# Issue renewing certificate **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [December 9, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/issue-renewing-certificate/108247 "2019-12-09T19:33:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![locojohn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/locojohn/32/35865_2.png) [@locojohn](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/locojohn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/issue-renewing-certificate/108247/1 "2019-12-09T19:33:23Z")
I started having problems renewing certificates for any of the domains on the two servers I am administering. These problems started happening as of update to more recent versions of Certbot. Right now I am running what I believe is the latest version, 1.0.0. It looks like Certbot is failing to restart nginx server. I can restart it manually using “/etc/init.d/nginx restart” command, but Certbot isn’t able to use that same command even if I provide it in command line (tried that too). My domain is: I ran this command: certbot --nginx renew It produced this output: http-01 challenge for [devel.webportal.ahlers.com](http://devel.webportal.ahlers.com) nginx: [alert] kill(27706, 1) failed (3: No such process) Cleaning up challenges nginx: [alert] kill(27706, 1) failed (3: No such process) Encountered exception during recovery: Traceback (most recent call last): File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/auth\_handler.py”, line 70, in handle\_authorizations resps = self.auth.perform(achalls) File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 1117, in perform self.restart() File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 914, in restart nginx\_restart(self.conf(‘ctl’), self.nginx\_conf) File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 1186, in nginx\_restart “nginx restart failed:\n%s\n%s” % (out.read(), err.read())) certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: nginx restart failed: b’’ b’’ During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/error\_handler.py”, line 124, in \_call\_registered self.funcs-1 File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/auth\_handler.py”, line 243, in \_cleanup\_challenges self.auth.cleanup(achalls) File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 1135, in cleanup self.restart() File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 914, in restart nginx\_restart(self.conf(‘ctl’), self.nginx\_conf) File “/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/certbot\_nginx/\_internal/configurator.py”, line 1186, in nginx\_restart “nginx restart failed:\n%s\n%s” % (out.read(), err.read())) certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: nginx restart failed: b’’ b’’ Attempting to renew cert ([devel.webportal.ahlers.com](http://devel.webportal.ahlers.com)) from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/devel.webportal.ahlers.com.conf produced an unexpected error: nginx restart failed: b’’ b’’. Skipping. Config file: /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/devel.webportal.ahlers.com.conf # renew\_before\_expiry = 30 days version = 0.39.0 archive\_dir = /etc/letsencrypt/archive/devel.webportal.ahlers.com cert = /etc/letsencrypt/live/devel.webportal.ahlers.com/cert.pem privkey = /etc/letsencrypt/live/devel.webportal.ahlers.com/privkey.pem chain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/devel.webportal.ahlers.com/chain.pem fullchain = /etc/letsencrypt/live/devel.webportal.ahlers.com/fullchain.pem # Options used in the renewal process [renewalparams] account = 60dc1d6b100757fd7baa1656fd210e91 authenticator = nginx installer = nginx server = [https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory](https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory) My web server is (include version): nginx/1.17.6 The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Gentoo/Linux Base System release 2.6 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): certbot 1.0.0 Any idea what is going wrong? It used to work just fine with the same configuration before. ---
**Author:** ![JuergenAuer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/juergenauer/32/26491_2.png) [@JuergenAuer](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/JuergenAuer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/issue-renewing-certificate/108247/2 "2019-12-09T22:03:50Z")
Hi @locojohn isn't this > [@locojohn](#): > > http-01 challenge for [devel.webportal.ahlers.com](http://devel.webportal.ahlers.com) > nginx: [alert] kill(27706, 1) failed (3: No such process) > Cleaning up challenges > nginx: [alert] kill(27706, 1) failed (3: No such process) > ... > certbot.errors.MisconfigurationError: nginx restart failed: a temporary problem? Looks like the restart of nginx doesn't work, a wrong PID. Checking your domain you have a lot of older certificates. So I don't think it's a general problem. ---
**Author:** ![locojohn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/locojohn/32/35865_2.png) [@locojohn](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/locojohn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/issue-renewing-certificate/108247/3 "2019-12-09T23:00:26Z")
The /var/run/nginx.pid mysteriously disappears after I run "certbot --nginx renew". I can no longer restart nginx manually using /etc/init.d/nginx afterwards. Something fishy is there. Not a temporary problem, because nginx process is still running after certbot operation, I just cannot kill it using the normal init script, as there's no PID file. I can only kill it with 'kill -9 nginx'. > Checking your domain you have a lot of older certificates. In my Let's Encrypt configuration I have just a single certificate for this domain, configuration for which I have sent you earlier today. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/issue-renewing-certificate/108247/4 "2020-01-08T23:00:39Z")
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