League of Legends was unavailable for many players on January 4, 2026, after the game experienced issues linked to an expired SSL certificate, leaving players unable to log in and access the game for several hours.
Attempting to launch the game or connect to servers returned errors related to secure connections, with many taking to social media to report the disruption.
Riot Games later posted on League’s X/Twitter page to confirm that it was “aware of an issue that’s impacting games and preventing some players from logging in.”
SSL certificate lapse echoes a decade-old outage
This is not the first time League of Legends has been affected by an SSL certificate problem. In early 2016, a similar situation occurred when an expired certificate prevented players from connecting to Riot’s services, leading to widespread login failures and confusion.
An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate is a digital security system that encrypts the connection between a user and a server, ensuring data like logins and account information can be sent securely.
If one expires or isn’t renewed, systems that rely on secure connections can refuse to communicate, which is why games like League of Legends can stop working entirely when one lapses.
During the 2016 outage, a Riot senior software engineer said in a Reddit post, that the SSL certificate had expired when it should have auto-renewed.
“We’re aware of this, and we’re taking a look now. Appears our cert expired for the new year when it should have auto-renewed. Happy New Year, Redditors”
Retro Tower Defense codes (January 2026)