SSL (HTTPS) with 2.4

[Bloke]

Thanks Martin.

The problem seems to lie with our company proxy (which requires
authentication).  I have tried retrieving the page on another network
with a transparent proxy, and it all works fine.  Unfortnately, any
https page I try to retrieve on the company network fails in this way
with after a long period of inactivity.  However, I can retrieve the
page using a standard browser through the same company network.  I
think there must be something weird going on with our proxy server.