Certbot renew --dry-run: SERVFAIL looking up CAA

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. 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:
www.wiliamocaldwell.com
I ran this command:
sudo certbot renew --dry-run
It produced this output:

Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing...
Renewing an existing certificate
Performing the following challenges:
http-01 challenge for www.williamocaldwell.com
Waiting for verification...
Cleaning up challenges
Attempting to renew cert from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/www.williamocaldwell.com.conf produced an unexpected error: Failed authorization procedure. www.williamocaldwell.com (http-01): urn:acme:error:connection :: The server could not connect to the client to verify the domain :: DNS problem: SERVFAIL looking up CAA for williamocaldwell.com. Skipping.
** DRY RUN: simulating 'certbot renew' close to cert expiry
**          (The test certificates below have not been saved.)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
 - The following errors were reported by the server:

   Domain: www.williamocaldwell.com
   Type:   connection
   Detail: DNS problem: SERVFAIL looking up CAA for
   williamocaldwell.com

   To fix these errors, please make sure that your domain name was
   entered correctly and the DNS A record(s) for that domain
   contain(s) the right IP address. Additionally, please check that
   your computer has a publicly routable IP address and that no
   firewalls are preventing the server from communicating with the
   client. If you're using the webroot plugin, you should also verify
   that you are serving files from the webroot path you provided.

My web server is (include version):
nginx version: nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu)
The operating system my web server runs on is (include version):
Ubuntu 16.04.2
My hosting provider, if applicable, is:
DigitalOcean
I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don’t know):
y
I’m using a control panel to manage my site (no, or provide the name and version of the control panel): N/A

All of my DNS setting appear to be correct. I understand that Let’s Encrypt doesn’t care about CAA but must get some response. Any ideas where to check next?

The zone in the DigitalOcean DNS control panel is called “www.williamocaldwell.com”. Therefore queries for other records under “williamocaldwell.com” but not under “www.williamocaldwell.com” fail.

You need to rename the zone to “williamocaldwell.com”, or create a new zone with that name and delete the old one.

When you do, you also need to create a “www” A record so http://www.williamocaldwell.com/ will continue to work.

; williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no A records (SERVFAIL)
; williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no AAAA records (SERVFAIL)
; williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no CAA records (SERVFAIL)
; williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no NS records (SERVFAIL)
; williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no SOA records (SERVFAIL)

www.williamocaldwell.com.  (unsigned)  3334  A    174.138.53.55
; www.williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no AAAA records (NOERROR)
; www.williamocaldwell.com. (unsigned) has no CAA records (NOERROR)
www.williamocaldwell.com.  (unsigned)  1534  NS   ns1.digitalocean.com.
www.williamocaldwell.com.  (unsigned)  1534  NS   ns2.digitalocean.com.
www.williamocaldwell.com.  (unsigned)  1534  NS   ns3.digitalocean.com.
www.williamocaldwell.com.  (unsigned)  1589  SOA  ns1.digitalocean.com. hostmaster.www.williamocaldwell.com. 1502374798 10800 3600 604800 1800
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Thanks, everything is good now. Dumb rookie mistake!:sweat_smile:

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