CFMail issue after CF2021 Update 13

[C.Barrow]

I am running into an issue with the CF Mail package saying it didn't load after we did a patch update from 10 to 13 for CF2021.  Below is the error we are seeing and then after that it says that the mail package is not installed and to install it, even though it shows in package manager that it's installed.

...Cannot find implementation class coldfusion.tagext.mail.MailTag for the mail tag...

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the mail package, restarting Coldfusion, and even restarting the server.  None of which resolved the issue.  I will say that in Patch 10, all the packages were loaded by default.  When we went to Update 13, I did not install all them.  Do I need to go back and install everything?  

[Dave Watts]

I'd definitely try that 

[Charlie Arehart]

With all due (and sincere) respect to Dave, my own experience is that it is very rare that you need to uninstall and reinstall everything, though I appreciate how you may feel desparate enough to try it.

If I've caught you before doing it, here are two other things to try first:

• stop cf, delete the cfusion/bin/felix-cache folder, then start CF. (There have been various problems fixed by this process, which clears the underlying java classes implemented for CF packages. Adobe has specifically recommended at times. It's completely safe to do. The folder and its files will be recreated on the next startup of CF.)
• if that doesn't work, consider stopping and renaming (or deleting) the cfusion/wwwroot/WEB-INF/cfclasses folder. This folder holds the compilation of YOUR CFML into java classes. Some problems have been fixed by wiping this folder.
• Note as well that if you may run more than just the default cfusion instance (you have any other instance, as a sibling to that folder), then the folders above would be found within that instance and should be removed from THERE

Finally, FWIW it so happens that update 11 did entail one bug fix regarding mail processing. As you may know, you remain 4 updates behind: the latest is update 17, from last month--and the technote for that update did propose removing the felix-cache folder for an issue specific to that update. 

Let us know how things go, and hope we caught you before a complete reinstall.

[C.Barrow]

Thanks Charlie for the response.  Thankfully, we have not blown away and redone anything that we weren't able to revert back until we could figure out what's going on.  I will try your suggestions and hopefully that will resolve the issue.  This is the first time I've ever had an issue like this so I wasn't sure what the next best step was. On a side note, we were initially migrating to update 16 and saw the same exact issue. When this happened I decided to just try and do a smaller update jump and still had the issue.  When I redo this again, I will be migrating to update 17.  I will update the post on how that goes.  

Thanks,

Clint

[Charlie Arehart]

Clint, how did things work out? 

[Charlie Arehart]

Clint, did you ever get this resolved? Can you share what worked? 

I ask because someone in another thread reported this same problem. They indicate they'd already done the two steps I'd proposed above. Were they enough for you? Or did you do something else? Or did you give up and revert the update? 

[C.Barrow]

Charlie,  We haven't been able to try this again.  We are going to try and complete this again hopefully within the next few weeks.  I will reply back to this thread once we have tried and hopefully completed the update.

[BKBK]

@C.Barrow , I find it strange that you get the error "...Cannot find implementation class coldfusion.tagext.mail.MailTag for the mail tag..." . That seems to be an external OSGI error, rather than an error within ColdFusion itself.

In which log file was the error recorded? Could you please share the error message in full?