WP LetsEncrypt WordPress Plugin and Hostinger

3rd December 2019

If your not careful with the WP LetsEncrypt plugin it can lock you out of your own site as the install steps are misleading. If you hosting provider uses cPanel (GoDaddy etc), everything works correctly but hostinger has its own called hPanel, which requires this additional step.

After installing the plugin you get a screen similar to below

but if you go to the settings indicated and change http to https

you get locked out!

To fix this:

Logon to your hosting backend, in my case hoststinger.com After selecting the domain you want to manage, look for a file manager

After it loads, open the keys directory in the left column that was created by WPLetsEncrypt. Then download 2 files; certificate.crt and private.pem

Then you will need to navigate to Advanced, SSL. Under Custom SSL paste the contents of certificate.crt into the top box (the labels are low) and the contents of private.pem into the PrivateKey (KEY) box. the last box can stay empty. open each of the above files in notepad, press Ctrl+A to select ALL of the text, and Ctrl+C to copy the text to the clipboard. Put your cursor in the box shown below, Ctrl+V or right click to paste.

Hit the INSTALL button at the bottom of the page and you should re-gain access to your site. And it will be HTTPS encrypted.

Enjoy!