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Firefox Thinks the Date is Different

  • 13 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 35 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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No, pretty sure today is Sunday Dec 31.

No, pretty sure today is Sunday Dec 31.
Attached screenshots

Chosen solution

Or check this:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste clock and pause while the list is filtered

(3) The value of services.blocklist.clock_skew_seconds shows the number of seconds that your system clock was off compared with the blocklist server at some recent time

If it's greater than 86400 that could explain the error message.

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All Replies (13)

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For the rest of the world, its Sat 31 Dec

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The actual date can depend upon your currently used time-zone.

You can check the date and time and time zone in the clock on your computer: (double) click the clock icon on the Windows Taskbar.

You can see the current time and time zone if you paste this code in the command line of the Web Console (Web Developer > Web Console; Ctrl+Shift+K)

  • (new Date)
  • (new Date).toLocaleString("en-US",{day:"numeric",month:"long",year:"numeric",hour:"numeric",minute:"numeric",second:"numeric",hour12:false,timeZoneName:"long"})

Modified by cor-el

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Can you post the URL of that page where you got the error? Of all the error pages I've seen posted over the years, I have never seen one with that date comparison and it would be interesting to see if everyone gets the same error. Never mind, it's in the screenshot.

Modified by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

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Oh, the address was in the screenshot. I get this:

"cdn.discordapp.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate expired on Saturday, December 31, 2016 3:59 PM. The current time is Saturday, December 31, 2016 5:13 PM. Error code: SEC_ERROR_EXPIRED_CERTIFICATE"

Maybe someone's frantically messing around over there trying to get back on track.

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FredMcD said

For the rest of the world, its Sat 31 Dec

Yes. Saturday, not Sunday. I mistyped. Apparently my brain wants it to be Sunday already.

cor-el said

You can see the current time and time zone if you paste this code in the command line of the Web Console (Web Developer > Web Console; Ctrl+Shift+K)
  • (new Date).toLocaleString("en-US",{day:"numeric",month:"long",year:"numeric",hour:"numeric",minute:"numeric",second:"numeric",hour12:false,timeZoneName:"long"})

This is what I get:

"December 31, 2016, 20:14:57 Eastern Standard Time"

Modified by Draco18s

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Valid until 	Sat, 31 Dec 2016 23:59:59 UTC (expired 1 hour and 25 minutes ago)   EXPIRED
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cor-el said

Valid until Sat, 31 Dec 2016 23:59:59 UTC (expired 1 hour and 25 minutes ago) EXPIRED

While this appears to be the case, that doesn't explain the error message.

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The original message you got -- if you get it again, please click the Advanced button and copy out the specific SEC_ERROR_ code -- seems to be a double-check when Firefox encounters an expired certificate against a Mozilla server. If this line in the code is right --

// in case the certificate expired we make sure the system clock // matches settings server (kinto) time https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/base/content/content.js#300

-- that might be:

Anyway, I suspect it was a momentary glitch.

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jscher2000 said

Anyway, I suspect it was a momentary glitch.

Yep, it's gone now. Otherwise I would grab that info.

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Chosen Solution

Or check this:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste clock and pause while the list is filtered

(3) The value of services.blocklist.clock_skew_seconds shows the number of seconds that your system clock was off compared with the blocklist server at some recent time

If it's greater than 86400 that could explain the error message.

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jscher2000 said If it's greater than 86400 that could explain the error message. </blockquote>

That would do it. It's over 275,000. How does one go about fixing that? It's probably entirely based on when I set up my computer some months ago before I'd properly configured the date-time.

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Draco18s said

jscher2000 said If it's greater than 86400 that could explain the error message.

That would do it. It's over 275,000. How does one go about fixing that? </blockquote>

Try right-click > Reset on services.blocklist.clock_skew_seconds to clear it. I would expect it to be updated within 24 hours to a new value under 60 (i.e., no more than 1 minute).

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The server seems to be working at the moment.