New error this week: certbot-dns-digitalocean says: (acme 0.31.0 (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages), Requirement.parse('acme>=0.40.0'))

You are not alone, I faced the same error today (not on digital ocean) on a clean server.

root@qa4k:/etc/sudoers.d# certbot --version
An unexpected error occurred:
pkg_resources.VersionConflict: (acme 0.31.0 (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages), Requirement.parse('acme>=0.40.0'))
Please see the logfile '/tmp/tmpbk7msfxr/log' for more details.
root@qa4k:/etc/sudoers.d# cat /tmp/tmpbk7msfxr/log
2020-01-25 05:39:41,685:DEBUG:certbot._internal.log:Exiting abnormally:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/certbot", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/certbot/main.py", line 15, in main
    return internal_main.main(cli_args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/main.py", line 1317, in main
    plugins = plugins_disco.PluginsRegistry.find_all()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/plugins/disco.py", line 206, in find_all
    plugin_ep = PluginEntryPoint(entry_point)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/certbot/_internal/plugins/disco.py", line 48, in __init__
    self.plugin_cls = entry_point.load()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2443, in load
    self.require(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2466, in require
    items = working_set.resolve(reqs, env, installer, extras=self.extras)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 792, in resolve
    raise VersionConflict(dist, req).with_context(dependent_req)
pkg_resources.VersionConflict: (acme 0.31.0 (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages), Requirement.parse('acme>=0.40.0'))
2020-01-25 05:39:41,685:ERROR:certbot._internal.log:An unexpected error occurred:

It’s now reported on Github: https://github.com/certbot/certbot/issues/7718

It seems to work for me after installing an earlier version of the pip package managing the dns-challenge.