cfftp existsFile failure

I'm using CF8 trying to get <cfftp action="existsFile"... > to work.  It's not returning any cfftp struct but throwing an error.

The error says:

DateTime - 06/08/2009 03:00:12 PM

Diagnostics - null null
The error occurred on line 82.

Template - /dynamic/ftp_download.cfm

The stack trace says:

StackTrace - java.lang.NullPointerException
    at  coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.findAttribute(NeoPageContext.java:575)
    at  coldfusion.tagext.net.FtpTag.doInterfaceSetup(FtpTag.java:632)
    at  coldfusion.tagext.net.FtpTag.doStartTag(FtpTag.java:667)
    at  coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._emptyTcfTag(CfJspPage.java:2661)
    at  cfftp_download2ecfm102608902.runPage(/webdev/source/abc/en/dynamic/ftp_download.cfm:82)
    at  coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:196)
    at  coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:370)
    at  coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:65)
    at  coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:279)
    at  coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:48)
    at  coldfusion.filter.MonitoringFilter.invoke(MonitoringFilter.java:40)
    at  coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:86)
    at  coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:70)
    at  coldfusion.filter.BrowserDebugFilter.invoke(BrowserDebugFilter.java:74)
    at  coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)
    at  coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:38)
    at  coldfusion.filter.NoCacheFilter.invoke(NoCacheFilter.java:46)
    at  coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38)
    at  coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
    at  coldfusion.filter.RequestThrottleFilter.invoke(RequestThrottleFilter.java:126)
    at  coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:175)
    at  coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:89)
    at  jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:86)
    at  coldfusion.monitor.event.MonitoringServletFilter.doFilter(MonitoringServletFilter.java:42)
    at  coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:46)
    at  jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:94)
    at  jrun.servlet.FilterChain.service(FilterChain.java:101)
    at  jrun.servlet.ServletInvoker.invoke(ServletInvoker.java:106)
    at  jrun.servlet.JRunInvokerChain.invokeNext(JRunInvokerChain.java:42)
    at  jrun.servlet.JRunRequestDispatcher.invoke(JRunRequestDispatcher.java:286)
    at  jrun.servlet.ServletEngineService.dispatch(ServletEngineService.java:543)
    at  jrun.servlet.jrpp.JRunProxyService.invokeRunnable(JRunProxyService.java:203)
    at  jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$DownstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:320)
    at  jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$ThreadThrottle.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:428)
    at  jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$UpstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:266)
    at  jrunx.scheduler.WorkerThread.run(WorkerThread.java:66)

The cfftp tag used is (with actual remotefile path modified for security reasons)...

<cfftp action="existsfile"
    username="anonymous@abc.ftptoday.com"
    password="webmaster@abc.com"
    server="proxy.abc.com"
    passive="yes"
    remotefile="updates/v1_9/win/patchfile/xyzpatch.exe"
    timeout="90">

I'm on Sun version of CF8.

I find NO examples in any Adobe docs!

I find no discussion of this in LiveDocs or here on this forum.

Is there a better way to do this?