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Other A proxy to fix HTTPS issues on old versions of OS X

Wowfunhappy said:
iMessage and Facetime are not impacted by the proxy.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the deal is with iMessage on Mavericks at the moment. Apple's official system requirements page now lists OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) as the minimum requirement. However, iMessage and Facetime are still working for me on Mavericks despite that.

If you figure it out, please share!!
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maverick28 said:
Have you restarted?



This came as a surprise. With the proxy off, I remember sending a test message to myself in the iOS 15 Messages: the message didn't come in in the Mavericks iMessage. When I enabled it, the messages started flowing in and out both ways. Are you sure they don't use the proxy?
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Yes I have restarted many times.
It seems that both of you two are able to use iMessage and FaceTime without any issues. Were you signed in to them before they changed the requirement? I just fresh installed Mavericks in Mid July, because my computer was having some issues. Maybe it's that if you were already signed in before the change, you can still use it. But new people can no longer sign in. So if someone was logged in right now, and they were to log out, they would not be able to log in anymore. That's my theory. Do you guys have any other signed out Mavericks machines to test it on? I don't know if it's an issue with my router or ISP. My Wi-Fi uses WPA3 security, which is slightly newer.
 
The proxy does not work well with Chromium Legacy, but trying another browser might fix it. I'm Firefox 78.15.0esr on Mavericks, last updated 2018. Still works with modern websites fine! Give it a try! Some websites such as Spotify will tell you about an unsupported browser, but it's the closest to a modern one. I've been having no issues. I was told to configure Firefox individually to not use the proxy, but even with Firefox using the proxy, it works fine. Sadly it's not Google, but it's still pretty good. Last version of chrome is version 65 something, which fails to load most websites. 78.15.0esr is the very last version for Mavericks.
 
iPodNano3 said:
Yes I have restarted many times.
It seems that both of you two are able to use iMessage and FaceTime without any issues. Were you signed in to them before they changed the requirement?
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Yes, I was signed in already. It's difficult to say when exactly the minimum requirements were changed, but I remember signing out/in several times this year and the previous one. The account is two-factor auth. The last time I re-installed (unclean) Mavericks was in 2018.

I run two other macOS, posing whether hidden processes like the expiration of cookies, caches and other special files and configurations used to connect to these two services are set in motion, potentially disrupting their functioning in the systems below the support threshold as I'm switching the partitions, passing the invisible time-lapse after a long time. It's too much of a risk to check this is true.
 
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maverick28 said:
Yes, I was signed in already. It's difficult to say when exactly the minimum requirements were changed, but I remember signing out/in several times this year and the previous one. The account is two-factor auth. The last time I re-installed (unclean) Mavericks was in 2018.

I run two other macOS, posing whether hidden processes like the expiration of cookies, caches and other special files and configurations used to connect to these two services are set in motion, potentially disrupting their functioning in the systems below the support threshold as I'm switching the partitions, passing the invisible time-lapse after a long time. It's too much of a risk to check this is true.
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you said you have 2fa on your apple account. mine does too. i enter my password and hit enter. then it tells me a verification code is required. so i get my iphone and enter the password followed by the code in the password box. it is after i hit enter again when it tells me an error occured in activation. entering the pw without the 6 digit code no longer sends a code to my device, and gives me the error too. its like it resets every day. the first time will send a code, any future attempts for the rest of the day wont, and just give an error. same with facetime. i remember using imessage on ios 6.1.6 on my ipod touch 4g in early 2024, so i dont see why this doesnt work for me, considering mavericks was released with ios 7. if i enter an incorrect password the for the first time of the day, it will tell me an app specific pw is required. so of course, i create one. i entered in the password, including the dashes, exactly like it showed up on appleid.apple.com. it throws the activation error at me, just like it would if i entered the regular password + 6 digit code. if i enter my password + 6 digit code for the first time of the day, it will give me the activation error directly. its almost as if it can actually reach the servers, which is why its able to check whether or not the pw is correct, and be able to send codes. but after it initially sends the code, no matter what i put into the pw box afterwards will give me an error. so its able to connect, but then its no longer able to connect after it sends the first code.
 
iPodNano3 said:
here is a video showing what happens when i try to sign in to imessage. same happens for facetime.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-PDpp0O5kyVO_Pi76yGtI6zjt78eXWt9/view?usp=sharing
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I'm sorry, as I said I don't know why it doesn't work! However, I do one want to clarify one thing again, because at the start of the video, you spend time showing your Proxy settings in System Preferences. This will have no effect.

My proxy is explicitly and purposefully configured to NOT touch iMessage or FaceTime! These apps use what is called "Certificate Pinning", which is a fancy way of saying they will refuse to use any certificate except the original one from Apple. This means we cannot modify their https traffic without the apps refusing to work (even under normal circumstances). Luckily, the apps (used to) not need a proxy anyway, so I configured Squid to just leave iMessage and Facetime traffic alone. This traffic is sent on its way unmodified. So, there is no way the proxy can possibly help resolve your sign in problems, I'm sorry!

One last note, while it's fine to keep testing, I recommend not mashing the sign in button (as you do at the end of the video). You could trigger some heuristic on Apple's servers and cause them to apply extra security to your account.

P.S. I couldn't read what you typed in NotePad due to the video resolution, but I don't think it matters because as I said I really can't help with this. I am sorry, I know I would be bummed if iMessage stopped working! It eventually will stop working for everyone I'm sure.
 
