SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

This is a common problem when using Avast antivirus and others but sometimes also happens with some cURL versions.

Solving problems with cURL

You can check if your CA bundle is up to date by running composer diagnose -vvv. Look for Checked CA file ... or Checked directory ... and you’ll see where Composer is looking for your CA bundle. You can get a new Certificate from cURL if this is a problem.

Mitigating antivirus issues

If using a different CA bundle doesn’t help, you can try disabling antivirus and firewall to see if that helps.

There are verified issues with Avast and others and they block Composer – there’s nothing that we can do with Herd to solve this problem, but you can disable HTTPS scanning in your antivirus software.

Avast

In Avast, please go to “Protection > Core Shields > Web Shield > uncheck Enable HTTPS scanning” and that should help.

Norton

In Norton, please go to “Security > Advanced > Safe Web > Settings” and disable HTTPS scanning and QUIC/HTTP3 scanning.

If changing the settings in your antivirus software does help, please report this to your antivirus vendor so that they can implement a fix and allow enabling these protections again.

You can read more about this at the official Composer docs.