Plugins and Add-ons: Certificate Creation

When using the Certificate plugin i get the followin errors:

srCertificateEventsCertificateHandler::sendNotifications:40 Failed to generate certificate with ID 1; Certificate data directory /home/elearnin/iliasdata/cpconsultant/cert_data/3/13/cert_1 is not writable.  

cpconsultant_root.ERROR: ilCronManager::runJob:95 openssl_private_encrypt(): key param is not a valid private key
[45810] [2020-09-20 09:45:47.866578] cpconsultant_root.ERROR: ilCronManager::runJob:95 #0 /home/elearnin/public_html/Services/Init/classes/class.ilErrorHandling.php(525): Whoops\Run->handleError(2, 'openssl_private...', '/home/elearnin/...', 42)

the line of code is:;
$key = openssl_get_privatekey('file://' . self::getPathOf(self::KEYTYPE_PRIVATE));

do i need to put an SSL key into the plugin directory??

Thanks,

Josh