HtmlUnit - PKIX path building failed: unable to find valid certification path to requested target

Question

I have a JAVA EE webapp on Glassfish using a GoDaddy SSL certificate. The HTTP listener redirects to the HTTPS one.

I'm trying to get HtmlUnit to fetch a page from the webapp for Googlebot crawler. The code works as intended on the staging server which doesn't have SSL enabled. However, on the live server with the GoDaddy SSL certificate, I get the below error when HtmlUnit tries to get the webpage.

I've tried the workaround specified here (http://www.mkyong.com/webservices/jax-ws/suncertpathbuilderexception-unable-to-find-valid-certification-path-to-requested-target/), but that didn't help. Any ideas as why I get this error ?

javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target
at sun.security.ssl.Alerts.getSSLException(Alerts.java:192)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.fatal(SSLSocketImpl.java:1917)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:301)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.fatalSE(Handshaker.java:295)
at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.serverCertificate(ClientHandshaker.java:1471)
at sun.security.ssl.ClientHandshaker.processMessage(ClientHandshaker.java:212)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.processLoop(Handshaker.java:936)
at sun.security.ssl.Handshaker.process_record(Handshaker.java:871)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:1043)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.performInitialHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1343)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1371)
at sun.security.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.startHandshake(SSLSocketImpl.java:1355)
at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLConnectionSocketFactory.createLayeredSocket(SSLConnectionSocketFactory.java:275)
at org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLConnectionSocketFactory.connectSocket(SSLConnectionSocketFactory.java:254)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.HtmlUnitSSLConnectionSocketFactory.connectSocket(HtmlUnitSSLConnectionSocketFactory.java:155)
at org.apache.http.impl.conn.HttpClientConnectionOperator.connect(HttpClientConnectionOperator.java:117)
at org.apache.http.impl.conn.PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager.connect(PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager.java:314)
at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.MainClientExec.establishRoute(MainClientExec.java:363)
at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.MainClientExec.execute(MainClientExec.java:219)
at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.ProtocolExec.execute(ProtocolExec.java:195)
at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RetryExec.execute(RetryExec.java:86)
at org.apache.http.impl.execchain.RedirectExec.execute(RedirectExec.java:108)
at org.apache.http.impl.client.InternalHttpClient.doExecute(InternalHttpClient.java:186)
at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.execute(CloseableHttpClient.java:72)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.HttpWebConnection.getResponse(HttpWebConnection.java:178)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.loadWebResponseFromWebConnection(WebClient.java:1313)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.loadWebResponse(WebClient.java:1230)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.getPage(WebClient.java:338)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.getPage(WebClient.java:407)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.getPage(WebClient.java:392)

Answer 1

A workaround is to just disable SSL on the requested page. Not the same thing, granted, but this crap just got too annoying. To disable SSL use the following on the webClient object:

 webClient.getOptions().setUseInsecureSSL(true);