subscription at nazarenko dot net:
"Tried the latest snapshot as advised. Same effect as before, the problem persists.

Test script:
<?php var_dump(file("https://host2/")); ?>

Both "host1" and "host2" are on the same subnet. "

(do NOT add any huge outputs of anything unless asked for!)

Works fine for me under FC4 x86_64smp. 
Try with this configure line:

./configure --disable-all --disable-cgi --with-openssl

And use sapi/cli/php to run your script.

Thank you for a speedy response.
Indeed, with the minimal configure, it started working again.
After 1 hour of mixing and matching the modules I found the culprit.

It is: curl-7.13.0 libraries compiled in with the following parameters:

--with-curl --with-curlwrappers

Actually, without "--with-curlwrappers" it works fine. Tested both for 5.0.4 and 5CVS

I can't reproduce this, with having both of those configure options enabled the same time. Please try latest CVS snapshot.

Tried php5-200508021630 CVS snapshot.

https works:
./configure --disable-all --disable-cgi --with-openssl --with-curl

https does not work:
./configure --disable-all --disable-cgi --with-openssl --with-curl --with-curlwrappers

My machine is x64 Linux (SuSE 9.3)
OpenSSL libraries: openssl-devel-0.9.7e-3
CURL libraries: curl-devel-7.13.0-5

I'm using these libs:

openssl 0.9.7f
curl 7.13.1

So try upgrade those. (you do have the 64bit versions of those installed?)

Make sure you have allow_url_fopen turned on in your php.ini file and that you can see https listed on your phpinfo() output.

If you mean 'you do have the 64bit versions of those
installed?' question, the answer is: Yes, I do. Here is the output of rpm commands:

rpm -q --provides openssl-0.9.7g-2.2
ssl
libcrypto.so.0.9.7()(64bit)
libssl.so.0.9.7()(64bit)
openssl = 0.9.7g-2.2

rpm -q --provides curl-7.14.0-2.2
curl_ssl
libcurl.so.3()(64bit)
curl = 7.14.0-2.2

Also, my 'allow_url_fopen' is On (otherwise no test case would work)

I have to stress this fact: absolutely nothing has been changed between the two tests, no php.ini settings, no libraries installed, no system variables, etc. except the "--with-curlwrappers" directive. In once case https works in the other one it does not.

Here is the result after compiling with --with-curlwrappers:

/install/php5-200511091730/sapi/cli/php -i | grep Registered

Registered PHP Streams => php, file, ftp, gopher, telnet, dict, ldap, http, https, ftps

Registered Stream Socket Transports => tcp, udp, unix, udg, ssl, sslv3, sslv2, tls

Registered Stream Filters => string.rot13, string.toupper, string.tolower, string.strip_tags, convert.*

/install/php5-200511091730/sapi/cli/php -i | grep fopen

allow_url_fopen => On => On

Tried the 200601131530 snapshot.
OpenSSL libs: 0.9.7g
Curl libs: 7.14.0

Same result.
HTTPS works only when --with-curlwrappers is not used.

See also bug #36882

Disabling CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER & CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST with the patch below fixes it.
I believe installing a CA certificate would fix it too.

Index: ext/curl/streams.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /repository/php-src/ext/curl/streams.c,v
retrieving revision 1.14.2.2.2.5
diff -u -p -d -r1.14.2.2.2.5 streams.c
--- ext/curl/streams.c  10 Aug 2006 15:02:41 -0000      1.14.2.2.2.5
+++ ext/curl/streams.c  24 Aug 2006 15:26:40 -0000
@@ -291,6 +291,8 @@ php_stream *php_curl_stream_opener(php_s

        curl_easy_setopt(curlstream->curl, CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER, curlstream->errstr);
        curl_easy_setopt(curlstream->curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 0);
+       curl_easy_setopt(curlstream->curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
+       curl_easy_setopt(curlstream->curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);

        /* enable progress notification */
        curl_easy_setopt(curlstream->curl, CURLOPT_PROGRESSFUNCTION, on_progress_avail);

This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.

