Error urllib2 Python. SSL: TLSV1_ALERT_INTERNAL_ERROR ssl.c:590

Question

I am trying to use urllib for Python to open a URL but I get an error with one specific URL which looks normal compared to the others and also works well in a browser.

The code that generates the error is:

import cStringIO
import imghdr
import urllib2
response = urllib2.urlopen('https://news.artnet.com/wp-content/news-upload/2015/08/Brad_Pitt_Fury_2014-e1440597554269.jpg')

However, if I do the exact same thing with a similar URL I don't get the error:

import cStringIO
import imghdr
import urllib2
response = urllib2.urlopen('https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Brad_Pitt_June_2014_(cropped).jpg')

The error I get in the first example is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 154, in urlopen
    return opener.open(url, data, timeout)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 431, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 449, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 409, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1240, in https_open
    context=self._context)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1197, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
urllib2.URLError: <urlopen error [SSL: TLSV1_ALERT_INTERNAL_ERROR] tlsv1 alert internal error (_ssl.c:590)>

Answer 1

This is a site using Cloudflare SSL and it needs Server Name Indication (SNI). Without SNI access to this site will show the behavior you can see here, i.e. trigger a tlsv1 alert. SNI was added to Python 2.7 only with 2.7.9 and you are probably using an older version of Python.

Answer 2

I found a very good explanation in the urllib3 documentation.

The following code solved the issue with Python 2.7.10:

import urllib3 
import ssl 
import certifi
urllib3.contrib.pyopenssl.inject_into_urllib3()

# Open connection
http = urllib3.PoolManager(
    cert_reqs='CERT_REQUIRED', # Force certificate check.
    ca_certs=certifi.where(),  # Path to the Certifi bundle.
)

# Make verified HTTPS requests. 
try:
    resp = http.request('GET', url_photo) 
except urllib3.exceptions.SSLError as e:
    # Handle incorrect certificate error.
    print "error with https certificates"