Amendment: the repo can be opened if no sync flag is used: fossil open --nosync ...

SQLITE_ERROR(1): no such table: global_config ...

Please see 07feafefbff4daab and, if able, try that patch. If that works for you we'll get it integrated.

I think that patch is definitely needed.

On another note, why do you suppose that OpenSSL is not able to verify the perfectly valid cert that is on fossil-scm.org. Do you think the local machine does not have up-to-date root certs that include Let's Encrypt? Or maybe the local machine root certs are just in a non-standard place? What does this say:

fossil tls

I think that patch is definitely needed.

Done.

On another note, why do you suppose that OpenSSL is not able to verify the perfectly valid cert that is on fossil-scm.org.

That's well outside of my very basic SSL know-how. Warren can certain say something to that, though.

$ fossil tls
OpenSSL-version:   OpenSSL 1.1.1i  8 Dec 2020  (0x01010109f)
OpenSSL-cert-file: C:\Program Files\Common Files\SSL/cert.pem
OpenSSL-cert-dir:  C:\Program Files\Common Files\SSL/certs
SSL_CERT_FILE:
SSL_CERT_DIR:
ssl-ca-location:
ssl-identity:
exception:         fossil-scm.org
exception:         www.maphew.com

Edit: the folder listed, "C:\Program Files\Common Files\SSL", does not exist

All the places I can locate a file called "cert.pem" (using Everything Search):

Your screenshot appears clipped, so perhaps "C:\Program Files\Common Files\SSL/cert.pem" from the above output is there, but can you please verify it? If that file is indeed missing, there's your problem.

As the OP noted in an edit, C:\Program Files\Common Files\SSL doesn't exist on his system. It also doesn't exist on my system running windows 10 Home, build 19042.1110 installed May 2021.

(I use a self-built Cygwin fossil, not windows fossil, so didn't try to reproduce his issue.)

These are two separate issues.

Matt W needs to provide this file to Fossil since the OpenSSL library for Windows doesn't know how to reach into the OS's proprietary certificate store and use those. It needs you to provide it in a format it can accept. I can only speculate as to why it's looking in that particular place, but he can either produce a copy of the CA root PEM store containing the roots he needs in that location or he can point Fossil at one of the others, if they're suitable. All of this is well-documented.

With Cygwin, however, you're using the Cygwin build of OpenSSL, which presumably references the Cygwin ca-certificates package as a dependency, so you shouldn't be having the same trouble with TLS connections as Matt W.

With Cygwin, however, you're using the Cygwin build of OpenSSL, which presumably references the Cygwin ca-certificates package as a dependency, so you shouldn't be having the same trouble with TLS connections as Matt W.

Correct I have no problem cloning fossil.

Do the directions for installing on windows include how to find a cacert.pem and make fossil use it?

"…I did find a third party source for the cacert.pem file…"

Oh, thank you. Not normally having had to do extra TLS/SSL setup to read from a server I didn't know to look for documentation on it.

I'm accustomed to messages like "accept this cert and continue (y/N)?" and "remember this exception (y/N)?" but up until now* I've only had to answer Yes and keep going (if I trust the source). Meaning I interepreted the messages as information and not errors.

I was helped to this understanding as the error messages Fossil emitted had me thinking the problem was internal. "no such table: global_config: {REPLACE INTO ..." reads like the destination doesn't exist, not a problem with being unable to find a source file.

* With other software like Firefox, WinSCP, Pu:tty, Remote Desktop, FileZilla, ...

I was helped to this understanding as the error messages Fossil emitted had me thinking the problem was internal.

That particular problem was definitely internal to fossil (and has since been patched): its config db wasn't being opened, so saving of the cert exception could not succeed.