# Renewal error - UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [January 23, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-error-unicodedecodeerror-ascii/111385 "2020-01-23T19:55:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![to030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@to030](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/to030)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-error-unicodedecodeerror-ascii/111385/1 "2020-01-23T19:55:07Z")
Hi, my automatic renewal with cron job is not working any more. Also manual starting the bot gives me the error. Performing the command: > grep -r -P '[^\x00-\x7f]' /etc/apache2 /etc/letsencrypt /etc/nginx > listed three files: > /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.de/keystore. > /etc/letsencrypt/live/mydomain.de/cert\_and\_key.p12 > /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf:# TLSv1 -TLSv1.1 hinzugefügt zu SSLProtocol The first 2 ones were not readable and the content was like this: ����^@^@^@^B^@^@^@^B^@^@^@^A^@^Ftomcat^@^@^Ao����^@^@^E^D0�^E^@0^N^F +^F^A^D^A\*^B^Q^A^A^E^@^D�^D쓎hܓȓQ^[�^VѤ ^O�䤎$ݲ"^U��ﲎ k鲎!jVE�tg貎��ϲ^E?\*òv�̦��F�^?�\>}�=�ZYΦ+�/�ez߳س)�V.���^��T� ^[R�L��^^^Ff6ɳ/\>|���^H���nL�@���ٳ�8��^O$ %QWt^M^S%�)�9^QW����;����8R���k�Z�^Vq��tK^Qbq�^K�^@b��� My domain is: I ran this command: sudo /usr/local/bin/certbot-auto --apache It produced this output: An unexpected error occurred: UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 411: ordinal not in range(128) And this is the log: 2020-01-23 20:23:06,913:DEBUG:certbot.\_internal.log:Exiting abnormally: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/bin/letsencrypt", line 11, in sys.exit(main()) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/main.py", line 15, in main return internal\_main.main(cli\_args) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/main.py", line 1351, in main return config.func(config, plugins) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/main.py", line 1212, in certonly installer, auth = plug\_sel.choose\_configurator\_plugins(config, plugins, "certonly") File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/plugins/selection.py", line 224, in choose\_configurator\_plugins installer = pick\_installer(config, req\_inst, plugins, installer\_question) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/plugins/selection.py", line 31, in pick\_installer config, default, plugins, question, (interfaces.IInstaller,)) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/plugins/selection.py", line 104, in pick\_plugin verified.prepare() File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/plugins/disco.py", line 250, in prepare return [plugin\_ep.prepare() for plugin\_ep in six.itervalues(self.\_plugins)] File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/\_internal/plugins/disco.py", line 128, in prepare self.\_initialized.prepare() File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot\_apache/\_internal/configurator.py", line 259, in prepare self.updated\_mod\_ssl\_conf\_digest) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot\_apache/\_internal/configurator.py", line 2335, in install\_ssl\_options\_conf self.option("MOD\_SSL\_CONF\_SRC"), constants.ALL\_SSL\_OPTIONS\_HASHES) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/plugins/common.py", line 374, in install\_version\_controlled\_file active\_file\_digest = crypto\_util.sha256sum(dest\_path) File "/opt/eff.org/certbot/venv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/certbot/crypto\_util.py", line 478, in sha256sum sha256.update(file\_d.read().encode('UTF-8')) UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 411: ordinal not in range(128) My web server is (include version): Server version: Apache/2.4.10 (Debian) Server built: Sep 30 2019 19:32:08 The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Description: Debian GNU/Linux 8.11 (jessie My hosting provider, if applicable, is: 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 1.1.0 Any help or hints are appreciated. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![to030](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@to030](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/to030)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-error-unicodedecodeerror-ascii/111385/2 "2020-01-23T20:10:39Z")
> [@to030](#): > > keystore I just found the error. There was a non ASCII charakter in /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf as a comment. When it was deleted, certbot worked as expected. Issue solved. Thanks! Thread can be closed. ---
**Author:** ![cpu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/user_avatar/community.letsencrypt.org/cpu/32/84514_2.png) [@cpu](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/cpu)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-error-unicodedecodeerror-ascii/111385/3 "2020-01-24T14:48:44Z")
> [@to030](#): > > Thanks! > Thread can be closed. Thanks for following up to share your solution 🎉 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-error-unicodedecodeerror-ascii/111385/4 "2020-02-23T14:48:46Z")
Closed on February 23, 2020, 2:48pm UTC This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.