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Carolyn5E88
Inspiring
March 23, 2021
Answered

The system has attempted to use an undefined value, which usually indicates a programming error

  • March 23, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 1075 views

I'm suddenly receiving the error message "The system has attempted to use an undefined value, which usually indicates a programming error, either in your code or some system code. Null Pointers are another name for undefined values."

 

This is a development site on my local machine. Everything was working until I changed the database associated with the datasource. When I refreshed the page, I got the message above. Now none of the pages work.

 

It's an old application using Fusebox 5.5 and I'm migrating it from ColdFusion 11 to ColdFusion 2018.

 

I'm not skilled at reading stack trace, but here it is in case someone sees something useful. Thank you!

Resources:

Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

Browser Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:86.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/86.0
Remote Address 127.0.0.1
Referrer
Date/Time 23-Mar-21 03:35 PM
Stack Trace


java.lang.NullPointerException
at coldfusion.runtime.AppHelper.generateNewClientIDs(AppHelper.java:605)
at coldfusion.runtime.AppHelper.handleClientIDs(AppHelper.java:221)
at coldfusion.runtime.AppHelper.ValidateClientAndSession(AppHelper.java:1239)
at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:483)
at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:43)
at coldfusion.filter.MonitoringFilter.invoke(MonitoringFilter.java:40)
at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:162)
at coldfusion.filter.IpFilter.invoke(IpFilter.java:45)
at coldfusion.filter.LicenseFilter.invoke(LicenseFilter.java:30)
at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:96)
at coldfusion.filter.BrowserDebugFilter.invoke(BrowserDebugFilter.java:78)
at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)
at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:38)
at coldfusion.filter.NoCacheFilter.invoke(NoCacheFilter.java:60)
at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38)
at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
at coldfusion.filter.CachingFilter.invoke(CachingFilter.java:62)
at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:226)
at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:311)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:231)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
at coldfusion.monitor.event.MonitoringServletFilter.doFilter(MonitoringServletFilter.java:46)
at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:47)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
at coldfusion.inspect.weinre.MobileDeviceDomInspectionFilter.doFilter(MobileDeviceDomInspectionFilter.java:121)
at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:47)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:53)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:166)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:97)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:542)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:143)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:92)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:78)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:359)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:374)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:65)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:888)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1597)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Carolyn5E88

    Sorry for the false alarm! After much consternation, it seems to have corrected itself. Will keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way!

    2 replies

    A
    Abram Adams
    Inspiring
    May 28, 2021

    I know your issue just seemingly resolved itself, but ours didn't 😞 .  Similar scenario (migrating old site from CF10 to 2018) and encountered the same error. 

    Turns out our applicationTimeout was set to 

     

    this.applicationTimeout = createTimeSpan( 0, 0, 0, 0 )

     

    Not sure why, or why that worked before, but changing that to something above 0 fixes the issue for us.  Just thought I'd share that since not everyone's problems fix themselves 😉

    D
    Community Expert
    Dave WattsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 28, 2021

    On a slightly unrelated note, I don't think setting the application timeout to zero is a good thing. Better to just not use application variables at all - something that can be disabled server-wide in the CF Administrator.

     

    Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC

    Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC
    A
    Abram Adams
    Inspiring
    May 28, 2021

    Agreed. This was a 10+ year old app that hasn't been touched in... well probably 10 years.  I'm guessing someone was being clever or working around some limitation.  

    C
    Carolyn5E88Author
    Inspiring
    March 23, 2021

    I should add that I've done some basic troubleshooting like restarting the server, rebooting my machine, changing the application name, etc. Also, this is the exception data below the debugging information:

    15:53:40.040 - coldfusion.util.RuntimeWrapper Exception - in : line -1
    15:53:40.040 - java.lang.NullPointerException - in : line -1

    C
    Carolyn5E88AuthorCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    March 23, 2021

    Sorry for the false alarm! After much consternation, it seems to have corrected itself. Will keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way!

    BKBK
    Community Expert
    BKBKCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 24, 2021

    A missing cookie or session ID perhaps, that later got restored? Reminds me of an old problem with CFID cookies. In any case, thanks for sharing.

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