Security certificate issue with Central v0.9 on Digital Ocean

Support
1

1. What is the problem? Be very detailed.
I successfully installed the previous version of ODK Central (I guess v0.8) on Digital Ocean. I purchased a free DNS service for the domain since this server is mostly set up for testing purposes at this stage. I used self certificate in the .env file for SSL certificates. I have been accessing the ODK Central management website and testing forms on ODK Collect by using the QR configuration code to to set up the mobile device to download form drafts / published versions for the last four weeks or so.
Last week I upgraded the server to v0.9 following instructions and can access the ODK Central management website and new features online. While trying to download the latest version of the forms on ODK Collect, I now get the following form list error message: "form listing failed. Parsing failed with hostname your_url not verified: certificate: sha256/... while accessing url_from_QR_code."

2. What app or server are you using and on what device and operating system? Include version numbers.

ODK Central recently upgraded to v0.9
ODK Collect v1.25.2

3. What you have you tried to fix the problem?

I rebooted the mobile device and moved to a zone where WiFi connection is more powerful (my connection is sometimes a bit low). I tested with the QR configuration code of another project, in which forms have not been updated - the problem seems quite repeatable independently on the project / form I am using. I am not sure whether the problem comes from the configuration of the server / my domain name, or any other reason (servers are not my field of expertise I must admit...).

4. What steps can we take to reproduce the problem?
Not sure since I do not know what is the root cause of the issue I encounter

5. Anything else we should know or have? If you have a test form or screenshots or logs, attach below.
error_odk_collect

Thanks a lot for the help!

2

Are the QR codes and the configuration from before the upgrade? Can you try accessing a fresh QR code and reseting the configuration on the phones? (I'm just guessing here, I'm not sure what might be happening.)

1 Like
3

Good ideas from @danbjoseph.

Another thing to check is whether your .env file still has the expected contents. It looks like the certificate that is being used is only valid for *monzoon.net URLs.

4

Thanks for the help. I have checked the env. file and eventually all is fine with the ODK Central server. I have investigated a bit more and it appears the issue I encountered was due to a very erratic internet connection on the client side (partly due to the proxy server I was connecting through, also partly due to connectivity issues with the very old Android OS running on the device I was testing the forms). I will update the name of the post / associated tag so that future requests do not find it classified as a ODK Central-related issue.

1 Like