Missing CSS when using SSL

Well.. 

Been struggling with this for a few hours now. So I decided it would be best to ask here.

On a fresh debian wheezy server elgg is working fine.

But then I decided to implement SSL.

Seems the CSS is missing when SSL is used. I have searched all over the net for anyone who is having a similar problem and have come up empty.

I located a brief mention that if Elgg was installed as localhost this could cause a problem. But Elgg was installed with it's domain name. I have checked to make sure that all pathnames include a trailing slash. (and they do)

I have followed 2 different SSL setups for debian and both display the same symptom. Funnily enough I can access myphpadmin (https://au0.org/phpmyadmin) using SSL and experience no issues. So I do believe SSL is functioning correctly. However I am happy to be proved wrong.

Here is my SSL URL https://au0.org and here is the site without SSL http://au0.org 

Any or All help appreciated.

  • Add these rules in your .htaccess and try again:

    After RewriteEngine On

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS}       !=on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^www\.          [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   (.+)$
    RewriteRule ^(.*)          http://www.%1/$1 [L,R=301]

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS}       on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^www\.          [NC]
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   (.+)$
    RewriteRule ^(.*)          https://www.%1/$1 [L,R=301]

  • Ty for the reply RvR

    Adding that doesn't fix the issue. However it does force the site to use www.au0.org instead of just au0,org.

    When I then login to Elgg.. I then get this error.. and am unable to access the site..

    As you see.. It has reverted back to http as well..

  • OK. This is config w/o www:

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS}       !=on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}  !^www\.(.+)$  [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)         http://%1/$1 [L,R=301]

    RewriteCond %{HTTPS}       on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}   !^$
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}  !^www\.(.+)$  [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)          http://%1/$1 [L,R=301]

    Also, check this table in your DB (via PHPMyAdmin):

    elgg_sites_entity

    And edit value of your website in 'url' column:

    http://au0.org on https://au0.org

  • Ty for trying RvR but none of your tweaks work.  The rewrite code creates a loop. I think you missed an "s" from the second 301 redirect. When I add that I still am unable to see the CSS at the login screen. Adjusting the database to https still results in 404 errors.

    This is a real shame. I note that many others have been searching all over the net for solutions to similar 404 errors. No one seems to be able to sort this out. As much as I have been impressed with the ability to add "mods" to Elgg. I fear this has created the monster that I now grapple with. Thankfully other social media software solutions exist. 

    I am pretty sure the solution to the problem would be in the .htaccess configuration.

    However, I am about to destroy the installation of Elgg on au0.org and use the domain for other social media experimentation. I really can not justify wasting any more time and domains on finding a solution for this problem. But I will check back here periodically to see if anyone offers a copy of their SSL modified .htaccess. 

    I will leave an Elgg installation on CountrySA.com however. (just one of my domains) CountrySA was going to be the ultimate destination for Elgg. (Hence my username) I had installed many mods on that installation. But I decided to install Elgg onto au0.org to ask for help here simply because it was a "virgin" installation and had no mods. I thought that would be the best way of making sure nothing else was "getting in the way".

    Just so you understand where I am coming from. I used to teach Unix system admin (and give out certificates for such) as far back as 1984. I currently own 23 domain names and operate 5 VPS servers. So.. As you can imagine.. I am quite used to solving "issues" that packages throw at me. But I really was looking for a quick solution here. I thought it would have been something that has been dealt with many times before.  

    Normally when things do not work as expected.. Google is my best friend and usually provides solutions I am able to apply. But this one has me stumped.

    Seems a shame though. A lot of work has obviously gone into Elgg. I would have thought that making SSL function should have been of the highest priority for most people. Perhaps I was wrong. I guess most people are happy just to get Elgg functioning. 

    Cheers

     

  • I have a lot of elgg sites running just fine on ssl, there's nothing special you need to do to elgg.  The image you posted of your phpmyadmin showed broken ssl there too.  I think it's your ssl configuration that is broken, not elgg.  In order to have it run properly you need to set the configured url to be https

  • Just for anyone's interest... I just installed humhub onto https://au0.org and as you can see.. No problems with CSS at all... Worked straight away. Cheers again.

  • Matt Beckett the image of myphpadmin showed a self signed certificate.. Is that what you mean by "broken" ssl?

    How come humhub installed in minutes and functioned with ssl without issue??

  • Dunno, but I'm telling you there's no issue with Elgg on https - it works out of the box with no magic necessary

    eg.

    https://www.healthost.com/

    https://www.simplur.com/

  • Well I dunno.. Makes no sense to me at all.. All I know is.. Throwing 404 errors and missing CSS just because https is used rather than http seems to be a pretty big problem to me. Perhaps it is Debian that is the issue? You know how linux can be.. *sigh  Anyway.. I am really disappointed not to be using Elgg as I was getting pretty excited about creating mods for it. Thanks again.