Jetpack could not connect: SSL certificate problem

Earlier today I stumbled across the popular Jetpack plugin for WordPress while configuring a self hosted installation for a client. Installing the plugin went fine, but once installed it then asks you to connect your site with wordpress.com to enable the features of the plugin. Unfortunately, clicking on the “connect to wordpress.com” button brought up the error message below –

Wordpress Jetpack SSL error

Jetpack could not contact WordPress.com: token_http_request_failed. This usually means something is incorrectly configured on you web host. SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate in certificate chain

Now that error message isn’t particularly helpful, particularly if, as in this instance, the site wasn’t using SSL at all. I googled the error and found this support page on the wordpress forums, only to then discover it’s not resolved.

After more googling I found this post which indicated it might be something to with the jetpack/wordpress SSL certificate rather than that of the wordpress install we’re using.

So, between those two posts I decided to try hacking jetpack.php as mentioned in the wordpress forum post, which as the poster suggests, seems to fix the problem. While wordpress are silent on what the actual resolution is for this, I can confirm that changing –

defined( 'JETPACK__API_BASE' ) or define( 'JETPACK__API_BASE', 'https://jetpack.wordpress.com/jetpack.' );

to

defined( 'JETPACK__API_BASE' ) or define( 'JETPACK__API_BASE', 'http://jetpack.wordpress.com/jetpack.' );

in jetpack.php does indeed seem to fix things.

I wouldn’t claim to be an expert on SSL, but I think this may be down to how WordPress have decided to use Jetpack.me in place of jetpack.wordpress.com, but not updated the SSL certificate to reflect this. I may, of course be barking up the wrong tree there.

Only time will tell if that causes any issues further down the road.

Social bookmarks greasemonkey script updated

I’ve just updated my hosted wordpress social bookmarks script again.

This update just makes it work with the wordpress admin update.  Sorry for the delay on updating this.

If you’re using this greasemonkey script, you may want to grab the update.

add to del.icio.us :: Bookmark Post in Technorati :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook :: Bookmark on Google :: Add to Netscape :: Share on Yahoo :: Add this to Live

Social bookmarks greasemonkey script updated

Just a quick post to say I’ve updated the hosted wordpress social bookmarks script I wrote back along.  If you’re using this greasemonkey script, you may want to grab the update.

I’ve simply updated the links to all have rel=”nofollow” which they should be really (IMO).

add to del.icio.us :: Bookmark Post in Technorati :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook :: Bookmark on Google :: Add to Netscape :: Share on Yahoo :: Add this to Live

Social bookmarks on hosted wordpress

Earlier today, I realised I was missing out an all the social media hoohah by not having nice links at the bottom of my posts. You know the ones, add to this, post to that, etc.

So, I googled for something to achieve this (on wordpress.com rather than self-hosted) and came across a pretty nifty solution here. This involves keeping a template file and fiddling about doing a search and replace in a text editor and pasting the result back in to your post. You obviously have to remember to do this for each post you write. Although this is a perfectly good solution, I’m a bit lazy and thought I’d see if I could come up with something a bit quicker.

I decided to see if I could use a GreaseMonkey script to do it. After much fiddling, I’ve come up with this

Social Bookmarks Preview

My script inserts an extra section between the post body and the tags section. When you click the heading it generates a block of HTML using Archgfx’s template mentioned earlier.

Social Bookmarks in hosted wordpress

You can then click in the newly inserted textarea, copy the code and paste it in to your post (HTML view, add to the bottom of your post).

This is the first GreaseMonkey script that I’ve written so it’s not going to be that ‘elegant’, suggestions for improvement are appreciated.

I plan to make improvements to it when I get a chance so keep an eye out here for updates.

You can grab the script here (you’ll obviously need to install GreaseMonkey to use it!)

I’d like to get it to insert the code directly in to the textarea, but my knowledge of hacking tinyMCE is pretty much non-existent.

add to del.icio.us :: Bookmark Post in Technorati :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook :: Bookmark on Google :: Add to Netscape :: Share on Yahoo :: Add this to Live

Automatically generated wordpress links

What do we think about these?

I mean, I can see the advantage of them and in fact I’m seeing visitors to some of my posts from other peoples auto-generated lists, but mostly their not that relevant.

Possibly Related?
This is a brilliant example, the above are supposedly related to my “My name in lights” post, one is a link to someone talking about how nice a Lemon cake looks, one is a poem, and the other (shock horror) is a guy who’s just seen his name on the board to his local church. They all mention the word “name” and “lights” but that hardly makes them relevant!

Do I turn them off and lose some visitors but gain control of my links?

I’m going to monitor this, but generally not impressed with this feature so far 😦

add to del.icio.us :: Bookmark Post in Technorati :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook :: Bookmark on Google :: Add to Netscape :: Share on Yahoo :: Add this to Live