SSL/TLS certificate issue. I deleted _acme record? Help me please

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1

Hello,

I think I messed up. I was cleaning up my DNS records and deleted an _acme record. I didn’t think anything of it. Now, I checked my Netlify account and receive an error saying that Let’s Encrypt cannot renew my Let’s Verify certificate until I resolve this issue.

My problem is, I cannot find where to go to get the record I need to input back into my DNS settings. I’ve looked all over. Where is this? Where do I get my _acme record and value to input to my site DNS. I’ve looked into Let’s Encrypt’s website and all over Netlify. It’s no where to be found.

Also, I really like your website and hosting capabilities. Thanks for letting me be a part of the community.

Any help would be really appreciated.

2

Hey,good news, you didn’t really break anything. That _acme-challenge record isn’t something you need to recover or look up somewhere. It’s a one-time, throwaway value that Let’s Encrypt generates fresh every time it validates your domain. The value you deleted is already expired and useless, so even if you found it, it wouldn’t help.

Here’s how the record actually works. When Netlify asks Let’s Encrypt for a new certificate, Let’s Encrypt says “prove you own this domain, put this random string at _acme-challenge.yourdomain.com”. Netlify creates that TXT record, Let’s Encrypt checks it, and once verified, the record is no longer needed. A new one is generated for the next renewal.

So the fix depends on your DNS setup:

If you’re using Netlify DNS (your nameservers point to nsone.net), you don’t need to do anything by hand. Go to your site, then Domain management, then HTTPS, and click Renew certificate. Netlify will recreate the challenge record automatically and the new cert will issue within a few minutes.

If you’re using external DNS (your nameservers are at GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, etc.), click Renew certificate in the same place. Netlify will give you a new TXT record (host and value) on screen. Add that one to your DNS provider, then hit verify. Once the cert issues, you can leave it or remove it later, it doesn’t matter.

Either way, no need to dig through Let’s Encrypt or hunt for the old value. Just trigger the renewal and Netlify will tell you exactly what to put back, if anything.