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iOS app intermittently fails with “An SSL error has occurred” for some users — AWS backend with only an A record

I have an iOS app where most users can access the app normally, but a small number of users are unable to enter the app or load its content.

For affected users, the iOS logs show errors such as:

An SSL error has occurred, and a secure connection to the server cannot be established. 

or:

A TLS error caused the secure connection to fail. 

The failure happens during the initial API requests, particularly the guest-login request. Because guest login fails, the app cannot proceed to fetch the home-screen data.

Backend setup

  • Backend is hosted on AWS
  • API is served over HTTPS
  • Domain uses an A record
  • There is currently no AAAA record
  • TLS certificate is valid
  • Most users can successfully connect to the API
  • The issue appears to be intermittent and affects only some users/devices

Could this be caused by something other than my AWS server itself, such as:

  • ISP/carrier routing issues
  • TLS handshake problems
  • IPv4 routing
  • DNS resolution
  • AWS networking
  • TLS/certificate-chain configuration
  • iOS URLSession behavior
  • Network path differences between regions
  • Some IP reputation/blocking issue

Since I only have an A record and no AAAA record, could IPv6/NAT64 still be relevant to this problem?

What would be the best way to diagnose this systematically?

I am particularly interested in knowing how to determine whether the TLS connection is failing before the request reaches AWS, versus the request reaching AWS and failing somewhere in Nginx/backend.

Any suggestions for tools, tests, or logs that would help isolate this would be appreciated.

Source: r/networking · by /u/Glittering_Youth8752

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