Jacksonville, Florida - If you’re facing the ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH error, we understand the state of mind you’re in right now. You’re frustrated, you’re curious, and you’re a bit mad. I totally get it. I too have been there, and it sucks. But working in the web security domain has its perks. I’ve got some brilliant minds around me who can get at the root of such errors and come up with accurate solutions. When we got asked about the ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH message by our customers, our SSL experts took out their magnifying glasses and found some solutions.

While examining the anatomy of this error, they found that Google’s and Mozilla’s deprecation of RC4 cipher is causing the ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH error. So, they came up with four possible solutions to get this error out of your systems.

I know you want to fix ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH right now, and that’s why I won’t waste much of your time. But before you get to the fixes, there are a few things to keep in mind. These things are:

1. If one fix doesn’t work, try the next one.
2. Some of these fixes are not entirely secure as they involve enabling older, insecure protocols.

Let’s get started!

Solution 1: Enable All SSL/TLS Versions

Note: This step includes enabling older, insecure protocols. Go ahead at your own risk.

1. Open Chrome
2. Click on the three dots you see in the top-right corner
3. Now go to Settings and search for ‘proxy’ in the search field
4. You should see the Open proxy settings option, click on it
5. Go to the Advanced tab
6. Now mark all SSL & TLS versions
7. Hit the Apply button
8. Restart Chrome

[Editor’s Note: While we are offering this as a possible solution, I cannot stress enough that this is a dangerous decision to make. Older versions of TLS and especially SSL have known vulnerabilities. A better course of action would be to contact the site owner and request that they update their SSL/TLS implementation to only support modern protocol versions. You really shouldn’t be connecting with anything before TLS 1.2 at this point. Just to be clear, The SSL Store does not suggest enabling outmoded SSL/TLS versions on your browser. For all intents and purposes this suggestion, as well as solution 2, is being presented strictly for academic purposes. -PN]

Solution 2: Disable Web Protection in your Antivirus / Firewall

We cannot give you step-by-step instructions for this as they’d differ for every antivirus/firewall. You can likely find what you’re looking for on the vendor’s website.

As we did in the first step, here too, you’ll have to enable all SSL & TLS versions.

Solution 3: Disable QUIC Protocol

1. Search for chrome://flags/#enable-quic in the address bar
2. Disable the Experimental QUIC protocol
3. Relaunch Chrome

Solution 4: Clear your SSL State

1. Open Chrome (obviously!)
2. Click on the three dots you see on the right-hand top-corner
3. Now click on Settings
4. Now go to Settings and search for ‘proxy’ in the search field
5. You should see the Open proxy settings option, click on it
6. Go to the Content tab
7. Click on Clear SSL state
8. Relaunch Chrome

I hope one of these four solutions helped you fix ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH error.