So there’s an incredibly annoying error message that pops up when you try to connect iCal to a CalDAV account. It goes like this:
iCal can’t verify the identity of the server “example.com”. The certificate for this server was signed by an unknown certifying authority. You might be connecting to a server that is pretending to to be “example.com” which could put your confidential information at risk. Would you like to connect to the server anyway?”
This is one of those Windows-type errors, whereby you painstakingly take the effort to connect to a CalDAV account, carefully put in all your credentials, and connect to the server, and it asks you if you really want to do what you’re doing. Uhh, hello—of course I want to connect… why do you think I put all this effort into connecting? Classic. Completely illogical—there’s no possible way you accidentally type all your information in. It’s clearly a deliberate attempt to do something legitimate.
Here’s the fix:
- Click on “Show Certificate”
- Click “Always trust ‘example.com’ when connecting to ‘example.com’“
- There are three drop-down menus: 1) “When using this certificate,” 2) “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)”, and 3) “X.509 Basic Policy.” Set all of these to “Always Trust.“
- Click “Continue“
The next screen you’ll see asks you to verify that you have permission to make these changes, as seen below:
That’s it! You’re done. Your iCal will never ask for those settings again. Problem solved.
Hi thanks for info, v helpful : )
but i was stuck on the last step, the permission to make the changes – username/password.
Is the username/password for server or for individual Mac? I v tried all the username/password combinations, no one passed. : (
Hi there! Thanks for the question. I understand how frustrating this can be! At the last step, enter the password for the computer you’re on. But I believe it needs to be the username and password for an administrator. So if you’re not an administrator on the computer, try putting in the administrator’s login info. Perhaps even try just “admin” with no password or “administrator” with no password and give that a shot. It all depends on how your computer was set up.
Let me know if you figure this out or are still stuck—I’m happy to help.
Thank you for the fix. I am curious as to why they are always different servers “example.com” s, and why suddenly they decided to have invalid certificates?
And about this ‘always trust’ thing… I’ve never met any of these servers, and I can’t even throw them so I can’t trust them at all. Can I click somewhere to never trust them? And if so what happens? Maybe if they always told the truth we wouldn’t have this problem.
Only problem is the server listed is not one I recognize.