My best guess is that you have previously issued a certificate using the apache plugin on that system, and the renewal config file for that certificate is still

My best guess is that you have previously issued a certificate using the apache plugin on that system, and the renewal config file for that certificate is still there. $ echo "BreakThisConfig" > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf $ ./certbot-auto --apache 2016-05-16 21:33:31,252:ERROR:certbot.le_util:Error while running apache2ctl configtest. Action 'configtest' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. $ ./certbot-auto certonly --standalone -d example.com - Congratulations! Your certificate and chain have been saved at /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem. $ ./certbot-auto renew --force-renewal Congratulations, all renewals succeeded. The following certs have been renewed: /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem (success)