Occasionally you'll get an email from cPanel or from us saying an SSL certificate on your account is "expiring." If your account has SSL enabled, these notifications are informational — no action is needed on your side. This article explains why you receive them and when (if ever) you should do something.

Short answer: if SSL is already set up for your site and the site is loading with a valid certificate, expiry notices are automatic and you can ignore them. SSL certificates on our servers renew themselves.

Why you get these emails

SSL certificates are issued for a limited period — typically 90 days. Before the current certificate expires, our servers reissue a new one automatically. The expiry notice is an automatic heads-up from the system that the current certificate is near its end date; it does not mean your site will stop working.

You might receive one of a few variations:

  • "Your SSL certificate for yourdomain.com expires in X days" — a generic heads-up. The replacement is already being arranged.
  • "AutoSSL is checking for certificate renewal" — a status message. No action needed.
  • "AutoSSL could not issue a certificate for..." — this one does need attention. See below.

When to do something

The only expiry-related message that calls for action is when the system couldn't issue a new certificate and your site is about to be left without SSL coverage. This usually happens in one of these situations:

The domain isn't resolving to our server

SSL issuance requires that the domain point at our server (so the certificate authority can verify you control the domain). If you've recently changed nameservers, or the domain is pointed somewhere else, the certificate can't be issued until that's fixed.

Fix: check that your nameservers or A records point to our server — see Point your existing domain at CanSpace hosting. Once DNS is correct, the system will try again on the next automatic run.

A subdomain is listed that no longer exists

If a subdomain is configured in cPanel but its DNS doesn't resolve (for example, a subdomain you created but never added an A record for), the SSL system may retry it indefinitely and log failures. This typically doesn't affect your main site's SSL, but the error emails can be noisy.

Fix: delete unused subdomains from cPanel's Subdomains section, or add proper DNS records for the ones you want kept.

A domain is using Cloudflare with "Flexible" SSL mode

This is more about your site not loading correctly than a certificate issue per se, but it shows up in the SSL troubleshooting flow. If you've added your domain to Cloudflare with the free plan and it's set to "Flexible SSL," visitors connect to Cloudflare over HTTPS but Cloudflare connects to our server over HTTP, causing redirect loops and sometimes apparent SSL issues.

Fix: in your Cloudflare dashboard, go to SSL/TLS → Overview and change the mode to Full or Full (Strict). Our servers have valid SSL certificates, so "Full" works correctly and ends the loop.

You added a new domain but its SSL hasn't been issued yet

When you add an addon domain, subdomain, or parked domain to your cPanel account, our server attempts to issue an SSL certificate for it automatically. This happens on the next scheduled AutoSSL run, which may be after some time. If you want the certificate immediately rather than waiting, open a ticket and we'll run the issuance manually.

Verify your SSL is working

Two quick checks you can run any time:

  • Visit your site with https:// in the URL. Your browser should show a padlock icon (or "secure") — click on it to see certificate details, including the expiry date.
  • Use a tool like SSL Labs for a detailed report. Enter your domain, wait a few minutes for the scan, and it'll give you a grade (A or A+ are good), show the certificate details, and flag any issues.

If your site loads over HTTPS with a valid certificate and no browser warnings, everything is working — the expiry notification is just the system being informative.

Who gets these emails

Expiry notifications are sent to the "Contact Email" address on your cPanel account. You can update that under General Information → Contact Information in cPanel, or disable the notification entirely:

  1. In cPanel, open Contact Information.
  2. Scroll down to the Preferences section.
  3. Uncheck the "An SSL certificate expires" option.
  4. Click Save.

You'll still receive the important errors (the "could not issue" variety), but the routine reminders will stop.

Paid SSL certificates you purchased separately

If you purchased a branded SSL certificate from our SSL certificates page (Single Domain, Wildcard, or EV), those have one-year validity and don't auto-renew. You'll receive a renewal notice from us as the expiry date approaches, and you'll need to renew it through your client area the same way you'd renew a domain or hosting plan.

Certificates included with your hosting plan (Basic or Enhanced SSL) are the ones that renew themselves automatically — no action required on those.

Related articles

Got an SSL error you can't resolve? Open a support ticket

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