ColdFusion Application Service does not start.

[Nils Michael30768974lfrb]

I upgraded Microsoft SQL Server, and after a restart, it would not start. I checked Event Viewer, cfusion/logs and Microsoft SQL logs, and the only thing I found, was this error message:

"Error","ajp-nio-127.0.0.1-8018-exec-4","08/22/23","08:11:27","","Error Executing Database Query.[Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver]Error establishing socket to host and port: IP:PORT. Reason: Connection refused: connect The specific sequence of files included or processed is: C:\Website\www\index.cfm, line: 59 ".

Checking the community for similar messages, I found this, but my I had TCP/IP enabled, and IPALL was enabled, with PORT.

I did remove the latest update for Microsoft SQL Server, but this did not change anything, but I did notice that cfusion/application.log did not update.

So my questions are, is there a way to fix this? I was thinking about trying to just establish a new connection to the DB, but from the guides I found, it seems I have to use the Admin page, which I cant access since the CF Application Service won't start.

[Charlie Arehart]

Nils, it sounds like you have a tangled mess, and perhaps misperceptions. 

First, you say you can't access the cf admin because cf won't start. But you say you undid the sql update but the cf logs did not update.

To be clear, there's zero connection between whatever is going on with sql server and cf being unable to start--even if they're on the same machine.

Before we focus on the cf service not starting, some questions :

1. had you changed ANYTHING related to cf? Any cf or jvm update?
2. And/or had you restarted cf?
3. And though the service is not starting, have you tried the cf admin? Does it fail? (Don't presume it CAN'T work. There are situations where cf can be running NOT as a service, such that the service won't start.) 

We may be able to sort out your situation here via back and forth,whether with me or others. But I will say if you "just want to get it all working again asap", I'm sure we could sort things out quickly in an online screenshare session. For more on my rates, approach, satisfaction guarantee, online calendar link, and more, see carehart.org/consulting.

I'm sure others reading along will be interested to hear how things sort out, whichever way you get to resolution. 

[Nils Michael30768974lfrb]

1. I updated the jvm from 11.0.19 to 11.0.20, but that was a couple of weeks before.

Other that that, I did not do anything, as updaing the SQL was the first task on my list for that day, and was the only thing I did.

2. If you mean, if I restarted CF after I updated jvm, then yes, I did, by restarting the machine its running on. I did the same after upgrading, and downgrading SQL

3. I checked by visiting the admin page http://localhost:8500/CFIDE/administrator/, and got "This site can't be reached".

Thanks for the offer, but luckily, this is not an "solve asap" problem.

[Dave Watts]

ColdFusion doesn't have any dependencies on SQL Server. You can use CF without SQL Server at all. So, I'm a little confused. Are you saying that you upgraded SQL Server and that prevented CF from starting at all? What happens if you start CF from the command line? Most versions of CF on Windows have a batch file that you can use to start CF as an application instead of a service: cfstart.bat. What happens if you run that? Does it also return an error message and if so, what is the message?

Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC

[Nils Michael30768974lfrb]

I upgraded SQL Server, and then restarted the machine.
CF did not start, and in the application.log, it gave me the error:

"Error","ajp-nio-127.0.0.1-8018-exec-4","08/22/23","08:11:27","","Error Executing Database Query.[Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver]Error establishing socket to host and port: IP:PORTReason: Connection refused: connect The specific sequence of files included or processed is: C:\Website\www\index.cfm, line: 59 "

I assumed the upgrade was the reason, as that upgrade was the only thing I did.

Running the cfstart.bat, from the command line, gives me this error:
#

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:

#

# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at pc=0x00007ff9603bc4f3, pid=6912, tid=3288

#

# JRE version: (11.0.20+9) (build )

# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (11.0.20+9-LTS-256, mixed mode, sharing, tiered, compressed oops, parallel gc, windows-amd64)

# Problematic frame:

# V [jvm.dll+0x1dc4f3]

[Charlie Arehart · Accepted solution]

Nils, taking in both what you said to me and to Dave in replies, your last comment to him (about the jvm error on trying to start cf) is most important to focus on for now:

1. what if you change cf back to using its original jvm, found in the coldfusion jre folder?
2. What cf version are you running? You've not said. And what os is cf running on? (That may help to know in further discussion.) 
3. The error in the application log, from 2 days ago, is not related to this cf startup issue. It's from when cf WAS running. You can check your dsn connection once cf is back up.
4. As for what may have happened, did you run the jdk installer to update the jvm? Did you think to stop cf before doing it? Starting with 11.0.18, the jdk installer installs to a jdk11 folder with no further version number. As such, once you point cf at it, later jdk 11 installs won't run completely if cf is running. Stopping it will be necessary. I discussed this--and foresaw this being a problem that could plague us going forward. BTW, you could also try reinstalling 11.0.20 now while cf is down, in which case you may not need to try my suggestion in point 1.

