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An error occurred while attempting to communicate with the Government Gateway

Article ID

11623

Article Name

An error occurred while attempting to communicate with the Government Gateway

Created Date

6th April 2017

Product

IRIS PAYE-Master, IRIS Payroll Business, IRIS Bureau Payroll, IRIS GP Payroll, IRIS Payroll Professional, Earnie, IRIS Earnie IQ

Problem

When trying to send RTI submissions user gets the following error:

an error occurred while attempting to communicate with the government gateway please check your internet connection is functioning correctly or try again later internet settings internet options internet security

Resolution

Following the HMRC decision to retire support for SSLv3 a number of customers have experienced the above error message when trying to submit RTI returns to the government gateway, even though their internet connection is working correctly.

This is due to a configuration issue with the users’ internet settings, preventing the software from using enhanced security protocols to communicate with HMRC.

To review your PC internet security options go to “Control Panel” > “Network and Internet” > “Internet Options

resizedimage550473 Mul TLSSett 2 | An error occurred while attempting to communicate with the Government Gateway

resizedimage550473 Mul TLSSett 3 | An error occurred while attempting to communicate with the Government Gateway

Open the “Advanced” tab, scroll down the “Settings” checkbox list and make sure the options “Use TLS 1.0“, “Use TLS 1.1” & “Use TLS 1.2” are all ticked:

Mul TLSSett 1 | An error occurred while attempting to communicate with the Government Gateway

Click “Apply” and then “OK“.

You must then close and reopen payroll, once you are logged back in you will be able to send RTI submissions.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are unable to amend the options for “Use TLS 1.0“, “Use TLS 1.1” & “Use TLS 1.2” or they are not present in the list of settings you will need to refer to your IT support/Administrator.


SSLv3 Statement from HMRC

“Government Gateway SSLv3 disabled 10 October 2016
On 30 September 2015, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) made a change so that if you were using the SSLv3 protocol to connect to our services you were no longer able to. For the majority of online customers this meant no change as they were already using a more secure protocol (such as TLS1.0, TLS1.1 or TLS1.2) by default.
Government Gateway will be disabling SSLv3 on a permanent basis on 10 October 2016.
If you’re uncertain about the type of secure connection your browser or other software can support, you can check it at Your SSL client is Bad and other similar services.
If you’re still using the SSLv3 protocol it is advised that you use a more secure protocol to connect to Government Gateway.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hm-revenue-and-customs-service-availability-and-issues#P122_3928

If you have checked the TLS settings as described above and all three options are ticked, but the user is still getting the error message there are additional configuration settings to be checked.

This is not a software issue. In all reported cases of this error, it has been caused by something configured (or not configured) in Windows. 

If the above settings have not corrected the error please refer to this additional information for help resolving the issue:

Online Filing Issues

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