CF 23 ColdFusion Launcher Application maxing out CPU

Hello everyone,

I wanted to update everyone on our recent efforts. we have increased the RAM from 8 GB to 16 GB, and since making this change, we have not observed any CPU spikes so far.

To give you some context, the issue previously occurred twice a week, specifically on the last Thursday and Friday. It seems that the additional memory may have alleviated the problem, but I’ll continue to monitor the system for any further irregularities. If anything changes, I’ll be sure to share it.

Thank you for your ongoing support!

Madhab

What you're facing appears to be a recurrent issue (occuring every 2 weeks). So here's another idea to explore: possible interference by a security scanner. 

Such a scanner can push ColdFusion into an infinite loop. For an explanation, see https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/kb/coldfusion-performance-issues-troubleshooting.html   

The solution would then be to modify the file {COLDFUSION_HOME}\cfusion\lib\jetty.xml as follows:

replace

<Set name="host">0.0.0.0</Set>

with

<Set name="host">127.0.0.1</Set>

Then restart ColdFusion.

When you say "Every couple of weeks", is there a precise pattern of every two weeks on a regular interval, or are the intervals varied and just happen to be something around every 2 or three weeks? If it's a regular interval (like every other Wednesday or something) then perhaps that might coincide with some scheduled job that happens every two weeks? 

another thought is that you log requests at the web server level (apache/iis) and see if you can use that to identify which processes might be running or if you are getting traffic surges, etc

I'll add a different perspective: I won't be surprised if you find zero info in the logs to explain this. I've seen that many times before, as Carl and BKBK may have.

But my first suspicion (based on your initial evidence) is that Cf may be running out of memory (heap). And while you MAY see outofmemory errors (likely in the coldfusion-error.log), sometimes you won't. Or well before your restart, it may well complain of gc overhead limit reached. That would be a warning that the jvm (underlying cf) is doing excessive Gc's (garbage collection, to remove any old unused objects)--but there is not much it can gc, so heap use remains high and Gc's continue, clogging the cpu and making requests hang. 

And in that case, the new challenge is finding WHAT is holding on to memory. And thus will begin a possibly very long series of posts here as we toss out possible causes and possible tools. 🙂 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe you'll find a simpler explanation. A boy can have dreams. 

My immediate thoughts are the same as those of @carl type3 : the logs. What do the following logs say when the CPU maxes out?

coldfusion-out.log

coldfusion-error.log

server.log

Hello,

Anything of interest from coldfusion-out.log or coldfusion-error.log at the time when CPU is maxed out?

Windows or VM tools don't really say much about what is happening in the Java and tomcat layers of CF. How about enable JMX (Java Management Extensions) then use JMC (JDK Mission Control) to see how those internals look. If not keen on free tools then perhaps a paid tool like FusionReactor could help to know more about why.

Regards, Carl.