# Manual plugin not working error, on renewal **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [May 28, 2019, 12:57pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646 "2019-05-28T12:57:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidjpeacock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@davidjpeacock](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/davidjpeacock)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 12:57pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/1 "2019-05-28T12:57:21Z")
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](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: landproject.davidjpeacock.dev I ran this command: sudo certbot renew It produced this output: Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log * * * ## Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/landproject.davidjpeacock.dev.conf Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing… Could not choose appropriate plugin: The manual plugin is not working; there may be problems with your existing configuration. The error was: PluginError(‘An authentication script must be provided with --manual-auth-hook when using the manual plugin non-interactively.’,) Attempting to renew cert (landproject.davidjpeacock.dev) from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/landproject.davidjpeacock.dev.conf produced an unexpected error: The manual plugin is not working; there may be problems with your existing configuration. The error was: PluginError(‘An authentication script must be provided with --manual-auth-hook when using the manual plugin non-interactively.’,). Skipping. All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed: /etc/letsencrypt/live/landproject.davidjpeacock.dev/fullchain.pem (failure) * * * ## All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed: /etc/letsencrypt/live/landproject.davidjpeacock.dev/fullchain.pem (failure) 1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s) My web server is (include version): N/A; this certificate is targeted for a GitLab Pages website. The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): N/A; this certificate is targeted for a GitLab Pages site. My hosting provider, if applicable, is: GitLab Pages I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don’t know): no 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 0.23.0 ---
**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:** [May 28, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/2 "2019-05-28T13:52:13Z")
Hi @davidjpeacock looks like your earlier command > [@davidjpeacock](#): > > PluginError(‘An authentication script must be provided with --manual-auth-hook when using the manual plugin non-interactively.’,) has used the `--manual` - option. So you can't use the simple `renew` command. There is one older certificate ( [https://check-your-website.server-daten.de/?q=landproject.davidjpeacock.dev#ct-logs](https://check-your-website.server-daten.de/?q=landproject.davidjpeacock.dev#ct-logs) ): | CertSpotter-Id | Issuer | not before | not after | Domain names | LE-Duplicate | next LE | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [807792469](https://check-your-website.server-daten.de/queries/q_get_certificatefile/certfile-certspotter-807792469.pem?certspotter_id=807792469) | CN=Let's Encrypt Authority X3, O=Let's Encrypt, C=US | 2019-03-13 01:50:18 | 2019-06-11 01:50:18 | landproject.davidjpeacock.dev | | | | 1 entries | | | | | | | Which command did you used to create that certificate? Perhaps `--manual` and dns-01 validation. So you have to do that again. Your certbot > [@davidjpeacock](#): > > The version of my client is (e.g. output of `certbot --version` or `certbot-auto --version` if you’re using Certbot): > > certbot 0.23.0 is very old. Perhaps update. ---
**Author:** ![davidjpeacock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@davidjpeacock](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/davidjpeacock)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/3 "2019-05-28T14:36:11Z")
Hi @JuergenAuer, Thanks for replying and offering help; it’s appreciated. 🙂 I was operating originally off GitLab’s guide (I appreciate this isn’t Let’s Encrypt’s guide), here: [https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/lets\_encrypt\_for\_gitlab\_pages.html](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/lets_encrypt_for_gitlab_pages.html) The original command was as per their example: sudo certbot certonly -a manual -d [example.com](http://example.com) --email [your@email.com](mailto:your@email.com) Questions for followup: 1. How do I do a renew adapted to the command I used to create the cert? If you can be explicit I’d appreciate it if possible please. 2. Regarding upgrade of the certbot tool; I thought I installed it through the regular Ubuntu method, but despite keeping my system up to date, it hasn’t updated. Is there a guide to updating certbot around? Thanks, David ---
**Author:** ![davidjpeacock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@davidjpeacock](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/davidjpeacock)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2019, 5:20pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/4 "2019-05-29T17:20:11Z")
@JuergenAuer, To followup, I guess a succinct version of my question since I can’t make sense of the slightly ambiguous docs is: Do I need to just reissue a new cert as if I never had one with the original command, or do I need to do a “manual renew” of some sort with the `renew` command? If the latter, how, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![davidjpeacock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@davidjpeacock](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/davidjpeacock)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2019, 1:46pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/5 "2019-05-30T13:46:15Z")
Following up for future readers of this thread. I tried doing the exact command I used to get my cert originally. Certbot was smart enough to figure out that it was renewing an existing cert, and I was prompted to perform an http-01 challenge, which successfully renewed the cert. Thanks to @JuergenAuer for his pointer. ---
**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:** [May 30, 2019, 1:51pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/6 "2019-05-30T13:51:50Z")
> [@davidjpeacock](#): > > I tried doing the exact command I used to get my cert originally. You can always use exact the same command. That should always work. Happy to read that you have a new certificate. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 1:54pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/manual-plugin-not-working-error-on-renewal/94646/7 "2019-06-29T13:54:17Z")
Closed on June 29, 2019, 1:54pm UTC This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.