# \[SOLVED\] An old "Alternative name" is not letting me renew the domain **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [September 7, 2021, 7:58am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340 "2021-09-07T07:58:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aqeeliz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/839c29/32.png) [@aqeeliz](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/aqeeliz)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 7:58am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/1 "2021-09-07T07:58:50Z")
My domain is: [cloud.aqeeliz.com](http://cloud.aqeeliz.com) It has an "Alternative name": [social.aqeeliz.com](http://social.aqeeliz.com) This was another subdomain, that I recently disabled. I don't know why it's an alternate name, it was a long time ago when I got their certificate, so don't remember what I did then. Now, when renewing [cloud.aqeeliz.com](http://cloud.aqeeliz.com), it says: Renewing an existing certificate [cloud.aqeeliz.com](http://cloud.aqeeliz.com) and 2 more certificates Then it gives the error that it can't find DNS for [social.aqeeliz.com](http://social.aqeeliz.com) (because I disabled it), and fails the renew. I assume I can easily fix this by re-adding the [social.aqeeliz.com](http://social.aqeeliz.com) DNS entry at my domain level, but I am wondering, if there is any way to unlink this (and the other entry, [apps.aqeeliz.com](http://apps.aqeeliz.com) - which is still active and also has a separate certificate) from alternate name of [cloud.aqeeliz.com](http://cloud.aqeeliz.com)? ---
**Author:** ![Osiris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/839c29/32.png) [@Osiris](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Osiris)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 8:24am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/2 "2021-09-07T08:24:07Z")
Which ACME client are you using? And with what command are you renewing? And I assume you want to remove the alternate name from your certificate? ---
**Author:** ![aqeeliz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/839c29/32.png) [@aqeeliz](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/aqeeliz)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/3 "2021-09-07T08:34:17Z")
While writing the issue, I got better sense of the issue. So, after posting did some more search, and found a solution at [letsencrypt certbot: how to remove some domains from an existing certificate - Christosoft Blog](https://blog.christosoft.de/2019/12/letsencrypt-certbot-how-to-remove-some-domains-from-an-existing-certificate/), Basically, need to run the following command: ```nohighlight certbot certonly --cert-name "maindomain.com" --renew-with-new-domains -d "maindomain.com,alternative1.com,alternative2.com" ``` where the domain list contains the alternative domains you want to keep. In my case, it only contained the maindomain I was using `sudo certbot renew` to renew, but have to run this command with certonly. Thanks for everyone who looked at the issue. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Osiris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/839c29/32.png) [@Osiris](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/Osiris)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 9:01am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/4 "2021-09-07T09:01:11Z")
Another option would have been `--allow-subset-of-names`, but you'd need to **absolutely sure** the unwanted hostname is the _only_ hostname not validating. Luckily, the other hostnames already have been validated in a previous, failed renewal attempt and those successful validations should be cached for (currently) 30 days at the Let's Encrypt servers. ---
**Author:** ![aqeeliz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/839c29/32.png) [@aqeeliz](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/aqeeliz)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2021, 9:24am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/5 "2021-09-07T09:24:00Z")
Ah, thanks for the info. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/letsencrypt/original/3X/c/a/ca6c06ea1ea201324bba7048c6841ce60236468d.png) [@system](https://community.letsencrypt.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2021, 9:24am UTC](https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/solved-an-old-alternative-name-is-not-letting-me-renew-the-domain/159340/6 "2021-10-07T09:24:22Z")
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.