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Browsing to CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm locks up IIS & causes all .cfm pages fail?

Contributor ,
Sep 22, 2017 Sep 22, 2017

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This issue just started this morning, has never happened before:

  • I remoted into my Coldfusion server via Remote Desktop
  • I opened IE and tried to log into the CF Admin page
  • The browser just kept spinning, page never displayed
  • Then I started getting calls from all of my users saying that all the CF sites were down!

To fix:

  • I had to reboot the server.

Notes:

  • If I try browsing to the CF Admin page, all of the sites go down again?

  • If I don't try to browse/open the CF Admin page, the CF sites stay up and run fine.

Specs:

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
  • Coldfusion 9
  • MySQL 5.5
  • IIS 7.5

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Community Expert ,
Sep 23, 2017 Sep 23, 2017

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jlig, there is no inherent reason that should happen. And there are so many questions to ask to possibly help you figure out the cause, and it could take many back and forths to get there.

Honestly, if you just want the problem solved, this is a situation where there seems no substitute for having someone do a screensharingn session where they "look over your shoulder" as you then remote in, and various diagnostics are assessed.

I keep a list of such consultants here, http://cf411.com/cftrouble, And I myself am one of those. I offer a satisfaction guarantee, so you won't pay for time you don't find valuable. And I think we could get to the bottom of this in less than an hour. If you're interested, reach out via the info offered on that page.

If you prefer to slog through things here, I have many questions:

- I assume this is new behavior. when did it change? And what had changed since it last worked? BTW, it may not be just about changes in the last day or two. It could be about a change that was made days or weeks ago, if it didn't take effect until a recent CF restart
- when you say you have to "restart the server", do you really mean the box or just CF? I can't fathom a problem caused by just visiting the CF Admin which would require a box restart? Maybe you mean you tried restarting the CF service and it didn't work. OK, what about just killing the CF process (not something to do normally, but better then rebooting the box).
- you say you are on 9. Is it Standard or Enterprise (that influences diagnostic tools you may have)
- have you looked at the CF logs? Not those in the CF logs folder, but those in the CF runtime logs? Any explanations there, especially before the server is restarted?

- you say the page pins and other users report failures. What mechanisms, if any, are you using to view things like how many requests are running (and queued), how much heap is in use (and allocated)?

- you don't say, but I assume you are getting to the Admin via a URL which runs through IIS (or you could be using CF's built-in web server). If IIS, which site is your request going through? And do you see if any other site has the CFIDE virtual directory defined? If so, what happens if you visit the Admin via that site?
- And have you tried using CF's built-in web server to get to the CF admin, rather than using IIS? (This is the new default behavior in CF2016, but it can be configured to work as well in any version of CF since 6.) I ask because it is possible that what's happening is not so much that CF is going down, but perhaps the IIS app pool instead.
- and to that point, have you tried just restarting IIS instead when this happens?
- are you watching the IIS "worker process" monitor, an option that can be enabled in IIS 7+ and would be in the features at the server level, if enabled.
- and though this may not matter, it may become useful to know: is the instance fully updated (what hotfix level are you on)? And you say you are on 9: is it 9.0? 9.01? or 9.0.2?
- And more important, were any updates to CF or the JVM applied recently? If so, which ones and when?.

So you see, when it comes to troubleshooting problems like this, there are SO many variables. And each question could lead to another. Now the truth is that if going through this with someone together on your server, the answers to one or more may either lead to the solution (before all were answered), or they may lead to other specific ones (without need of going through them all).

But if someone wants to do it solely online this way, there really is no choice but to consider all of them (and there are certainly some I have not listed, that may be brought up based on your answered to any).

Indeed, others may have still more questions or suggestions. We'll see.

Again, if you'd rather not wait for those, or type out answers to the above (and wait for a reply to that from me or others), I hope you can see why if time is of the essence, doing an online troubleshooting session together would be far more efficient.


Otherwise, hope the questions above may either help you find the answer, or motivate you to provide the answers so we can try to go from there.


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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Contributor ,
Sep 25, 2017 Sep 25, 2017

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Charlie, thank you so much for the detailed & helpful response!

  • The issue was definitely an IIS 7.5 issue
  • The root issue was related to my cfm page/api that calls a cloud database & pulls down data
  • I have been using cfhttp to download the file every month for the past 5 years w/o issue
  • I think IIS could not handle the large file size causing it to lock-up?
  • Strangely, even after a reboot (of Windows 2008), my sites would fail (if I tried opening the CF Admin page)

I'm sure the root issue was IIS and CF was just a symptom so I'll check into IIS.

Thanks again,

Jerry

- CF Standard 9.02

- Using IIS for Admin access

- Only have one CF website

- No new updates to CF or JVM

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Community Expert ,
Oct 11, 2017 Oct 11, 2017

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So jlig, did you ever resolve things? What was it?

If you still have not resolved it, I would note that your last answer doesn't really jive with what you reported originally, where you said that this hangup happened when you visited the Admin (and you added further, in a concluding "note" that "If I don't try to browse/open the CF Admin page, the CF sites stay up and run fine.")

Yet your last reply here indicates that it's about some page doing CFHTTP processing. I don't see the connection to that and the title of the thread here. Care to clarify, whether you solved it or not? 🙂


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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Contributor ,
Oct 12, 2017 Oct 12, 2017

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Charlie, thanks for the reply!

You are correct to note the weirdness of the issue (and my responses) as I've never had an issue like this in the last 8 years of it's inception. For now, the only "fix" I have is to reboot the server and leave it alone. No login to localhost, no cfadmin homepage, etc.

  • This server and my CF9 applications have run smoothly & without fail every day, month, year after year
  • I would install critical Win updates, keep my applications updated, add new features and functions
  • Then out of nowhere my sites go down, users start calling, and I can't get to localhost or cfadmin
  • All of the CF logs and Win alerts show nothing out of the ordinary.. yikes!

So on the positive side of all this, I've decided it's time to move to Win2016 & CF2016.

We have spun up two new servers on our VM, and I'm going to start the migration of all my stuff to the new servers.

I actually tested CF2016 last year, but had login page/code issues.. guess it's time to move forward!

ps: What do you recommend as a robust "Login In" solution for new sites? (the builtin CF login?)

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Community Expert ,
Oct 12, 2017 Oct 12, 2017

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Thanks for updating us. So to be clear, the problem is not about the admin at all, right?

As for CF hanging up (for any reason) there are ways to understand and resolve that, using any of various tools (the CF Enterprise Server Monitor, or FusionReactor, or SeeFusion). If you wanted to resolve things, you could (and I could help you, on a consulting basis, usually very quickly).

But I see that you are planning to instead just upgrade CF. I will say that the problem may just follow you there, but if you want to wait and see how it goes, I'll understand.


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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Community Expert ,
Oct 12, 2017 Oct 12, 2017

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Oh, and you had asked, "ps: What do you recommend as a robust "Login In" solution for new sites? (the builtin CF login?)"

I really don't have any recommendation there. The CFLogin feature is pretty old, and has its warts. I've found most people never took to it.

It all depends on what your hope is regarding login processing. Are you looking up via a database? via active directory? via windows authentication? Did you know there is the option to leverage facebook, google, and other authentication features (via oauth2 and the cfoauth tag)? See the CF docs for more on that, if interested.


/Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart.org)

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