# Renewal: Invalid response from…acme-challenge

**URL:** <https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [September 6, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972 "2020-09-06T16:36:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gibhenry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gibhenry](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/gibhenry)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/1 "2020-09-06T16:36:09Z")

</div>

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

I ran this command: sudo certbot renew

It produced this output:  
Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

* * *

Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/gibhenry.com.conf

* * *

Cert is due for renewal, auto-renewing…  
Plugins selected: Authenticator apache, Installer apache  
Renewing an existing certificate  
Performing the following challenges:  
http-01 challenge for [gibhenry.com](http://gibhenry.com)  
http-01 challenge for [www.gibhenry.com](http://www.gibhenry.com)  
Waiting for verification…  
Challenge failed for domain [www.gibhenry.com](http://www.gibhenry.com)  
http-01 challenge for [www.gibhenry.com](http://www.gibhenry.com)  
Cleaning up challenges  
Attempting to renew cert ([gibhenry.com](http://gibhenry.com)) from /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/gibhenry.com.conf produced an unexpected error: Some challenges have failed… Skipping.  
All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed:  
/etc/letsencrypt/live/gibhenry.com/fullchain.pem (failure)

* * *

All renewal attempts failed. The following certs could not be renewed:  
/etc/letsencrypt/live/gibhenry.com/fullchain.pem (failure)

* * *

1 renew failure(s), 0 parse failure(s)

IMPORTANT NOTES:

- The following errors were reported by the server:

Domain: [www.gibhenry.com](http://www.gibhenry.com)  
Type: unauthorized  
Detail: Invalid response from  
[http://www.gibhenry.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/79ERVp\_DtVIc4\_HKInwm6pOC0efxwN2szv4mKyMoGCY](http://www.gibhenry.com/.well-known/acme-challenge/79ERVp_DtVIc4_HKInwm6pOC0efxwN2szv4mKyMoGCY)  
[68.117.148.0]: “\n\n404 Not  
Found\n\n

# Not Found
\n\<p”

My web server is (include version): Apache Mac

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Catalina, MacOS 15.6

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: (self-hosted)

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): 1.3.0

N O T E: I was able to install a fresh certificate by choosing only ‘[gibhenry.com](http://gibhenry.com)’ and not the example domains. What do I need to do to get things back on track? Thanks in advance!//Gib Henry

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [September 6, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/2 "2020-09-06T16:47:22Z")

</div>

Hi @gibhenry

> [@gibhenry](#):
>
> My web server is (include version): Apache Mac

I don't know if Apache Mac supports that. What says

```nohighlight
apachectl -S

```

Or

```nohighlight
httpd -S

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gibhenry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gibhenry](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/gibhenry)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/3 "2020-09-06T17:02:52Z")

</div>

Good grief, Juergen, what took you so long to reply? Almost 10 minutes! 😉 Output below:

```
iGib 20-09-06 12:00 ~ 🍸 apachectl -S
AH00112: Warning: DocumentRoot [/usr/docs/dummy-host.example.com] does not exist
AH00112: Warning: DocumentRoot [/usr/docs/dummy-host2.example.com] does not exist
VirtualHost configuration:
*:80 is a NameVirtualHost
         default server dummy-host.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:23)
         port 80 namevhost dummy-host.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:23)
                 alias www.dummy-host.example.com
         port 80 namevhost dummy-host2.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:32)
         port 80 namevhost gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:538)
*:443 gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:549)
ServerRoot: "/usr"
Main DocumentRoot: "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
Main ErrorLog: "/private/var/log/apache2/error_log"
Mutex ssl-stapling: using_defaults
Mutex ssl-cache: using_defaults
Mutex default: dir="/private/var/run/" mechanism=default 
Mutex mpm-accept: using_defaults
Mutex ssl-stapling-refresh: using_defaults
Mutex rewrite-map: using_defaults
PidFile: "/private/var/run/httpd.pid"
Define: DUMP_VHOSTS
Define: DUMP_RUN_CFG
User: name="_www" id=70 not_used
Group: name="_www" id=70 not_used

```

Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [September 6, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/4 "2020-09-06T17:06:54Z")

</div>

There

> [@gibhenry](#):
>
> ```nohighlight
> port 80 namevhost gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:538)
> *:443 gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:549)
> 
> ```

you see your problem. No www version defined. Change that. And remove not working vHosts or change the definitions, warnings are always bad.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gibhenry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gibhenry](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/gibhenry)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/5 "2020-09-06T18:43:21Z")

</div>

Okay, I added www. versions to both :80 and :443, but only :80 shows up, and I still get the [example.com](http://example.com) warnings:

```
AH00112: Warning: DocumentRoot [/usr/docs/dummy-host.example.com] does not exist
AH00112: Warning: DocumentRoot [/usr/docs/dummy-host2.example.com] does not exist
VirtualHost configuration:
*:80 is a NameVirtualHost
         default server dummy-host.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:23)
         port 80 namevhost dummy-host.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:23)
                 alias www.dummy-host.example.com
         port 80 namevhost dummy-host2.example.com (/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:32)
         port 80 namevhost gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:538)
                 alias www.gibhenry.com
*:443 gibhenry.com (/private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf:549)

```

/private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf:23 shows

```
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host.example.com
    DocumentRoot "/usr/docs/dummy-host.example.com"
    ServerName dummy-host.example.com
    ServerAlias www.dummy-host.example.com
    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host.example.com-error_log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host.example.com-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host2.example.com
    DocumentRoot "/usr/docs/dummy-host2.example.com"
    ServerName dummy-host2.example.com
    ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log"
    CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>

```

How do I fix the [dummy-host.example.com](http://dummy-host.example.com) problem? It’s apparently needed by ACME/certbot…? Thanks again! //Gib

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/renewal-invalid-response-from-acme-challenge/132972/6 "2020-10-06T18:43:27Z")

</div>

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