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Wowfunhappy said:
I'm sorry, as I said I don't know why it doesn't work! However, I do one want to clarify one thing again, because at the start of the video, you spend time showing your Proxy settings in System Preferences. This will have no effect.

My proxy is explicitly and purposefully configured to NOT touch iMessage or FaceTime! These apps use what is called "Certificate Pinning", which is a fancy way of saying they will refuse to use any certificate except the original one from Apple. This means we cannot modify their https traffic without the apps refusing to work (even under normal circumstances). Luckily, the apps (used to) not need a proxy anyway, so I configured Squid to just leave iMessage and Facetime traffic alone. This traffic is sent on its way unmodified. So, there is no way the proxy can possibly help resolve your sign in problems, I'm sorry!

One last note, while it's fine to keep testing, I recommend not mashing the sign in button (as you do at the end of the video). You could trigger some heuristic on Apple's servers and cause them to apply extra security to your account.

P.S. I couldn't read what you typed in NotePad due to the video resolution, but I don't think it matters because as I said I really can't help with this. I am sorry, I know I would be bummed if iMessage stopped working! It eventually will stop working for everyone I'm sure.
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no problem, sorry for any inconvenience
 
Does console show anything for the sign in attempts? If you really wanted to you could bypass cert pinning, but I don't know if that would be worth the effort if the actual cause is just that iMessage servers decided to stop accepting new sign-ins from older devices (e.g. in an attempt to reduce spam/whatever)
 
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iMessage and FaceTime require 2FA, so you need to get the code from another apple device or via SMS and add it at the end of the password.
 
startergo said:
iMessage and FaceTime require 2FA, so you need to get the code from another apple device or via SMS and add it at the end of the password.
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yeah, i know, thats what i did. i really hate how pre-el capitan devices require you to enter in the code after the password instead of seperately.
 
HEY MAN I DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BUT TODAY I JUST TRIED AGAIN, THE LOGIN SCREEN JUST SAT THERE FOR 10 SECONDS AND IT JUST ACTUALLY DECIDED TO WORK AND LET ME IN!! LETS GO!! I FINALLY SIGNED IN AFTER WEEKS OF PAIN!!! THANKS TO EVERYONE!!
edit: facetime still doesnt work, but im assuming i just have to wait for the login "cooldown" to end so i can receive another code
edit 2: facetime gives a very interesting message in console upon attempted login:
Registration failed for Registration info (0x7f8643474ff0)
Failed, server error => Disabling service
Needs deletion: NO
Tried to disable an account we don't know about, ignoring...
Retrieving server bag 1, 0x60000001f9d0, 1, 0
com.apple.SecurityServer: Killing auth hosts
com.apple.SecurityServer: Session 100032 destroyed
 
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Yay, congratulations. I suspected this would most likely end in one of two ways: either it would randomly start working for you or it would stop working for more and more people over the next few months, eventually dying for everyone.
 
quick question: are any apps not affected by the proxy besides messages and facetime? does this affect maps too? maps shows a blank grid on all modes, so im just asking so i can troubleshoot.
 
iPodNano3 said:
quick question: are any apps not affected by the proxy besides messages and facetime? does this affect maps too? maps shows a blank grid on all modes, so im just asking so i can troubleshoot.
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This is hard to answer comprehensively. Technically it's domains, not apps, that the proxy avoids touching. But Messages and FaceTime are the apps I know for sure use certificate pinning, and so I purposefully added domains to the ignore list which I know those apps use.

Maps is known to not work, nothing to do with the proxy.
 
Screen Shot 2024-08-10 at 19.08.36.png

so this is a screenshot of the console when i attempt to sign in to imessage or facetime. i had to sign out of imessage to reinstall mavericks, to increase storage space. i know it is difficult to figure out exactly why, but maybe the file paths on the right can help.
 
TheGreatPaulus said:
Hi, I recently started having a problem with the Mac App Store, I installed the proxy and now Safari works but the app store doesn't, do you happen to know how I could fix this?
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Do you mean the App Store works without the proxy but not with the proxy? What OS are you on?
 
Ah! It's possible Apple just broke the app store in Mountain Lion server-side. The proxy fixes a specific issue with HTTPS but it is not, unfortunately, a magical fix for everything. The App Store does still work for me but I'm one version ahead on Mavericks.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Ah! It's possible Apple just broke the app store in Mountain Lion server-side. The proxy fixes a specific issue with HTTPS but it is not, unfortunately, a magical fix for everything. The App Store does still work for me but I'm one version ahead on Mavericks.
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yeah, i tested it on mountain lion. app store and many other services will no longer connect properly on mountain lion. weirdly enough, ios 6 still works fine besides the twitter and facebook connections in settings, although ios 6 was introduced with mountain lion.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Ah! It's possible Apple just broke the app store in Mountain Lion server-side. The proxy fixes a specific issue with HTTPS but it is not, unfortunately, a magical fix for everything. The App Store does still work for me but I'm one version ahead on Mavericks.
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mavericks app store works!
 
recently, itunes does not like the proxy
it keeps whining about being unable to connect to the itunes store and my icloud music library
i did activate the 3 month free trial for apple music that came with my iphone, but i rarely use apple music
i just import mp3s into my itunes library
however, it always complains about it
itunes store and internet radio have a 50/50 percent chance of loading
sometimes, they give me a ssl template connect fail error, sometimes they load
if i turn off the proxy, it will connect to the icloud music library just fine without the errors
 
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