HTTP Action with Client Certificate No Longer Working

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Posted on by CharlesHale

Hello All!

I have searched through the forums and don't believe I have seen this specific problem and could use some help.

I have several flows that are utilizing the HTTP Action going to a 3rd party with the use of a Client Certificate. I took the .pem and converted it to .pfx as required for the HTTP Action. With the content from that .pfx file I was able to get the action working! It has been for a while, until yesterday. One of the flows with this action and certificate stopped working. As I have encountered a similar situation previously, I duplicated the flow in the hopes that would give me a working one again. No luck. Since then I have tried making different test flows in different environments using different methods of inputting the .pfx content into the action(copying the text directly in the action, using base64(), putting the certificate in SharePoint and retrieving the file content to put in the action). None of them are working. Every time I get "Could not load the certificate private key. Please check the authentication certificate password is correct and try again." The certificate does not have a password, so I know that is not incorrect.

I know the certificate is not expired as it is working in Postman. AND I have still have other flows which have the same HTTP Action and client certificate which IS working. I tried duplicating one of the flows, but when I did the action stopped working giving me the same error.

I've run out of ideas to try and would appreciate any advice.

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SamLed 2,340 Moderator on at

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Hi,

Please review the Client Certificate authentication section to verify if you are generating the encoded pfx file content as per the document (look at troubleshooting paragraph in pfx row).

Even it was working before, I would give a try.
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sclaytonbalsam 6 on at

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I am also having this same issue. I actually copied the http to my clipboard(from a currently working flow) and received this same error. No changes were made to the PFX or password.
CharlesHale 24 on at

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Hi SamLed,

I did try the steps in the documentation you linked. I recreated the .pfx from the original .pem certificate and then went through the troubleshooting steps when the newly created file still didn't work. I am still getting the same error. The certificate still works in Postman, so this seems to be a fully power automate issue.

Any other advise would be appreciated.
juresti 319 on at

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Agreed, I we just ran into the error last week.

Working perfectly from one day to the next when I got a "Welcome to the new Admin Center" update.
Postman call works fine so the credentials, certificate, and configurations don't need to be checked.
AndrewWood 3 on at

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I'm having the same issue but what happens for me is that when I wait a day to run the flow again, it works. Then if I make any type of change, say add a variable, etc, the flow fails again. I wait until the following morning, works again. Pretty frustrating.
sclaytonbalsam 6 on at

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I wanted to follow up on a work around that worked for me. I was able to get my flow to start working again by generating a new certificate from the third party application I was posting the requests to. I have verified that the expiration date of the cert that I was using is not until next year so it has not expired. Not sure why generating the new cert works but it has helped us recover from a production down scenario. I still have a ticket open with Microsoft but have not gotten any answer yet.
juresti 319 on at

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@sclaytonbalsam
We also generated a new ticket by direction of the end point provider.
This did not work for us and still get the error to check the password.

It works on Postman.

Our solution was to build our own app in Visual Studio and is working great to post and get data.
shawnwang Microsoft Employee on at

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Just got this work and it is actually pretty much the same as using Client Secret.

Step 1. add a Azure Key Vault step - Get Secret - enter the Certificate Name as the customer value here.
Yes. the Name of the secret == Certificate Name.

Step 2. in your HTTP step,
- Credential Type: Certificate
- PFX: Value of the secret from above step
- Password:

base64('')

Done! and it works!

Please make this as the solution if your test succeeds.
juresti 319 on at

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@shawnwang That's great.

For us unfortunately our end point does not use the password field. The http on flow requires a password since the last update, previously we could leave it blank and it worked.
Since we built it in visual studio we are able to send the request with a blank password, all fixed.