SSL_connect error when installing gems

SSL_connect error

You can encounter an SSL_connect error when issuing gem install similar to

ERROR: Could not find a valid gem 'jekyll' (>= 0), here is why: 
Unable to download data from https://rubygems.org/ 
- SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server certificate B: certificate verify failed (https://rubygems.org/latest_specs.4.8.gz)

To fix this issue download the GlobalSignRootCA.pem from Github and place it in a folder inside your ruby install folder, e.g. %RUBY_DIR%\ssl_cert\

Then execute the following command in your console to test

SET SSL_CERT_FILE=%RUBY_DIR%\ssl_cert\GlobalSignRootCA.pem

Replacing %RUBY_DIR% with your actual path.

Try issuing the gem install command again and if it works you should add a new environment variable SSL_CERT_FILE with this same path.

More information about this issue can be found on Luis Lavena’s Gist.

Still having SSL_connect issues?

I know, it is super frustrating. But try updating the RubyGems software within your Ruby installation. For this you can use the rubygems-update gem, but you need to download it manually.

• Find the version of RubyGems you have by issuing a gem -v. You are interested in the major and minor version, which are the first two numbers.

  For example, if gem -v reports “2.4.5.1” then you care about the leading “2.4”

• Now go to rubygems.org/gems/rubygems-update/versions and look for the rubygems-update that has the first two numbers matching your RubyGem version and the largest third number. For example, my gem -v reported “2.4.2”; the highest number I see for “2.4” is 2.4.8 so that’s the one I want.

• Click the link for the rubygems-update version you want. That will take you to a page discussing that version of RubyGems. On the right side of the page there is sidebar that has a list of links. Click the “Download” link and save the gem file somewhere accessible to your command line.

• Install the gem using gem install --local ~\where-I-saved-it\rubygems-update-2.4.8.gem.

• Update RubyGems using the command update_rubygems. Then try gem -v again to see that the RubyGems version is updated to the version expected.

• Uninstall rubygems-update using the command gem uninstall rubygems-update -x

Try installing a gem. If it succeeds, you are done!