Apple Faces Service Interruption as TLS Certificate Renewal Overlooked

In a surprising turn of events, Apple, which once advocated for reducing the validity period of all TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates to just 45 days, has fallen victim to its own policy. The tech giant faced a significant hiccup early this morning when the TLS certificate for Apple Music expired, leaving a multitude of users unable to stream their favorite tunes.

The issue came to light when users attempting to play songs on Apple Music encountered an authentication error with the certificate for play.itunes.apple.com. Investigations revealed that the certificate had expired at some point after midnight today.

This oversight highlights a critical challenge in IT management—the deployment and renewal of TLS certificates, especially in a system as vast and globally distributed as Apple's. The company's services, including Apple Music, rely on numerous nodes and digital certificates to operate across different regions.

Further testing by tech analysts showed that Apple employs regional DNS resolution for Apple Music, meaning that the server a user connects to varies depending on their location. Some users were unaffected, connecting to servers with certificates expiring in January 2025. However, those routed to servers with the expired certificate were left in silence.

Fortunately, music that had already been downloaded through Apple Music remained accessible, with the issue primarily affecting songs that needed to be streamed or downloaded afresh, which triggered the certificate authentication error.

Such slip-ups are not uncommon among large corporations like Apple, which manage countless domains and certificates necessitating regular maintenance. When automatic renewals fail, it can lead to widespread user impact.