# Looking for FAQs **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [March 11, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/looking-for-faqs/147217 "2021-03-11T22:17:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 64
**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:** [April 8, 2021, 5:27pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/looking-for-faqs/147217/64 "2021-04-08T17:27:19Z")
> [@jvanasco](#): > > What I randomly realized today, is that a lost/never-downloaded Certificate _might_ be recoverable and usable from crt.sh if the Private Key is still saved to disk. I haven't looked to see which, if any, clients save or log the private key when the CSR is generated - but I assume some might. Several of us here have tried to go down this route on more than a few occasions when helping people who have deleted their certificates. The majority of the time, the private keys are gone. I've never seen a client log a private key as I suspect that most probably just dump the private key onto non-volatile storage as soon as it and the CSR are generated. I don't think I would like a client to log the private key as I feel like this "second copy" could end up somewhere with worse permissions than the home of the "original copy". Imagine if people were posting client logs containing private keys... 😬 On the rare occasion that the help-seeker has retained a private key and downloaded the desired certificate from crt.sh, the next step is always making sure it's the **right** private key. Much of the time there are many keys for many duplicate certificates, which makes this process a barrel of laughs. 🤡 Clearly the openssl command line comes in handy here though I've found that looking at dates along with installation trial-and-error are often faster and less error-prone. It is because of all of this, of course, that the following came about: > [@Soft rate limit](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/soft-rate-limit/147681): > > I… > [@Add an Hourly Duplicate Certificate Rate Limit](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/add-an-hourly-duplicate-certificate-rate-limit/139264): > > I… Hopefully we will soon be able to say: just fix the problem, you can try again in an hour. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/looking-for-faqs/147217)._