Qlik Sense: SharePoint Qlik Web Connector showing error "peer certificate cannot be authenticated" error after Feb 2021 upgrade

[Jay_Brown]

After upgrading to February 2021 - Connecting to SharePoint on-premise via WEBFILE Connector requires authentication, messages may be similar to the following:

Unauthorized / access denied.

Peer certificate cannot be authenticated.

Moreover, the same connection works fine in versions prior to Nov 2020 without any authentication required.

Environment:

Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows
Qlik Web Connectors 

Resolution

Workaround:

Add an additional parameter to the Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows Settings.ini.

1. Locate the settings.ini and prepare it for modification as per How to modify Qlik Sense Engine's Settings.ini
   
    
2. Modify the file by adding:
   
   
   

   [Settings 7]
   WebFileUseWinAPI = 1​

   
   In both Qlikview and Qlik Sense, setting the settings.ini WebFileUseWinAPI = 1 will activate the old way of handling web files which use Windows APIs instead of libcurl and lets Windows handle the proxy redirecting. Since the internet proxy is bypassed using libcurl it is useful to activate this setting if you require the web traffic to go through the proxy.
   
   
3. Use Friendly Name/URL with a valid Cert (not Self-signed)

Fixed in:

This has been addressed in February 2021 Patch 7 and May 2021 Patch 1

If the problem persists after an upgrade, contact Support.

Internal Investigation ID(s):

• QB-5362
• QB-4937

[Sonja_Bauernfeind]

Hello @ranjsanj 

This may require additional investigation that this article cannot provide. Please post your question in the appropriate forum ( Qlik Sense Data Connectivity ) or contact Qlik Support if you require additional assistance.

-Sonja 

[Ken_T]

using a Fully Qualified Domain name in the connection URL seems to be a good workaround for this error, based on my testing!   Also, where is the .ini file mentioned above?

[Sonja_Bauernfeind]

Hello @Ken_T ! Thank you for the feedback.  I updated the article with information on where to find the settings.ini file. 

The workaround you mentioned: I assume this works without the need for the FQD used for the connection URL?  I wanted to verify this with you so we can update the article with your workaround if you'd be okay with this.

Thanks again for the feedback though! It's always appreciated. 

-Sonja 

[Ken_T]

Hi @Sonja_Bauernfeind we haven't tested the settings.ini file changes yet ---

but, we were able to workaround this error "Peer certificate cannot be authenticated" on Feb 2021 P6 by having developers manually editing the connection url obtained from the Qlik web connectors page to make it a FQDN (the default from the  Qlik web connectors page just uses the server name), without making any other changes.