[Dovecot] The file doesn't contain a certificate.

[A M]

Yesterday I upgraded dovecot from 1.1.16 to 1.2.4 using portupgrade
 
I am now getting the following messages in the log file:
Sep 23 12:00:41 imap-login: Fatal: Can't load certificate  file /etc/ssl/imaps.example.org.csr: The file doesn't contain a certificate.
 
The certificate file contains exactly what it did before:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----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-----END CERTIFICATE REQUEST-----
I even tried creating an new certificate and still get the same error
NO changes were made to any config files
 
I have tried to test the connection by:
telnet localhost 143
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
(at this point it hangs and never responds,  I have to kill the pid)
 
ANY help would be appreciated