unable to create / renew a HTTPS certificate

Hello, 
Re the message we received (pasted below):

• What does this mean?
• Is there any action we need to take?
• What help can you provide?

Thank you!
Suzanne Ridgewood Toastmasters Club 2639  www.ridgewoodtoastmasters.org

[2022-04-16 08:04:01 GMT, FreeToastHost System Warning]  *** IMPORTANT! ***

NOTE:  We were unable to create / renew a HTTPS certificate for your custom domain:  www.ridgewoodtoastmasters.org
This means that you may not be able to access your website using https:// with your custom domain
name after any existing certificates expire.  

Possible causes may include:
a. Your DNS records are set up incorrectly.
b. You are using domain forwarding--it is *not* supported.
c. Your custom domain has expired.
d. The custom domain listed in the admin console is no longer being used.
e. We were unable to connect with the free LetsEncrypt! service to create the certificate.

*** Note that the system may remove your custom domain from the database to prevent further invalid
attempts at cert renewals.

You may also access your website via  2639.toastmastersclubs.org

You can check your custom domain's expiration date using:
who.is/whois/www.ridgewoodtoastmasters.org

You can view your current DNS records using:
www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=www.r...ns=auth&nameservers=

You can try to troubleshoot your DNS records using:
www.dnsstuff.com/tools#dnsReport|type=do...woodtoastmasters.org

Please contact the FreeToastHost support team at  support.toastmastersclubs.org  for more details and assistance.

- FreeToastHost Support (This is a system generated message.)

 

No action is needed. your domain is ok.

Domain (ridgewoodtoastmasters.org) was successfully VALIDATED.
Domain expires on 2022-08-03.

Occasionally the automatic cert renewal will skip a beat. (item 'e' in the admin message; We were unable to connect with the free LetsEncrypt! service to create the certificate.)

The next automatically renewal will likely succeed and you should see an admin message confirming such.

A new system notification has been implemented to inform clubs (via the admin messages) that their HTTPS cert has been successfully renewed.  

In your scenario, in the future you would see that there was a problem renewing the cert but followed (probably about a week later) by a notification that the cert was successfully renewed.

Because the LetsEncrypt certs expire after 90 days, but we start attempting to renew them after 60 days, there is about a month buffer there to allow for problems like you were notified about.

The LetsEncrypt certs are not perfect (expire quickly and their server sometimes not available), but they are free and they are good enough for our needs.