http-conduit TLSSettingsSimple and error EOF problems

Question

I'm still a haskell newbie but i'm attempting a simple http-conduit example"

import Network.HTTP.Conduit -- the main module

import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy as L

simpleRequest :: IO ()
simpleRequest = do
    request <- parseUrl var2
    print var2
    let settings = mkManagerSettings (TLSSettingsSimple True False False) Nothing
    res <- withManagerSettings settings $ httpLbs request
    print res

If var2 is:

var2 = "https://github.com"

it now works but switching to my superecret url

var3 = "https://blah_request_goes_here" it does not.

Testing var2 in the browser gives back an xml document as expected. This also used to work"

I get this error with var3:

*** Exception: Error_EOF

Sorry as this is a domain specific link i can't really share it. If i can provide any other info let me know. Trying to start simple and convert a node.js service to haskell. Any help in getting a better error or debugging would be really helpful..

Changing (TLSSettingsSimple True False False) to (TLSSettingsSimple False False False) gives an expected certificate error but that's all I knew how to do..