Coldfusion 2023 Updates 14 and/or 15 causes Oracle package to stop working.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Using Coldfusion2023 update13 developers edition.  When I try to update to either update14 or update15, the Oracle package goes invalid.  The package management tool says it is installed, but the Coldfusion engine says that it is not installed and all my Oracle queries fail.  I tried to uninstall Oracle and reinstall with no change to the failing queries.  Even when I tried to rollback to update13, the problem still persisted after updating to either 14 or 15.  Any suggestions to get to the later more secure updates working?  I found some tips, regarding adding more JVM params, clearing some cache stuff, but none of those things helped the Oracle package work again.

[Charlie Arehart]

I hope the "cache stuff" was the felix-cache folder, under cfusion/bin. (And can you confirm, do you have only one instance of cf? The dev edition would support creating more than one, in which case there would be a different folder than cfusion where you should do that.)

Finally, tell us please what value you see in the cf admin "package manager" page under its "settings" feature, specifically what is your "package site url"? 

[BKBK]

I have a suggestion. But, first, I have to know your Operating System and the path of the ColdFusion directory.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Package site URL:  https://www.adobe.com/go/cf2023_packages

Computer & O/S:  Windows 11 Professional (Dell Pro 14 laptop)

CF directory:   C:\Coldfusion2023

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Only have a single version of Coldfusion running on my PC.

Yes the Felix stuff was what I cleared to get the Admin working, but it didn't change anything regarding the Oracle package not working.

[Charlie Arehart]

Next, on that package manager page, under installed packages, find the oracle one. Which version is it now? Then pick the next older one and choose to downgrade to it. 

On the prompt which appears, watch for it warning if doing that would also downgrade the "core". If it does not, then let the downgrade of the package proceed, which will NOT restart CF. 

Then do your testing. If it works, we can discuss later why this was needed. If it does not, you could upgrade the package to the version you started with. 

Finally, bkbk may have different thoughts now that you've answered his question. 

[BKBK]

Suggestion (manually re-install the packages):

1.  Ignoring the Oracle issue for the moment, install the latest ColdFusion 2023 update. That is, Update 15.
2.  Open the Command Prompt (CMD) as Administrator. Use the DOS command cd to navigate to C:\ColdFusion2023\cfusion\bin.
3.  To launch the Package Manager tool, type cfpm and press [ENTER].
4.  Using the cfpm tool, run the command: uninstall all
   You should see the packages going past as they are being uninstalled. Wait till the cfpm prompt reappears.
5.  Leaving the CMD window open, restart ColdFusion.
6.  Rename the directory C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles to C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles_ARCHIVE.
7.  Using the cfpm tool, run the command: downloadrepo C:\ColdFusion2023\cfusion\bundles  
   It may take up to half an hour for the download to complete. So be patient. The cfpm cursor will reappear when the download is complete. Verify that the directory C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles indeed contains the downloaded packages.
8.  Open /lib/neo-updates.xml (or /lib/neo_updates.xml *) in an editor and make sure it contains the following: 

   <packagesurl>https://www.adobe.com/go/cf2023_packages</packagesurl>
   <defaultpackagesurl>https://www.adobe.com/go/cf2023_packages</defaultpackagesurl>

9.  Restart ColdFusion.
10.  Using the cfpm tool, run the command: install all
11.  Wait till the cfpm prompt appears, then restart ColdFusion.
12.  As the manual re-installation may rewrite the file jvm.config, check it to make sure the JVM settings are as expected.
    
    Is the Oracle package issue resolved after this?
    
    -----------------------------------------
    * An incidental note not directly relevant to the issue at hand:
    The name neo_updates.xml, present in some installations, is a confirmed bug: https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-4227550. The name should be neo-updates.xml.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Hi,

The downloadrepo failed because of a Java socket error:

INFO I/O exception (java.net.SocketException) caught when processing request to {s}->https://www.adobe.com:443: Connection reset

So nothing got downloaded into the cfusion/bundles/repo folder

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Also, could step 7, be showing the wrong directory (it includes cfusion while other bundle was not at that level)

[Manfred25957789okyp]

This is another error message I am getting while trying the downloadrepo

The packages repository https://www.adobe.com/go/cf2023_packages is not accessible. You can only load the packages that are available locally in the C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles directory.

