OPENSSL Warning: "Failed to Enable Crypto" for Specific HTTPS URL

This issue arises when attempting to access specific HTTPS URLs using the file_get_contents() function, despite having enabled the openssl extension. The function returns the error message: "Warning: Failed to enable crypto," indicating that the necessary cryptographic operations cannot be performed.

The root cause of this issue lies in the security protocol used by the problematic website. In this case, the website utilizes SSLv3, which is an outdated and vulnerable protocol. The default configuration of openssl does not support SSLv3 by default for security reasons.

To resolve this issue and successfully retrieve content from the website, a workaround is necessary. One option is to use the curl_setopt() function to manually specify the SSL version to be used. This can be achieved by setting the CURLOPT_SSLVERSION option to 3, which corresponds to SSLv3.

function getSSLPage($url) {
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION,3); 
    $result = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return $result;
}

var_dump(getSSLPage("https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/analystsOpinionsReport.jhtml?symbols=api"));

Another potential issue that may arise under Windows is the lack of access to root certificates. To address this, it is recommended to download the root certificates and manually specify their location using the CURLOPT_CAINFO and CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER options.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CAINFO, __DIR__ . "/certs/cacert.pem");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, true);

By implementing these workarounds, it becomes possible to successfully access and retrieve content from the problematic website using openssl.