How To Fix ‘SSL ERROR RX MALFORMED SERVER HELLO’ Errors In Firefox

After updating Firefox, it may happen that some sites won’t load because of an SSL error which looks something like this:

 Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_MALFORMED_SERVER_HELLO

Firefox SSL error

The fix for this is easy. Go to the Firefox configuration page by typing in the address bar:

 about:config

accessing Firefox config

Click on Accept the Risk and Continue button.

Firefox config confirmation

Next, search for the following, this is the setting to be changed:

 security.tls.hello_downgrade_check

default value of the tls setting in firefox

 

The value for this would be true. So, click on it or the toggle button at the end and set the value as false.

toggle button in firefox config

The changed setting will then look something like this:

changing the tls value in firefox

Also, check the following setting:

 security.osclientcerts.autoload

ssl cert autoreload value in firefox config

This should be set to the value as true if it is not.

Now, try reloading the websites that showed the SSL error, they should load normally and be accessible.

sites accessible after changing the ssl settings

All done.

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