Facetime: which certificate does it use?

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Level 1

8 points

Facetime: which certificate does it use?

So, what happened was I installed FaceTime and got it setup and working and registered and all those good things: bliss!
The I got a new MBP: 256GB of flash goodness which is super-fast and boots almost instantly! Heaven.
Ported over my stuff using Migration Assistant, and all is good, except for FaceTime. Attempting to login to FaceTime now, I get the error "The server encountered an error processing registration. Please try again later." in FaceTime itself.
In the console I get a very interesting error:
10/11/2010 13:57:05 imagent[80182] [Warning] FTMessageDelivery failed! Error (NSURLErrorDomain:-1205): The server �registration.ess.apple.com� did not accept the certificate. https://registration.ess.apple.com/WebObjects/VCRegistrationService.woa/wa/regis ter

This would seem to suggest that whatever registration/login mechanism is being used by Apple is not happy with me having moved my stuff to another machine. Looks like I need to regenerate, or at least delete, this offending certificate, but I am stuffed if I can figure out which certificate it is trying to use. Anyone had a similar problem, or could suggest a way to figure out which cert it is trying to use?

And just for the record, yes, I have tried it on a different network, so its not that. And yes, I have logged the bug with the ADC bugreporter, but no solution forthcoming from them yet.

15.4" MacBook Pro 2.53GHz Core i5, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 10, 2010 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

Varmint_za Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 10, 2010 6:09 AM in response to Varmint_za

Some additional information! In a moment of inspiration I dropped the url https://registration.ess.apple.com/WebObjects/VCRegistrationService.woa/wa/regis ter into a browser on my old MBP where FaceTime still worked to see what would happen, and lo and behold it prompted me to chose which cert to use! And then went through successfully ....

Dropped that same URL into a browser on my new MBP and after selecting the same cert that got ported across from the old MBP I get:

"SSL connection error.

Unable to make a secure connection to the server. This may be a problem with the server, or it may be requiring a client authentication certificate that you don't have."

Definitely looks like a cert problem. I see that on my new machine I have a new cert of a similar kind issued by Apple iPhone Device CA. Tried hitting up the URL with that cert and it is also not interested.

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2010 5:31 AM in response to Varmint_za

Since, the topic referent to Facetime at it's error "The server encountered an error processing registration. Please try again later" was deleted.

I will continue here to try to resolve the issue.

So far I manage to find 5 FaceTime files on the Mac, but none made a difference.

So I'm still after the file that saves my information on FaceTime, example:

a. When I open FaceTime in my Mac, my login and password are already there. If I reinstall FaceTime, the login still will be there.

I need this file! That keeps my information saved.

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Answer 3

jarucho

Level 1

34 points

Nov 14, 2010 8:13 AM in response to Varmint_za

I am just in the same situation and I used too the migration assistant so as to install a new SSD disk on my macbook pro. I hope the solution arrives soon, I have reported the bug passing the log two weeks ago.

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Answer 4

mrdoja

Level 1

10 points

Nov 20, 2010 9:57 AM in response to Varmint_za

This worked for me: (make sure Facetime is closed)
1. In Spotlight type in "Keychain Access"
2. There will be a certificate issued by Apple iPhone Device CA - This certificate was signed by an unknown authority. Delete this certificate (or move it to the desktop, out of the keychain access store)
3. Launch Facetime and login - this time there will be no error...

Funny thing is, once this is working again and you go back to the keychain access directory the certificate will again show Signed by an unknown authority...go figure

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Answer 5

jarucho

Level 1

34 points

Nov 20, 2010 10:25 AM in response to mrdoja

Fantastic, this works perfectly! Thank you very much.

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Answer 6

Nov 23, 2010 12:10 PM in response to jarucho

Works fine for me to!!!!

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Answer 7

Varmint_za Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2010 12:12 PM in response to mrdoja

Awesometown! That rockingly works ...

Thou are a genius - many thanks for finding that.

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Answer 8

REIR

Level 1

0 points

Dec 6, 2010 8:43 PM in response to alexander.burt

Simply deleting the certificate and allowing facetime to re-push it into your keychain appears not to work in all cases, specifically when you have replaced your hard drive and restored using a Time Machine backup or migrated an installation over to a new computer (this has been reported elsewhere on the web). The certificate will display as being signed by an unknown entity and the error will appear as reported above in Facetime. I recently replaced the hard drive in my MBP and was having this issue (Facetime would login successfully on my iMac, which has not had the hard drive replaced since the OS was installed). I was successfully able to log in to Facetime after performing the following actions.

Reviewing console output reveals the following:

12/6/10 10:10:29 PM imagent[1191] [Warning] FTMessageDelivery failed! Error (NSURLErrorDomain:-1206): The server �registration.ess.apple.com� requires a client certificate. https://registration.ess.apple.com/WebObjects/VCRegistrationService.woa/wa/regis ter

After opening Keychain Access, right-click on the appropriate Apple iPhone Device CA certificate and select "Get Info". Expand "Trust", locate "When using this certificate" and change the setting from "Use system defaults" to "Always Trust". Close the window and enter your admin password to make the change to the trust settings.

Right click on the certificate again and this time select "New identity preference..." In the location box that appears, paste the URL below from the console output and hit "Add":

https://registration.ess.apple.com/WebObjects/VCRegistrationService.woa/wa/regis ter

If you return to Facetime, it may allow you to login using your Apple ID without throwing the error back at you.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 9

Dec 12, 2010 7:05 PM in response to mrdoja

Worked great 🙂 Thank you. I had 3 Certs of this sort. I had backed up my 13 inch macbook with time machine and restored it to the 15 inch. this created the bad certs.

Message was edited by: macrilege

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Answer 10

kozchris

Level 1

4 points

Dec 18, 2010 7:54 AM in response to REIR

REIR's fix worked for me. FYI, I had completed a Time Machine restore of my machine's hard drive when I started to get this error.

Thanks!

Message was edited by: kozchris

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Answer 11

Dec 30, 2010 2:03 PM in response to mrdoja

Awesome! Many Many Thanks!

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Answer 12

Kalbe

Level 1

0 points

Jan 17, 2011 2:07 AM in response to mrdoja

Hey That worked for me Thank You.

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Answer 13

Enrique

Level 1

69 points

Feb 21, 2011 9:49 PM in response to mrdoja

Success, thank you.

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Answer 14

Mar 1, 2011 1:16 PM in response to Varmint_za

I finally got it but it was a long way around....

Three Issues:

1) Mobile Me will let you have a password with 6 characters but FaceTime requires 9 or more.

2) You can have multiple Mobile Me accounts but FaceTime will only work with accounts that have the extension of .com

3) The account must show that it has an email address that has been verified. See messages further down in this thread on how to make sure your email has been verified.

Three different errors took me several hours to detect and correct. This app is not for the novice unless they are very lucky.

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Answer 15

Pokernut

Level 1

0 points

Apr 8, 2011 3:05 PM in response to mrdoja

This seemed to work for everyone but myself. When I go into Keychain Access and look under certificates there's no certificate called 'Apple iPhone Device CA'. Am I missing something here? Any help would be appreciated.

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