Microsoft Exchange 2013/ 2016/ 2019 shows blank ECP & OWA after changes to SSL certificates

This issue is described in KB2971270 and is fixed in Exchange 2013 CU6.

I published this blog post in July 2015 and it is still relevant. The feedback for this blog post was incredible, and I’m not joking when I say: I saved many admins weekends. ;) It has shown, that this error still occurs with Exchange 2016 and even 2019. Maybe not because of the same, with Exchange 2013 CU6 fixed bug, but maybe for other reasons. And the solution below still applies to it. Because of this I have decided to re-publish this blog post with a modified title and this little preamble.

Feel free to leave a comment if this blog post worked for you. :)

I ran a couple of times in this error. After applying changes to SSL certificates (add, replace or delete a SSL certificate) and rebooting the server, the event log is flooded with events from source “HttpEvent” and event id 15021. The message says:

An error occurred while using SSL configuration for endpoint 0.0.0.0:444. The error status code is contained within the returned data.

If you try to access the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) or Outlook Web Access (OWA), you will get a blank website. To solve this issue, open up an elevated command prompt on your Exchange 2013 server.

C:\windows\system32>netsh http show sslcert

SSL Certificate bindings:
-------------------------

    IP:port                      : 0.0.0.0:443
    Certificate Hash             : 1ec7413b4fb1782b4b40868d967161d29154fd7f
    Application ID               : {4dc3e181-e14b-4a21-b022-59fc669b0914}
    Certificate Store Name       : MY
    Verify Client Certificate Revocation : Enabled
    Verify Revocation Using Cached Client Certificate Only : Disabled
    Usage Check                  : Enabled
    Revocation Freshness Time    : 0
    URL Retrieval Timeout        : 0
    Ctl Identifier               : (null)
    Ctl Store Name               : (null)
    DS Mapper Usage              : Disabled
    Negotiate Client Certificate : Disabled

    IP:port                      : 0.0.0.0:444
    Certificate Hash             : a80c9de605a1525cd252c250495b459f06ed2ec1
    Application ID               : {4dc3e181-e14b-4a21-b022-59fc669b0914}
    Certificate Store Name       : MY
    Verify Client Certificate Revocation : Enabled
    Verify Revocation Using Cached Client Certificate Only : Disabled
    Usage Check                  : Enabled
    Revocation Freshness Time    : 0
    URL Retrieval Timeout        : 0
    Ctl Identifier               : (null)
    Ctl Store Name               : (null)
    DS Mapper Usage              : Disabled
    Negotiate Client Certificate : Disabled

    IP:port                      : 0.0.0.0:8172
    Certificate Hash             : 09093ca95154929df92f1bee395b2670a1036a06
    Application ID               : {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
    Certificate Store Name       : MY
    Verify Client Certificate Revocation : Enabled
    Verify Revocation Using Cached Client Certificate Only : Disabled
    Usage Check                  : Enabled
    Revocation Freshness Time    : 0
    URL Retrieval Timeout        : 0
    Ctl Identifier               : (null)
    Ctl Store Name               : (null)
    DS Mapper Usage              : Disabled
    Negotiate Client Certificate : Disabled

    IP:port                      : 127.0.0.1:443
    Certificate Hash             : 1ec7413b4fb1782b4b40868d967161d29154fd7f
    Application ID               : {4dc3e181-e14b-4a21-b022-59fc669b0914}
    Certificate Store Name       : MY
    Verify Client Certificate Revocation : Enabled
    Verify Revocation Using Cached Client Certificate Only : Disabled
    Usage Check                  : Enabled
    Revocation Freshness Time    : 0
    URL Retrieval Timeout        : 0
    Ctl Identifier               : (null)
    Ctl Store Name               : (null)
    DS Mapper Usage              : Disabled
    Negotiate Client Certificate : Disabled

Check the certificate hash and appliaction ID for 0.0.0.0:443, 0.0.0.0:444 and 127.0.0.1:443. You will notice, that the application ID for this three entries is the same, but the certificate hash for 0.0.0.0:444 differs from the other two entries. And that’s the point. Remove the certificate for 0.0.0.0:444.

C:\windows\system32>netsh http delete sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:444

SSL Certificate successfully deleted

Now add it again with the correct certificate hash and application ID.

C:\windows\system32>netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:444 certhash=1ec7413b4fb1782b4b40868d967161d29154fd7f appid="{4dc3e181-e14b-4a21-b022-59fc669b0914}"

SSL Certificate successfully added

That’s it. Reboot the Exchange server and everything should be up and running again.