The bug is still here.  I've reproduced it with PHP 5.2.17 which was built with 
the following options:

System => Linux he251.vps.webenabled.net 2.6.18-238.5.1.el5.028stab085.2.owl2 #1 
SMP Sat Mar 12 19:50:32 MSK 2011 i686
Build Date => Apr 25 2011 08:06:28
Configure Command =>  './configure'  '--host=i686-openwall-linux-gnu'
'--build=i686-openwall-linux-gnu'
'--target=i686-openwall-linux'
'--program-prefix='
'--prefix=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0'
'--exec-prefix=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0'
'--bindir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/bin'
'--sbindir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/sbin'
'--sysconfdir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/etc'
'--datadir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/share'
'--includedir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/include'
'--libdir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/lib'
'--libexecdir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/libexec'
'--localstatedir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/var'
'--sharedstatedir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/com'
'--mandir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/man'
'--infodir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/info'
'--with-layout=GNU'
'--with-config-file-path=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/etc'
'--with-config-file-scan-dir=/opt/php/5.2.17-owlx0/etc/php.d'
'--disable-rpath'
'--with-libdir=lib'
'--disable-debug'
'--enable-shared'
'--enable-static'
'--disable-all'
'--enable-short-tags'
'--enable-cgi'
'--disable-force-cgi-redirect'
'--enable-fastcgi'
'--enable-cli'
'--with-pear=/opt/php/pear'
'--enable-discard-path'
'--enable-magic-quotes'
'--enable-calendar=shared'
'--enable-ctype=shared'
'--enable-date'
'--enable-dba=shared'
'--with-gdbm'
'--with-db4'
'--with-cdb'
'--with-inifile'
'--with-flatfile'
'--enable-dbase=shared'
'--enable-dom=shared'
'--enable-exif=shared'
'--enable-filter=shared'
'--enable-ftp=shared'
'--enable-hash=shared'
'--enable-json=shared'
'--enable-mbstring=shared'
'--enable-mbregex'
'--enable-pcntl=shared'
'--enable-pdo=shared'
'--with-pdo-mysql=shared,/opt/mysql/current'
'--with-pdo-pgsql=shared,/opt/postgresql/current'
'--with-pdo-sqlite=shared,/opt/sqlite/current'
'--with-pgsql=shared,/opt/postgresql/current'
'--enable-posix=shared'
'--enable-session=shared'
'--enable-shmop=shared'
'--enable-soap=shared'
'--enable-sockets=shared'
'--enable-spl'
'--enable-simplexml'
'--enable-suhosin=shared'
'--enable-sysvmsg=shared'
'--enable-sysvsem=shared'
'--enable-sysvshm=shared'
'--enable-tokenizer=shared'
'--enable-wddx=shared'
'--enable-xml=shared,/opt/libxml2/current'
'--enable-xmlreader=shared'
'--enable-xmlwriter=shared'
'--enable-libxml=yes,shared'
'--with-libxml-dir=/opt/libxml2/current'
'--enable-memory-limit'
'--enable-zend-multibyte'
'--with-xsl=shared,/opt/libxslt/current'
'--with-openssl=shared'
'--with-zlib=shared'
'--enable-zip=shared'
'--with-bz2=shared'
'--with-curl=shared,/opt/curl/current'
'--with-curlwrappers'
'--with-gd=shared'
'--with-jpeg-dir=/opt/libjpeg/current'
'--with-png-dir=/opt/libpng/current'
'--enable-gd-native-ttf'
'--enable-gd-jis-conv'
'--with-freetype-dir=/opt/libfreetype/current'
'--with-gettext=shared'
'--with-mssql=shared,/opt/freetds/current'
'--with-mysql=shared,/opt/mysql/current'
'--with-mysqli=shared,/opt/mysql/current/bin/mysql_config'
'--with-iconv=shared'
'--with-imap=shared,/opt/libc-client/current'
'--with-imap-ssl'
'--with-mcrypt=shared,/opt/libmcrypt/current'
'--with-mhash=shared,/opt/libmhash/current'
'--with-mime-magic=shared,/opt/httpd/config/magic'
'--with-ncurses=shared'
'--with-readline=shared'
'--with-pcre-regex'
'--disable-ipv6'


if the curl.so extension is not loaded get_file_contents() works with https, 
if curl.so is loaded the function returns an empty string.