Setting Up Pangolin on DO and I Continue Get ACME Errors

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1

I have been trying to set up my Pangolin sever on DO ever since it crashed a few weeks ago. Every time I spin it up now, I continue get an Unable to obtain ACME certificate for domains error. No matter how I try to set it up, I get the same error and I do not understand. I don't know if I am doing something wrong, or there is something wrong with Let's Encrypt.

My domain is: teamgroth.me

I ran this command: docker log traefik -f

It produced this output:

root@pangolin:~# docker logs traefik -f
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Traefik version 3.5.6 built on 2025-11-07T13:47:38Z version=3.5.6
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF
Stats collection is disabled.
Help us improve Traefik by turning this feature on :slight_smile:
More details on: Traefik Data Collection Documentation - Traefik

2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Loading plugins... plugins=["badger"]
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Plugins loaded. plugins=["badger"]
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider aggregator *aggregator.ProviderAggregator
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider *file.Provider
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider *traefik.Provider
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider *acme.ChallengeTLSALPN
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider *acme.Provider
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Testing certificate renew... acmeCA=https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory providerName=letsencrypt.acme
2026-03-16T19:38:09Z INF Starting provider *http.Provider
2026-03-16T19:38:11Z INF Register... providerName=letsencrypt.acme
2026-03-16T19:38:30Z ERR Unable to obtain ACME certificate for domains error="unable to generate a certificate for the domains [pangolin.teamgroth.me]: error: one or more domains had a problem:\n[pangolin.teamgroth.me] invalid authorization: acme: error: 400 :: urn:ietf:params:acme:error:connection :: 159.203.86.149: Fetching http://pangolin.teamgroth.me/.well-known/acme-challenge/lcs86XmolJi_q6eexbqzhEFZM8CSbDAZouwshiWlhyA: Timeout during connect (likely firewall problem)\n" ACME CA=https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory acmeCA=https://acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org/directory domains=["pangolin.teamgroth.me"] providerName=letsencrypt.acme routerName=ws-router@file rule=Host(pangolin.teamgroth.me)

My web server is (include version):

The operating system my web server runs on is (include version): Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

My hosting provider, if applicable, is: Digital Ocean

I can login to a root shell on my machine (yes or no, or I don't know): Yes

2

In order to verify that you own a domain Let's Encrypt needs to be able to connect to TCP port 80 (HTTP), have you checked your firewall to see whether you're allowing HTTP?

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3

Yes port 80 is open on the firewall for the vps.

4

Then check all other settings for connections. HTTP requests on port 80 are not able to reach your server. Can you reach your domain from the public internet?

This is a good test site when setting up new systems:

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