cannot verify certificate "static.ak.facebook.com"

Hi all.

Here is a small update. I have followed almost all suggestions with no luck - untill this morning. It was clear to me that the problem arises from the cookies Facebook stores in Safari. Removing the cookies individually from Preferences -> Privacy removed the problem untill next login to FaceBook which resulted in a new cookie beeing stored and the problem reappearing. The only suggestion I did not follow was to clear the History, which I finally did. This seems to have solved the problem immediately...

As others pointed out there seem to be more than one server that is beeing connected to. Mine was the s-static server.

For those of you who still have the problem try to clear the history in Safari.

canucksgirl01 wrote:

In case flashback malware is causing problems you can do a fairly simple check using terminal.

Flashback was declared "extinct" a few weeks ago by several A-V labs since the server has not been active for months. Anybody running OS X 10.6.8 or above is protected against it in any case. There is currently no reason to test for it.

I've been having this problem for several weeks now, and every few days or so do a new internet search to see if there's a solution. So far I've only found suggestions which seem to help in certain instances, but of all the articles and posts I've read, there doesn't seem to be a definitive cause and solution. I've read posts from a couple years back that report the same or a similar issue, the only difference is in the details of what URL or site is being displayed as having an invalid certificate. In this case we're talking about facebook so I'll stick with that for now. But here are some things I've noticed myself with this error and other observations from what I've read:

• As to what sites will produce the message, I can only surmise there is a facebook reference somewhere within, such as Like button or Ad.
• Many "solutions" offered involve malware, yet I've yet to read where any cleaner program isolated ad fixed a specific malware infection
• Of the three options in the popup message, clicking Cancel just closes the popup and you go on until the next one; Clicking Continue takes you to the URL itself which in this case is not an actual web page, but some other http connection, such as a tracking page for adsl. The other option is to view the certificate details with an option to install it.

I've yet to see whether anyone has just tried to install the certificate. I can understand why not, but maybe that's all that needs to be done. The other solutions, such as resetting Safari, clearning cookies and what not, and re setting clock are reported to work by some, but there's never any follow up as to whether or not the solution stuck, or just lasted for a period of time.

I'm going t be brave and install the certificate. If it is Malware, then my security program should catch it. It just doens't make sense that it is though, because you would already have to be infected in the first place!. I think it's a bug in Safari combined with certain API's for facebook and perhaps other sites that use ad providers. All three other major browsers don't even flinch on the same sites, it iwould seem like at least one other one would throw some sort of warning.

Slip Jigs wrote:

As to what sites will produce the message, I can only surmise there is a facebook reference somewhere within, such as Like button or Ad.

My understanding is that the Facebook logo that appears on millions of pages so that you can Like the page is marked as requiring certificate authentication, when it should not have been. Supposedly this was fixed, but for whatever reason some users are still reporting the problem.

Many "solutions" offered involve malware, yet I've yet to read where any cleaner program isolated ad fixed a specific malware infection

No currently circulating malware is known to act in this manner.

Makes sense, but the why only Safari? This has happened with other website domains or sub-domains displayed in the error, such as Yahoo, Verizon and major banking sites.

I thought I had fixed everything with clicking continue but the problem came back with a vengeance, popping up with many sites besides the s-static.ak.facebook.com.

I eventually did quite a few things and my problem now appears solved.

- I deleted all certificates in Keychain that showed with a red x (not verified)

- I downloaded the latest combo OS 10.6.8 update (my current system) and reinstalled it.

- I reupdated Java and Silverlight

- I ran Onyx maintenance to remove all system and user and web caches, history, and to force spotlight reindexing

- With Onyx, I ran the maintenance scripts and repaired permissions

- I did a full antivirus scan with Sophos (nothing found)

- I waited overnight.

Like another user before, I am not sure what step actually solved the problem but everything seems finally OK.

Good luck.

I did this and the pop-ups keep happening so it must be somthing different. I checked the date and it's correct. I went to keychain and did the thing that was suggested but that, too, did not work and it's making me CRAZY. I usually don't get crazy about stuff like this but I'm not even on Facebook so the fact that it's affiliated is really annoying.

There's been no posts for a while but I'm still suffering with this issue - I've tried the Keychain first aid, deleting all certificates, checked my time/date settings and many of the other various suggested fixes without success.

I have found that explicitly trusting the certificates (Show Certificate->Always trust) does get rid of it but this isn't an ideal solution.

I'm fairly new to Macs but this looks to me like the certificate is being issued by localhost.localdomain which is why it is being flagged as untrusted.

I'm running 10.8.2 on a corporate network behind a proxy if that makes any difference.

Awesome, I have been bothered by this for months and just now decided to look into what was going on and voila, your suggestion about keychain first aid fixed this annoying problem. Thank you.