Safari can't verify the identity of the website

The problem for me turned out to be in the Keychain preferences. Try the following:

Open Keychain Access ( Applications - Utilities - Keychain Access).

Open the Keychain preferences (Keychain Access (in upper left corner) - Preferences).

Select the Certificates tab.

Set the following options:

Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP): Require if Cert Indicates

Certificate Revocation List (CRL): Require if Cert Indicates

Priority: OCSP

If these options are greyed out, hold the Option key at the same time as opening the options.

I had this problem also.

Starting safari and going to the default apple page (http://www.apple.com/startpage/) would throw an error about a facebook certificate.

In addition, when this problem happened, I would loose all my safari extensions.

It only happened at work, connected through the work firewall so something was probably getting messed up by the firewall.

For me the keychain fix worked, specifically, open keychain, command-, for preferences, click the certificate tab and set Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) to off.

It immediately fixed the issue with facebook and I was able to re-install my extensions. Which I used to have to wait until I was off the network to fix.

I just wanted to update this thread that I found a solution for me on another thread. It looks like my problem with the certificates was a bug in Lion. I was also having difficulty connecting to the App Store to download Mountain Lion for an upgrade. Here is the thread and here is the blog post that I found on that thread with the instructions that solved my issue. I hope this helps someone else too! Good luck!

Okay - I have this same problem. It's not a certificate in the keychain, because I don't have one for Facebook.

It persists after I reset safari, delete cookies, download the newest safari update, etc.

My computer has the correct date and time.

I even set safari preferences to "autofill user names and password" on someone's suggestion, and it did not work.

The problem is one with the safari program, plain and simple. Apple needs to fix it and send out a patch.

Hi, I just had the same problem after my Mac shutdown due to an empty battery. When i charged and power-up, the date was set to 1 Jan 2000. I then manually set the time and this problem came. After rechecking the automatic date box, the problem went away. Hope the extra bit of info helps the next person. Thanks everyone for sharing this.....really got me sweating for a while.

Andrew Cheong

I have been having the same problems for the last couple of months. Even iTunes gives me an error message saying it doesn't trust Apple's own site.

An apple salesperson suggested repairing permissions. That isn't the issue.

I thought it was me until I helped a friend last night who complained of the same thing.

The warning is now useless since I always ignore it now.

I am having the same issue but the Date/Time fix is NOT working for me. I have uninstalled all extensions, reset all data, removed the .plist files for Safari and going to PayPal gives me the warnings not the mention taking me to an unstyled PayPal home page (No CSS) if I accept the certificate.

anyone else have any other ideas?

I've been having the same problem for about four to six months, although on my computer it's every website on EVERY browser I try, from Firefox to Chrome. I have visited the Apple store twice, they weren't really understanding my problem somehow and have sent me home both times telling me that it's fixed. My problem began happening shortly after my computer quit connecting to my home internet because it had a self-assigned IP address. At that point, I could connect elsewhere, but ANY website I have to fill in a user login and password would just reload automatically to the blank sign-in page. When I reset the ip address, that problem went away with some websites, such as tumblr and my school's student email, but got worse for others (when I try to log into Facebook or Amazon now, it reloads to a text-only view of those websites). In addition to this problem, my software updates will no longer install, and neither will software I attempt to install myself, such as for my printer.

It seems to me that my problem is worsening. I have tried all of the options listed above, as have the employees at my local Genius Bar. I know that Mac's aren't supposed to have viruses or malware or etc, but this definitely seems to be something of that variety. At this point I'm ready to wipe my hard drive and start over...which would be a lot easier if my external would connect to this diseased computer or my TimeMachine was working properly, which it has not been doing lately.

Do you thinkn it could be some sort of malware?? Maybe someone got it figured out?? It seems like it now happening worse than it was.. While I have not noticed any other issues aside from websites that I need to log into seem to have weird certificates. For example face book, when it prompts me that it cant verify the certificate it claims that it does not match. When I look at the certificate, its a gamestop cert... I dont know why. Now usually if I click continue it says access denied. And I have to reset safari in order to get back on. Now, it seems it brings me to the same page and all it says is 'success' and then I can re-enter facebook into the navigation bar and be on my way.

This seems strange to me, and I was wondering if someone was accessing my computer, (like I had some sort of virus or whatnot) so I tried to track the traffic in and out of my computer, using little snitch and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Has Mac released any information? Has anyone found *** is happening?? It is not quite as big a problem as you (chelsiW) but I fear it may escalate to that point..