## Description of the need
We are seeing a new frustrated Forum post regarding the failure to get update data (https://forum.backdropcms.org/forum/not-possible-check-upgrades). This seems to come up regularly.
I experienced this issue and the problem was that Backdrop uses SSL to check for updates, and my local certificate used by stream_socket_client to make this socket connection with the server was expired. See https://forum.backdropcms.org/forum/issues-checking-updates-localhost
Other posters found similar solutions related to expired certificates. I think this is not uncommon.
## Proposed solution
Drupal 7, to this date, uses an HTTP connection to obtain the same module update information. Backdrop's defines the constant `UPDATE_DEFAULT_URL` as `https://updates.backdropcms.org/release-history`. Drupal 7 `http://updates.drupal.org/release-history`.
It seems like D8/9 does use SSL to fetch update data, but provides a `update_fetch_with_http_fallback` fallback option in settings.php.
It'd be great to have this feature added to Backdrop.
This is the D8/9 doc explanation for this setting:
```php
/**
* Fallback to HTTP for Update Manager and for fetching security advisories.
*
* If your site fails to connect to updates.drupal.org over HTTPS (either when
* fetching data on available updates, or when fetching the feed of critical
* security announcements), you may uncomment this setting and set it to TRUE to
* allow an insecure fallback to HTTP. Note that doing so will open your site up
* to a potential man-in-the-middle attack. You should instead attempt to
* resolve the issues before enabling this option.
*/
```
GitHub Issue #:
5455
Recent comments
Thanks! The site was on PHP 7.0. With assistance from my hosting provider, I updated to PHP 7.4 and now I have access to the site again. No database re-import required.
Locked out of site after updating modules
Thank you very much. I will follow your advice.
Locked out of site after updating modules
The best you can do is test and report. If you find a contrib that doesn't work in php 8.3, create an issue in its queue so it gets fixed. In my experience, I've found that 7.4 is safest...
Locked out of site after updating modules