Problem reading SSL key

All;

I'm trying to setup dovecot to use SSL, but I'm getting an error message

in the logs. I'm getting the error imap-login: Fatal: Couldn't parse private ssl_key. I'm using a commercial cert so I know that the .crt and .key files themselves are not the problem. I have them configured like so:

ssl_cert =

ssl_key =

The crt is mode 444 and the key is mode 400.

Since the log is not giving any other information, I don't know what the problem is. Any insight at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks;

Frank