SSL Certificate Problem: Unable to Get Local Issuer Certificate

You open the site in a browser and the padlock is green. Then your app tries to call the same host and dies:

curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

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Node says it a different way — Error: unable to get local issuer certificate, UNABLE_TO_GET_ISSUER_CERT_LOCALLY. Go says x509: certificate signed by unknown authority. Python says [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] unable to get local issuer certificate. Same root cause, four dialects. And the first instinct is almost always wrong: this is rarely your client's fault, and the fix is almost never curl -k or rejectUnauthorized: false. Reaching for those disables the check that just correctly told you something is broken on the server.