article How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors in Troubleshooting

How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

HannahM — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 14:16:36 GMT

*Use a table of contents for longer articles.

Summary

*This is a mandatory section.

Short description of which part of the Dynatrace platform the article refers to and what kind of problem it will help resolve/ task it will describe.

Problem

*This is a mandatory section.

Provide a precise description of the problem/ task to be described. Use anonymized screenshots, and include text for important messages, errors, or information that will help the customer find this article when searching.

Troubleshooting steps

*This section can be omitted as necessary.

Explain what troubleshooting steps should be taken to ensure the problem matches this article.

Resolution

*This section can be omitted for articles that guide customers on case creation.

Explain the solution or all possible solutions resulting from the troubleshooting steps.

What's next

*This is a mandatory section. Customers need a way to respond or follow up if they have questions.

Explain what to do if the article didn't help. Note that there are multiple options available, including:

Opening a chat or support case - be as specific as possible about the information the customer should include in the case. Use the following formula and fill or change the bullet points:

If this article didn't help, create a chat or open a support case
- Mention that you reviewed this article.
- Include the following details:
  - Link to XYZ
  - Screenshot of XYZ
  - Information about XYZ
Suggesting Product Idea - encourage the customer to suggest/ vote for a Product Idea explaining their business use case.

Please submit a Product Idea with detailed information about your request and use case in the Product Ideas forum. Our Product Management team regularly reviews these suggestions:
https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Dynatrace-product-ideas/idb-p/DynatraceProductIdeas
Explain this will change in the future - explain that this behavior will change in a future release. (No product idea / support case needed)
Alternatives - any other actions or links to other articles that could move the customer forward.

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

ChadTurner — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 17:46:09 GMT

Thank you for Sharing this @HannahM

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

AntonioSousa — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:14:56 GMT

@HannahM,

I confess I'm a little bit confused here, and not what I was expecting: by default, a Chrome Browser does not ignore cert errors, but indeed tries that the user not proceed to a site with an invalid cert.

This implies that sites with a self-signed, invalid CA or whatever invalid cert may be out there, do not give an error by default in browser monitors?

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

HannahM — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:03:50 GMT

For Browser monitors, we start the Browser with the

--ignore-certificate-errors

parameter. This does indeed ignore certificate errors.

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

AntonioSousa — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:42:46 GMT

@HannahM,

Thanks for the clarification. If asked before, I would certainly not have said it worked this way 😁 But I do understand why it's done this way...

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

lsantos — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:07:35 GMT

Hello everyone,

I'm in need for such feature (i.e. I want the synthetic to fail if there are any certificate issues).

I've added the suggested flag but the synthetic is still not failing even tough there are certificate issues...

Anyone had success with this setup?

Thanks 🙂

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

HannahM — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 12:55:51 GMT

@lsantos, thanks for letting us know. Did you resolve this issue? Changing the flag works for me. If this behavior is still seen for your monitor, can you create a support ticket for us to investigate? Thanks

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

AlanZ — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:38:02 GMT

Hi,

We would like this to be the default for all browser monitors (new and existing). Is there a setting which would modify the default behavior so certificates are always validated for all our environment browser monitors unless otherwise specified ?

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

HannahM — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:24:26 GMT

Hi Alan, unfortunately not, but it's a great idea. I recommend you add it here

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Julius_Loman — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:10:26 GMT

I disagree with this behaviour. Certificate validity must be checked by default, with the option of supplying your own list of CA certificates.
Disabling certificate validation must be an opt-in, not the other way around. When users create synthetic tests, they expect the test to behave exactly as it does in their real browser.

This is especially critical since the current option to turn off ignoring the errors is hidden and not exposed to the user in contrast to HTTP monitors.

article How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors in Troubleshooting

How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Summary

Problem

Troubleshooting steps

Resolution

What's next

Related reading

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors

Re: How to create Browser Monitor that does not ignore certificate errors