Certbot has stopped working

[stembo]

I installed certbot about three years ago and it has been updating my LetsEncrypt certificate up until August/September 2022. Since then it refuses to run at all. My certificate is about to run out and I'm getting desperate!

My domain is: membership.thedonstrust.org

I ran this command: certbot any
It produced this output:
root@wags_server_2:~# certbot renew
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/certbot", line 11, in
load_entry_point('certbot==0.31.0', 'console_scripts', 'certbot')()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/init.py", line 561, in load_entry_point
return get_distribution(dist).load_entry_point(group, name)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/init.py", line 2631, in load_entry_point
return ep.load()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/init.py", line 2291, in load
return self.resolve()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pkg_resources/init.py", line 2297, in resolve
module = import(self.module_name, fromlist=['name'], level=0)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/main.py", line 18, in
from certbot import account
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/certbot/account.py", line 18, in
from acme import messages
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/acme/messages.py", line 11, in
from acme import challenges
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/acme/challenges.py", line 12, in
import requests
ImportError: No module named 'requests'

My web server is (include version): Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): ubuntu 16.04.7 LTS

My hosting provider, if applicable, is:

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

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):
any certbot command gives the error above. However,
root@wags_server_2:~# apt-cache policy certbot | grep Installed
Installed: 0.31.0-2~deb10u1+ubuntu16.04.1+certbot+3

[MikeMcQ]

Welcome to the community @stembo

Some other volunteers may know what happened and might have ideas to fix that. It looks to me like something changed in your python packages but I am not expert on that.

My suggestion is to upgrade your very old certbot version to the snap version. The instructions for Ubuntu 16 with Apache are below:

Certbot Instructions

[rg305]

@MikeMcQ is right on target: Ubuntu 16 supports snap.
I would also recommend that you replace that version of certbot with the latest snap version.

[stembo]

Thank you both for your suggestion.
When trying to use snap, I discovered it wasn't installed already (as according to the documentation it should have been) so I tried to install it with sudo apt install snapd.
This got as far as Setting up snapd and then reported:
Setting up snapd (2.48.3) ...
snapd.failure.service is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.
snapd.snap-repair.service is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.

I then tried to install snapd myself:
root@wags_server_2:/home/admin# sudo snap install snapd
error: system does not fully support snapd: cannot mount squashfs image using "squashfs": mount:
/tmp/sanity-mountpoint-950726094: mount failed: Unknown error -1

I suspect my VPS provider (34sp.com) has disabled something so I am stuck in a rabbit hole
If anyone can help with this or has an alternative fix to my original problem, I'd be grateful to hear from you.

[rg305]

hmm...
I'd try an alternate ACME client.
Like: acme.sh

Until you can get snap installed correctly.
For that, I suggest using an Ubuntu forum.

[MikeMcQ]

Like Rudy says you might try something like acme.sh

Or, try the Snapcraft docs or forum