[▲ Vercel Community](/) · [Categories](/categories) · [Latest](/latest) · [Top](/top) · [Live](/live)

[Help](/c/help/9)

# Vercel SSL certificate generation stuck after initial NXDOMAIN error

20 views · 0 likes · 2 posts


Wazza (@warrenfab) · 2026-03-14

## Problem
I’m having trouble generating an SSL certificate for a custom domain. The domain was added while DNS was still propagating, which initially caused the certificate request to fail.

## Current Behavior
The Vercel dashboard shows:
> **Failed to Generate Cert**

Clicking **Refresh** does not trigger a new validation attempt. It appears the certificate generation may be stuck on the original failed validation state.

**Error:**
```bash
Failed to Generate Cert
http-01 challenge failed
DNS problem: NXDOMAIN looking up A for www.mindthehat.com
```

## Environment
DNS has since been corrected and is now fully resolving globally.

**Current DNS configuration:**
```text
@    A      216.198.79.1
www  CNAME  cname.vercel-dns.com
```

Global DNS checks now resolve correctly to Vercel edge IP ranges (`64.29.x.x`, `66.33.x.x`, `76.76.x.x`, etc.), and there are no `NXDOMAIN` responses from authoritative servers.

## Question
Has anyone seen this before or is there a way to force a fresh `ACME` validation cycle without removing both the root and `www` domains?

**Domain:** `mindthehat.com`


system (@system) · 2026-03-14

The domain troubleshooting guide can help with most custom domain configuration issues. You might be able to use that guide to solve it before a human is available to help you. Then you can come back here and share the answer for [bonus points](https://community.vercel.com/t/introducing-the-vercel-leaderboard/1358).

[https://vercel.com/docs/projects/domains/troubleshooting](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/domains/troubleshooting)

You can also use [v0](https://v0.dev/) to narrow down the possibilities.