[Charlie Arehart]

That certainly seem your problem right there. (If you'd have simply tried the package downgrade I proposed earlier today, you may have also gotten that message. I don't see that you responded to or tried that).

So you say you're the one who did the update from 14 to 15. We should have pressed you to ask if there were any fatalerrors reported in the install log for the update (in the cfusion/hf-updates folder for the update 15). Or was there any several lines from the bottom, when the update would have tried to download package updates. I suspect you'd have seen one or the other.

As for the solution, this is what each update technote discusses as the need of a manual offline update. See there for details (downloading a zip, configuring cf to use that).

Better still since this is your own dev workstation, see if you can fix it so that your computer (cf) can access that url, so the automatic package update process can work.

Or seen what bkbk may offer instead. We're probably writing at the same time. 

[Manfred25957789okyp]

So I followed the directions to update manually and now the Oracle package is not installed.  When I try to install it using CFPM, I get the following error:

The packages repository https://www.adobe.com/go/cf2023_packages is not accessible. You can only load the packages that are available locally in the C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles directory.
The following packages will be installed : oracle:2023.0.11.330706
Downloading the dependent package bcpkix-jdk15on-153.jar
An error has occurred while installing the package oracle. Exception : Illegal character in opaque part at index 2: C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles\repo/bcpkix-jdk15on-153.jar
oracle package is uninstalled successfully.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

it seems like the file bcpkix doesn't exist in the downloaded packages bundles folder.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

nevermind, not sure why it didn't move over, but I got it into the correct location now.

[Manfred25957789okyp]

Success!!

Thank you both for all the help, I am finally running update15 for Coldfusion 2023.

[Charlie Arehart]

Glad you're working again. And I appreciate that you solved that jar problems by copying a file. 

But for others who may find this in the future, that should not have been necessary. The fact that it was needed could indicate a problem in the steps you performed for the manual update. (Did you extract the zip to a new folder and point the cf packages url to that? Or did you instead extract the zip into the cf bundles folder? That's a shortcut some take which is not what the technote says to do.)

Or it could indicate a problem in cf's package management mechanism. (And for some people, such jar errors go away if they clear that felix-cache folder--yes, even right after the update.)

But again, you're sorted for now. If problems recur when you move on to the next update that comes out, perhaps this may be helpful for you then--or for others facing such problems. 

[BKBK]

Success!!

Thank you both for all the help, I am finally running update15 for Coldfusion 2023.

By @Manfred25957789okyp

That''s good news!

Could you please summarize the steps you followed, including challenges faced?

That will not only increase our knowledge. It will help fellow developers in future.

[Manfred25957789okyp · Accepted solution]

My new business PC appears to have some proxy limitations when trying to install software (but not when using the browser).  Therefore, I followed the instructions to manually update Coldfusion when not on the internet:

https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2024/09/a-simple-way-to-install-coldfusion-updates-manually-in-offline-...

That advised me to download the package repository and use it to install the update which worked for me because my PC could get to the Adobe page (using the browser) to download the zip file.

[BKBK]

Thanks for sharing that.

[Charlie Arehart]

Two points of potentially beneficial clarification:

First, If it was truly a proxy limitation, I'd point out that the "settings" tab on the package manager page offers a means to configure cf to use such a proxy.

But instead, it may be that some a/v (or similar) tool on your machine is limiting what software can call out to the internet, or where it can call. More advanced versions of that are SIEM and EPP tools, especially if your machine is in an IT-controlled network.

Often such tools can be configured to permit access to allow certain urls and/or domain names to be accessible. If you might be able to add that packages url (and what it redirects to), then you could perhaps avoid that manual offline update dance.

Still, as you found in that Adobe blog post (or again in the cf update technotes), that's not too arduous a dance. But one must be careful: it's easy to make a false step or take a shortcut that could make even that manual process fail. We here often help folks deal with that, so the alternatives above are offered as a heads-up for any they may benefit. 🙂 

Again, glad you're sorted for now.