Cannot receive SMS texts from HTTPS website

Other Hardware Science and Measurement
1

I have donated my time and resources to helping my water association by building a water level monitoring system for each of their water tanks.

My Computer and Gear
Mac OSX v12.5.1
Microcontroller: Adafruit MO WIFI

In brief, if the water level falls below 8 feet the sketch executes a PHP webpage that sends SMS text messages to certain people to take action on the water loss. All of this works perfectly.

The issue is that I am using one of my personal websites to do the testing and now want to embed the text sending PHP files within the water accociations website. I built the water associations website and set it up as a secure - HTTPS - site. I added the necessary text-sending PHP files within the includes folder of the water associations website, but I have NEVER received a text from this website.

After much testing and research, I have concluded that the reason I never received texts from this site is because it is secure. Whether or not this is actually true, I am not 100% be certain.

I was advised to use another microcontroller that has a built-in ‘SSL stack’ - Adafruit ESP32 Feather V2. I have never read a clear explanation as to what a SSL stack actually is, but was told this was designed specifically for accessing secure websites. This would include using the ‘WiFiClientSecure.h’ library, I believe.

I purchased several of these microcontrollers but have yet to test them as of yet. I also have several Arduino Nano 33 IoT boards, but these may not have the ability to do what I need.

Before I change boards, I would like to exhaust every avenue with my current Feather micocontroller. This is the reason for this post.

That said, can someone:
1- assure me that the secure website is my problem and
2- if so, can someone kindly point me to some information that would allow me to overcome this problem.

Thank you.

2

work backwards, start with sending sms without arduino directly from website then by connecting to the site with the browser, then by removing SSL and trying with arduino, then switching on SSL and trying with arduino. one of these steps will fail but will give you a hint to where the problem is

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Funny you should mention removing the SSL because I did just that and the website URL became some other website entirely. Yesterday I asked my webhost about this and was told the following:

"when you removed the ssl certificate, it reverts to the first site on the server in alphabetical order. the server needs to refresh which takes about an hour."

That was news to me. I could not believe what I was seening so I just re-installed the SSL cert and hoped for the best. After refreshing, the site became it old HTTPS self once again.

I mention this because removing the SSL was one option open to me, but I would prefer leaving the site as HTTPS and learning to overcome this SMS obstacle.

Thanks for the great advice. I will report back with my progress.

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