Wondering how to resolve ‘Autossl 403 (Forbidden) error’? We can help you.

At Bobcares, we often get requests from our customers to fix AutoSSL errors as part of our Server Management Services

Today, let us see the steps followed by our Support Techs to resolve the error.

How to troubleshoot AutoSSL issues?

WHM Users

• Firstly, login to the WHM of the server in question and follow this path: Home > SSL/TLS > Manage AutoSSL.

cPanel > SECURITY > SSL/TLS will allow you to run the SSL on a specific domain but the WHM interface will run it on the whole account.

• Then, under “Manage Users” search the username of the cPanel account you’re trying to run the SSL on.
• Once you see the account, click on “check «USERNAME»”
• Finally, to visualize the errors causing the SSL to be blocked. Click on logs > Refresh > Select the log to view and click “View Log“.

cPanel Users

• From cPanel> SECURITY> SSL/TLS status, select the domain or domains you need to install SSL on

• Then, click on Run  AutoSSL

Autossl 403 (Forbidden) error

The exact error message looks as shown below:

The domain failed domain control validation: The system queried for a temporary file at but the web server responded with the following error: 403 (Forbidden). A DNS or web server misconfiguration may exist. at bin/autossl_check.pl line 565.

This means AutoSSL verification script is not able to create a temporary file for the domain

How to resolve Autossl 403 (Forbidden) error?

Let us see the steps followed by our Support Techs to resolve the error.

To fix it, just try to assign 755 permissions and the correct owner to your public_html directory:

chmod 755 /home/user/public_html -v
chown user.user /home/user/public_html/ -R

Also, make sure you change user.user with your real cPanel user for that website.

Check your .htaccess in case you have allow/deny directives that may be preventing the cPanel AutoSSL verification script to access your website.

That will do the trick and allow cPanel to write the temporary file.

[Still stuck with the Auto SSL error? We can help you]

Conclusion

In short, today we discussed about the troubleshooting steps and solution for the error provided by our Support Techs.