# Jabberd v2.2.14:  error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line



## rtwingfield (Aug 31, 2011)

This post is the result of what I consider to be an ambiguous error message and an example of a scenario where programmers could do much better.

The error message from the PEM_read_bio (whatever that is . . .a function?) complained that there was "no start line" associated with the certificate or private key.  

```
ROUT: Tue Aug 30 09:26:06 2011 [error] failed to load SSL pemfile, SSL disabled
ROUT: sx (ssl.c:922) couldn't load certificate from /usr/local/etc/jabberd/.ssh/server.pem;
 error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line
```

 While that _was_ true, it was true because the certificate and private RSA keys were not combined into a common PEM file following recreation.  While this was my oversight because after I recreated the openssl key pair, I did not combine them into a common file and move back into the production directory.

My point is that the error message rather than complain that there is no start line, a better diagnostic would be to inform that the file does not exist.  Then perhaps I would not have invested a man-day trying to figure out why the "no start line" message was issued when in fact I could clearly see that the certificate contained the start line,
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----


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