I saw this exception: -
unable to write 'random state'
whilst trying to use openSSL on Windows.
I was trying to convert a CA-signed personal certificate ( and the corresponding private key ) into a PKCS12 file, in order to import the same into Firefox.
Thankfully Google drew me to this: -
which led me to a solution.
I was running the openSSL tool via a Windows command-prompt ( terminal ) session but was NOT running it as an administrative user.
Once I clicked [Start] [Run], entered cmd.exe and chose "Run as Administrator", it just worked.
I need to write up the end-to-end process for a future blog post …