# Cannot load certificate "/etc/letsencrypt/live/3l.smartmind.today/fullchain.pem

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [April 13, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737 "2022-04-13T12:21:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jgitonga](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/jgitonga/32/59922_2.png) [@Jgitonga](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Jgitonga)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737/1 "2022-04-13T12:21:34Z")

</div>

Please fill out the fields below so we can help you better. Note: you must provide your domain name to get help. Domain names for issued certificates are all made public in Certificate Transparency logs (e.g. [crt.sh | example.com](https://crt.sh/?q=example.com)), so withholding your domain name here does not increase secrecy, but only makes it harder for us to provide help.

My domain is: [https://smartmind.today](https://smartmind.today)

I ran this command: Nginx -t  
{more information - I created a subdomain 3l.smartmind.today and acquired certificate using certbot [sudo certbot --nginx --hsts --staple-ocsp --must-staple -d 3l.smartmind.today]. However, at some point, i decided to pull down the subdomain and redo it again and i therefore removed the certificate and the subdomain server block and folder. Now Nginx configuration has an error}.

It produced this output:nginx: [emerg] cannot load certificate "/etc/letsencrypt/live/3l.smartmind.today/fullchain.pem": BIO\_new\_file() failed (SSL: error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:fopen('/etc/letsencrypt/live/3l.smartmind.today/fullchain.pem','r') error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO\_new\_file:no such file)  
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

My web server is (include version): nginx version: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu)

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Godaddy / Cloudflare

I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know): Yes (Digital Ocean)

I'm using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel): No

The version of my client is (e.g. output of `certbot --version` or `certbot-auto --version` if you're using Certbot):0.40.0

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MikeMcQ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/mikemcq/32/52772_2.png) [@MikeMcQ](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/MikeMcQ)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 2:18pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737/2 "2022-04-13T14:18:11Z")

</div>

> [@Jgitonga](#):
>
> i therefore removed the certificate and the subdomain server block and folder. Now Nginx configuration has an error}.

You must still have an `ssl_certificate` line that names that file but it does not exist. Did you delete the certificate?

You should not need a cert for a subdomain since you have a wildcard cert for smartmind.today

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jgitonga](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/jgitonga/32/59922_2.png) [@Jgitonga](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Jgitonga)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737/3 "2022-04-13T15:17:21Z")

</div>

Thanks Mike. I deleted the certificates - but Nginx trying to load it while its not existing. I have dug a bit and noticed that the subdomain certificate was being referred to in the default server block. I have commented these lines out and now Nginx configuration errors are resolved.

Thank you for checking.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/cannot-load-certificate-etc-letsencrypt-live-3l-smartmind-today-fullchain-pem/175737/4 "2022-05-13T15:17:29Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.