost no page I visit is 'approved.' I'm not about to handle every page as a troubleshooting process to force Safari to do what it should do, normally.

So I just force quit Safari and relaunch it. Starts working fine, again. I've also noted I did not have this problem until I installed Wipr and some other ad block plugins that I had tried in the same time frame. So I turn Wipr Off when visiting sites I know might trigger the problem, but which did not previous to blockers.

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  • This didn't work for me.
    – Hampden123
    Commented Jun 19, 2018 at 12:31
  • Typical of Mac OS/App issues: I find that there can be a dozen different versions of the same bug/issue, and as many things that will fix it for one person, but not another. As often as not, none work.
    – H Michael Sweeney
    Commented Jun 20, 2018 at 21:28
  • Quitting Safari and reopening work for me!
    – stefan
    Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 16:30
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I tried all the answers here and was still in the infinite loop described by @brinkdad. I finally got it to work by going into Keychain Access, finding the certificate, right-click Get Info, expand Trust, changed the "When using this certificate" selection from "Custom" to "Always Trust".

pve cert trust settings

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From this Apple Discussion:

The issue could be about https vs. http, or similar Transport Layer Security URL. Unless it is your own bookmark (you could use http instead, without the expectation of security), there is little you can do about it. Often it is something the site owner must do to fix it (Revoked certificate/old certificate; Mix of https and http in a single webpage; etc.).

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