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“ASN1 bad tag value met” error when processing a certificate request in IIS 7

We’ve seen a few instances of the following error message on 64 bit servers when IIS 7.0 is attempting to process a pending certificate request:

Complete Certificate Request

There was an error while performing this operation.

Details:

CertEnroll::CX509Enrollment::p_InstallResponse: ASN1 bad tag value met. 0x8009310b (ASN: 267)

This error seems to mean that the private key (created when the certificate request was made) does not match the public key (the .crt file). The keypair is not successfully joined into a working SSL certificate.

So far this behavior seems most common with .crt files (instead of the .cer files many of us are more used to) issued by one specific Certification Authority—which will remain nameless here.

The error shows up after reaching the point in the process where you 'specify certificate authority response' and guide the wizard to the 'File name containing the certification authority's response...' (the .crt file).

So far there seem to be two solutions.

Solution 1:

Verisign has a support article that matches this error message: https://knowledge.verisign.com/support/ssl-certificates-support/index?page=content&id=S:SO8467&actp=search&searchid=1219125132143. Their recommendation seems to be to replace the certificate with a new one. This method has worked for at least one of my customers in this place with a GoDaddy certificate. All they had to do was make a new certificate request (CSR text file), log into the the Godaddy web interface and re-key (we chose re-key rather than re-issue) their certificate. The new file processed fine.

Solution 2:

Begin by importing the .crt file into the Personal certificate store for the local computer. (Start button > Run: MMC > File Menu > Add/Remove Snap-in > highlight Certificates snap-in and click the ADD button > select Computer Account and click Finish > Click OK > drill into Personal > Certificates > right-click and select All Tasks > select Import > guide to the .crt file.) At this point your certificate is basically a half-certificate. It is still missing its private key.

Second, double-click the crt certificate file you just imported, select the Details tab, scroll all the way down to Thumbprint and highlight Thumbprint. In the lower pane, block and copy all the letters of the thumbprint. Paste the thumbprint characters into notepad. Open the command prompt and run this command: Certutil /?

The command you’ll want to run is:

certutil -repairstore my "{insert all of the thumbprint characters here}"

When you see the response: “CertUtil: -repairstore command completed successfully” you should have a private key associated with the .crt file in the personal store. There should no longer be any need to run through the “Complete Certificate Request…” wizard. The certificate should show up in the IIS Manager’s list of server certificates at this point. It should also be available in the SSL Certificates drop-down list when attempting to edit the https binding for a website.

Incidentally, a common way of attempting to deal with this error is to take the .p7b file from the Certification Authority and import the CA's certificates into the Trusted and Intermediate stores. As far as I can tell, this approach has no useful effect upon this problem.

Comments

Peter said:

Thanks a lot. Solution 2 solved my problem!

# January 18, 2009 3:06 PM

Phil said:

When I attempt to run the certutil command on SBS2008 I get a permission error stating this command requires elevated priviledges to run. Administrator privs are required to run this command. Since the Administrator account is disabled/dissappears in SBS2008, I tried using the netword admin account and it gets the permissions error. Am I missing something

# February 2, 2009 7:17 PM

Drew said:

Thank you. Solution 2 worked for me with a GoDaddy SSL cert.

# April 1, 2009 11:13 AM

Mads Nissen said:

The second approach using certutil (under elevated privs on win2008 web edition) is getting an access denied :

No key provider information

Cannot find the certificate and private key for decryption.

CertUtil: -repairstore command FAILED: 0x80090010 (-2146893808)

CertUtil: Access denied.

Guess I'll need to try option 1 then :(

# June 7, 2009 11:15 AM

Harry Lee said:

solution 2 did not work with Godaddy without the following modifications on server 2008 on the last step

certutil -repairstore "My" "insert all of the thumbprint characters here"

Basically put quotes "My" and don't put the {} marks where the thumbprint goes. Thanks.

# June 29, 2009 5:56 PM

Matthew Kaney said:

I believe I have found the cause of the problem. If you are renewing an existing certificate (when I say renew I am not referring to the renew certificate function which most instructions warn against, but rather creating a certificate request from an existing certificate), when you complete the certificate request, you MUST right click on the existing certificate and select complete from the context menu. If you attempt to right-click in an open area of the window and select complete request from that context menu, or if you delete the original certificate first and therefore can only right click in the open area of the window, you will receive this message.

If you have in fact deleted the original certificate, then you must follow the first procedure outlined above to rekey the certificate. Then you will be able to right click in the open area and select complete from that context menu.

# July 12, 2009 11:20 AM

Steve Bishop said:

Option 2 worked for me as well except it didn't give it a name... just blank. Still worked.

# July 13, 2009 8:34 PM

Eric said:

When I try this I get prompted to enter a smartcard. When I cancel out of that (we don't use smartcards) the certutil command fails with an ACCESS DENIED message.

We don't use smartcards so I'm not sure why I'm being prompted for this.

Anybody know anything about this?

# August 17, 2009 11:37 AM

Camelopardium said:

Thanks a ton. Solution 2 rocks.

# September 21, 2009 9:39 AM

Joel Carlson said:

Same here, thanks so much for Solution #2 - you saved a lot of headache and downtime!

# September 27, 2009 1:57 AM

Nick Seibert said:

Many thanks for this solution. #2 worked perfectly for me.

Also, even though the Name for the cert is blank in IIS, this can be remedied through the MMC.

start -> run -> mmc -> File -> Add/Remove Snap-in -> select Certificates etc.

Then go to Certificates -> Personal -> Certificates -> select the desired cert, right click, properties -> set a friendly name. Easy.

# September 29, 2009 2:18 PM

Paul said:

I tried option 1 first, that did not work. Then tried option 2 which did work. Thank you.

# October 23, 2009 5:52 AM

Vlad said:

Thanks a lot! # 2 worked great!!!!

# November 24, 2009 6:35 AM

james knight said:

awesome my friend.. thank u so much... really option 2 was the one that worked for me. also on another forum they had said that copy from current to local account but that didnt work for me as the certutil command would complain that it could not find the certificate and private key for decryption. By doing the add-in and guiding to the .cer file, cert util worked fine...

# November 24, 2009 6:38 PM

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