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I'm trying to visit my university research group's website at home. The website requires a username and password to view and probably has who knows what kind of security systems in place.

On Safari 10 and/or macOS 10.12, I could visit the website and enter my username and password; it wouldn't save the password despite repeated attempts on my part at making it do so, but at least I could visit the site.

On Safari 11 and macOS 10.13, however, I get the following message:

This connection is not private

This website may be impersonating [website] to steal your personal or financial information. You should go back to the previous page.

I have two options: "Show Details" and "Go Back". If I press "Show Details", I get the following message below the previous one:

Safari warns you when a website has a certificate that is not valid. This may happen if the website is misconfigured or an attacker has compromised your connection.

To learn more, you can view the certificate. If you understand the risks involved, you can visit this website.

If I click on "view the certificate", I can see the certificate details, where it explicitly says "This certificate is marked as trusted for [website]".

If I click on "visit this website", I am asked for my administrator password to change certificate trust settings. After entering my password, I am redirected to the original "This website may be impersonating [website]" message.

I don't have this problem with other browsers (e.g. FireFox) or other remote access clients (e.g. FileZilla), so it isn't a problem with the website, it is a problem with Safari.

I've tried deleting the certificate in Keychain Access and creating it again, and I have tried restarting my computer. I am the administrator (and sole user) of my computer. My internet connection is secure and doesn't have any firewalls (it's just a home wi-fi connection).

What can I do to regain access to my group's website and preferably force Safari to remember my login information?

Edit: I found a workaround which I’m not at all happy with, since it’s annoying and it needs to be done all over again every time I reboot my computer, so I’m looking for proper answer.

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  • I found about 6 different questions with various answers on this site. Have you done a search for similar questions and tried those answers?
    – fsb
    Commented May 15, 2018 at 15:29
  • I did an admittedly very quick search because I was pressed for time. On that very quick search I was unable to find exactly what I was looking for, but I’ll do a more thorough search tonight.
    – Rain
    Commented May 15, 2018 at 15:33
  • Thanks! There might be some answers there that can help you. To avoid duplicate answers, you can edit your question to reference the Q&A that you tried but didn't work.
    – fsb
    Commented May 15, 2018 at 16:20
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    Not sure the bounty will yield results as such, as long as your question doesn't even mention that you are unhappy with your own answer and are looking for an automated solution. Maybe add a section at the beginning stating what exactly you are looking for might help?
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Aug 19, 2019 at 12:04
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    Perhaps a quick check-in with your University's IT Support Staff will help solve this for you. As a long time professional IT Support dude, I can say that we generally have the answer, or if not, find out from somebody who does and get back to you.
    – IconDaemon
    Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 1:02

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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After searching for hours and trying several different "fixes" which didn't work, Trevor Da Silva's solution here worked.

The fix essentially consists of deleting the problematic site's certificate, opening the site in a private Safari window, choosing to trust it and then retrying in a regular Safari window.

Edit: This has to be redone every time the computer is restarted, so it isn't a true solution.

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  • Welcome to Ask Different! While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 6:47
  • Done. Don't think the lack of info was cause for a downvote, but there you go.
    – Rain
    Commented Jun 18, 2018 at 11:18
  • @Rain, did you answer your question? Or has the problem come back that caused you to bounty the question again?
    – leon
    Commented Aug 17, 2019 at 19:29
  • My answer above isn't really an answer, but an annoying workaround that I have to redo every time I restart my computer. I'd like to get a true solution, since at this point I'm fed up with having to redo that all the time, hence the bounty. :)
    – Rain
    Commented Aug 17, 2019 at 20:52
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Use a different browser

You say in the question that you don’t have this problem with a different browser

I don't have this problem with other browsers (e.g. FireFox)

Therefore you should be able to use Firefox to acces the site.

Accessing similar (‘misconfigured’) websites on Firefox works for me and is much easier than your workaround.

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  • 2
    That’s true. That said, I’d like a solution, not a workaround, and opening another browser just to browse that site is a workaround. Thanks, though.
    – Rain
    Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 21:53

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