SSL preventing apache start

i have tried out quickstart a couple times now (months apart) and bailed early on due to this issue; maybe time i sorted it out though.

- installed vm
- example sites worked fine
- used drush quickstart-create --domain=test.one to make a new site
- worked fine

- i then replaced test.one install with an existing install code base
- tried to import a db but got max packet allowed error

no problem, editing my.cnf and uncommented out max_allowed_packet

trying to restart apache using: sudo apache2ctl restart

and i get

quickstart@qs10:/etc/mysql$ sudo apache2ctl restart
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
httpd not running, trying to start
Action 'restart' failed.
The Apache error log may have more information.

although earlier it did start.. so lets go with that case..

even though phpmyadmin was working; example sites do not work

running drush qs-create and it errors out on last line .. assuming trying to restart apache

in apache error.log i get

Server should be SSL-aware but has no certificate configured [Hint: SSLCertificateFile] ((null):0)

odd that this worked a couple hours ago. i think maybe more than 1 issue here but certainly getting rid of ssl requirement would improve the situation

any idea how to do that?