Coldfusion 2021 fails to restart after service release 5

[C.Barrow]

We were applying the service releases last night to our recently upgraded Coldfusion 2021 server.  We are able to apply service releases up to #4 without any issue, however when I try and apply service release 5 or 6, the application sevice fails to start back up.  I even tried to restart it after it stops and it just continues to fail.  We have reverted back to service release 4 until we can figure this out.  I did notice that the Coldfusion ODBC server and agent dissappeared for a bit after the service release 5 and 6 were applied but then finally showed back up after about 4 or five minutes.  I also noticed in my current logs that whenever I restarted the application after a service release update, the service is trying to go out to the adobe license server but fails.  We did get the new server serial number validated and applied but we had to do it offline.  I don't know if either of these things are causing the main issue, but thought it was worth noting.

[Charlie Arehart · Accepted solution]

No, a failure to activate would not stop cf from starting. 

As for why CF is not starting, look first in the update log. See my blog post with more:

https://www.carehart.org/blog/2016/9/6/solve_common_problems_with_CF_updates_in_10_and_above

Let us know what you find (if other than "0 fatalerrors").

Finally, are you using the CF admin to run the updates, or a manual process? If the latter, java or cfpm?

To be clear, there's no feature new with updates 5 or 6 that should prevent cf starting. Your answer should be in the log, if indeed the update is the cause.

Finally, had you stopped at those on the way to 9? Since they are cumulative, you could just try 9, alone. If it doesn't work, you could uninstall it (as you did the others), and it would take you back to whatever update you were on before trying the new update. 

[C.Barrow]

We are still having to to the updates manually because something on our firewall is blocking access to the adobe site from the Coldfusion Administrator, so I'm running these through java executable.  I have service release downloaded 9 ready to go, I'm working with our server group to take a quick image of the server tomorrow and then we will run the update after that. 

[C.Barrow]

I reran the service release tonight and tried just going from release 4 to release 9, still same issue.  I looked at the HF_update file for release 9 and below is the quick summary resuls:

Installation: Successful.

1459 Successes
0 Warnings
0 NonFatalErrors
0 FatalErrors

Action Notes:

None

  I also copied all the log files before I had to revert back and the only thing I saw that was a little wierd was the following:

Aug 8, 2023 18:47:25 PM Error [main] - Connect to www.adobe.com:443 [www.adobe.com/23.207.202.28, www.adobe.com/23.207.202.17] failed: connect timed out
Aug 8, 2023 18:47:41 PM Error [pool-55-thread-1] - Connect to www.adobe.com:443 [www.adobe.com/23.207.202.28, www.adobe.com/23.207.202.17] failed: connect timed out
Aug 8, 2023 18:47:54 PM Error [Thread-7] - Failed to contact the Adobe Licensing server: org.apache.http.conn.HttpHostConnectException: Connect to coldfusion.adobe.io:443 [coldfusion.adobe.io/54.69.90.244, coldfusion.adobe.io/52.88.177.51, coldfusion.adobe.io/44.238.47.82] failed: Connection timed out: connect
Aug 8, 2023 18:49:02 PM Error [Thread-7] - Failed to contact the Adobe Licensing server: org.apache.http.conn.HttpHostConnectException: Connect to coldfusion.adobe.io:443 [coldfusion.adobe.io/52.88.177.51, coldfusion.adobe.io/44.238.47.82, coldfusion.adobe.io/54.69.90.244] failed: Connection timed out: connect
Aug 8, 2023 18:50:10 PM Error [Thread-7] - Failed to contact the Adobe Licensing server: org.apache.http.conn.HttpHostConnectException: Connect to coldfusion.adobe.io:443 [coldfusion.adobe.io/54.69.90.244, coldfusion.adobe.io/52.88.177.51, coldfusion.adobe.io/44.238.47.82] failed: Connection timed out: connect
Aug 8, 2023 18:50:10 PM Error [Thread-7] - An error has occurred while validating online.

Our license has been validated and shows as active and deployment type as Production.  We did have to do an activate offline because it sits behind a firewall.  I will also say that when I look at the rest of the logs, it was also doing this before the update without any issues, at least as we were aware of.  I am doing the udates using the c:\coldfusion2021\jre\bin\java.exe.  Do we need to do this using cfpm?  I see the similar results in the cfpm-audit.log file as I do in the coldfusio-out.log file, even though we didn't use that application to execute it.

[Dave Watts · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure I'd categorize this as a little weird. I would open a ticket with Adobe or check the CF bug tracker. Admittedly, I don't know too much about license validation in CF. But someone at Adobe should assist with you in resolving this.

Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC

[Charlie Arehart]

It's not clear from your reply yesterday as to whether cf is running after the update. If it is, that's an improvement over your original post here, right?

And as for the errors in the log, that is cf trying to send license and activation status info to their licensing server. To be clear, it does that even if you have done the offline activation. If you look in cf's license.log file, you'll see it does it on cf startup and then every day after that. 

As for the fact that the update log shows 0 errors is a sign that the core server update DID run.

Are you saying you can or CANNOT get to the admin, assuming cf DID start? If so, that's a different problem. Can you clarify?