# I deleted the folder /etc/letsencrypt

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [June 28, 2021, 12:29pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686 "2021-06-28T12:29:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![liviu-damian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/liviu-damian/32/50730_2.png) [@liviu-damian](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/liviu-damian)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2021, 12:29pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/1 "2021-06-28T12:29:45Z")

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I was not able to renew my certificates and I deleted everything, I need to start over again and reinstall everything. How I can generate the keys?

My domain is: [bivucu.com](http://bivucu.com)

I ran this command: sudo nginx -t

It produced this output: nginx: [emerg] cannot load certificate "/etc/letsencrypt/live/bivucu.com/fullchain.pem": BIO\_new\_file() failed (SSL: error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:fopen('/etc/letsencrypt/live/bivucu.com/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, laest version

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: [namecheap.com](http://namecheap.com)

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 control panel

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

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**Author:** ![griffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/griffin/32/50204_2.png) [@griffin](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/griffin)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2021, 3:56pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/2 "2021-06-28T15:56:21Z")

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Welcome to the Let's Encrypt Community, Liviu 🙂

To begin, you will need to remove any references to the certificate and its private key from your nginx configuration then reload nginx (`sudo nginx -s reload`).

What is the output of:

`sudo nginx -T`

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**Author:** ![rg305](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/rg305/32/91314_2.png) [@rg305](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/rg305)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2021, 6:13pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/3 "2021-06-28T18:13:53Z")

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> [@liviu-damian](#):
>
> nginx, laest version

Is that **least** OR **latest**?  
[huge difference - LOL]

Actually saying anything aside from the actual version number is undesirable.

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**Author:** ![liviu-damian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/liviu-damian/32/50730_2.png) [@liviu-damian](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/liviu-damian)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2021, 6:17pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/4 "2021-06-28T18:17:23Z")

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Hi,

Thanks for help but I took radical measures, I killed the server entirely on Digital Ocean and I created a new one and redeployed everything again from scratch.  
It is working now.

Liviu.

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**Author:** ![griffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/griffin/32/50204_2.png) [@griffin](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/griffin)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/5 "2021-06-28T18:22:20Z")

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Glad it's working. 😊

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2021, 6:22pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/i-deleted-the-folder-etc-letsencrypt/154686/6 "2021-07-28T18:22:40Z")

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