"Problem with the SSL CA cert" errors after reinstallation on Mac

[mattrussell-sonocent]

OS: macOS Sequoia 15.1
nix-installer 0.32.2

Brief history:

1. Brand new Macbook, installed Nix via Determinate Nix Installer default planner, then installed nix-darwin. That worked for a couple of hours before I hit some mysterious issues (e.g. error: path '/nix/store/0ccnxa25whszw7mgbgyzdm4nqc0zwnm8-source/flake.nix' does not exist). I'm a Nix novice, and decided that it might be simplest to uninstall and reinstall Nix and see if that fixed it.
2. I uninstalled using /nix/nix-installer uninstall.
3. I reinstalled using the same installer, and it appeared to succeed.
4. However, trying to run any Nix commands results in a certificate error:

> nix-shell -p cowsay
error:
       … while calling the 'import' builtin
         at «string»:1:18:
            1| {...}@args: with import <nixpkgs> args; (pkgs.runCommandCC or pkgs.runCommand) "shell" { buildInputs = [ (cowsay) ]; } ""
             |                  ^

       … while realising the context of a path

       … while calling the 'findFile' builtin
         at «string»:1:25:
            1| {...}@args: with import <nixpkgs> args; (pkgs.runCommandCC or pkgs.runCommand) "shell" { buildInputs = [ (cowsay) ]; } ""
             |                         ^

       error: unable to download 'https://channels.nixos.org/flake-registry.json': Problem with the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?) (77) error setting certificate file: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

I have attempted to use this recipe with no luck: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer#using-macos-after-removing-nix-while-nix-darwin-was-still-installed-network-requests-fail
But the symptoms sound different - I didn't have any certificates at /etc/ssl/certs

Is there anything I can do to get Nix installed correctly again? Many thanks in advance!

[mattrussell-sonocent]

Running sudo ln -s /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt per NixOS/nix#3261 (comment) appears to have sorted it 😅

[grahamc]

Ah, great!

I was just going to suggest that, or trying the Determinate package which handles a lot more edge cases out of the box. However, that has a caveat around adding a nix-darwin module to your configuration, and we're looking to talk with users about how that should work.

[grahamc]

@mattrussell-sonocent would you mind chatting over email about nix-darwin, this issue, and Nix? ([email protected])