Of course, yours could well be some other problem than these. But the bottom line is that Cf is not starting, and it's some Java issue, but that message doesn't tell us much. It's not at all related to sql server, though it could have manifested itself only when you restarted the box after the sql update. Solve that Cf startup problem first, then deal with any ongoing sql connection problem.

We're here for you. 

[Nils Michael30768974lfrb]

Changing the jvm to the one found in the cf folder worked.
After shuting down cf, then re-installing the jvm, to 11.0.20, re-installing the sql server update, everything is now as it should be. Cf has a connection to te SQL server, which I could verify, using the admin-page.

About the system, its ColdFusion2021, on a windows server.

I can now see, that it's pretty unreasonable too assume that upgrading SQL server, would somehow mess up CF in such a manner it would not start, but I was so sure that I had restarted the machine after I upgraded the JVM version.

But, the fix was just too re-install the jvm.

Thanks for the quick assistance.

[futuresoon]

Just wanted to comment that I experienced this same issue today. After running some normal Windows updates and rebooting the server, the ColdFusion Application service would not come back up. Manually trying to start the service wouldn't work, and the error messages were pretty unhelpful. The event viewer said to check the ColdFusion logs, but there were no new entries though in any of the CF logs, even the server.log file which would normally have info on startup failures.

Running cfstart.bat gave me the same kind of message.

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
# EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) at ...

Checking the log file at D:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\bin\hs_err_pid****.log gave some similar info.

I commented out the java.home value in the jvm.config which had been pointing to the jdk-11 install. That let me start the service. I then re-installed JDK 11.0.24, removed the comment in the jvm.config, and restarted the CF application service. Everything worked just fine after that.

Here's what I was running when the issue came up.

ColdFusion 2021 update 16, build number 330307
JRE version 11.0.24
Windows Server 2019

[Charlie Arehart]

I appreciate how frustrating such a situation can be, but I think the root cause can be determined to be an unintended mistake in your processes there:

• The reboot of the box restarted cf, which would not run. Was it the reboot that caused the problem? The windows updates? I think not. 
• You restarted cf after that, and it would not start. 
• I'm willing to bet money that if you'd tried that Cf restart BEFORE the box restart, it would have failed then, too. 
• So what was the root cause?

My money would be that this is what had happened:

• You or anyone there ran a Java 11 update on the machine... WHILE CF was running 
• As such, the jvm installer tried to lay down the new version in that jdk-11 folder... which cf was pointing to. (You'd referred to, "the jvm.config which had been pointing to the jdk-11 install".)
• But with CF running, the jvm installer couldn't modify the files pointed to by cf. 
• So on restart of cf (before or after the box reboot amd/or windows updates), cf would fail to start because of the mix of old and new jvm files in that jdk-11 folder 

And this is what I said above last August in my point 4.

And I warn of it toward the bottom of each blog post I do on new Java updates, like I did on Tuesday:

https://www.carehart.org/blog/2024/10/15/java_updates_oct_2024

And in the original post I did about this change with the jvm installer in Jan 2023, I suggest that the "solution" is either to stop cf while installing the jvm update, or use the zip extraction approach to installing the new Java version. I also lament there that the problem would plague people for years to come. 😞

Hope that's helpful. 

[futuresoon]

Thanks for the response, Charlie. That idea makes sense, especially since I updated the JDK about 3 weeks ago on all our ColdFusion servers. I checked the logs though just to see if I made a mistake, but it looks like when I ran the update, I stopped the CF application service at 10:01:31 AM, installed the JDK, then started the CF application service at 10:03:21 AM. It came back up fine, and as far as I know, there had been no other updates on the JDK until this issue.

We do have a patching service in place on that server though, and while I confirmed it didn't touch the JDK on this last patch, I wasn't able to find out if it could have run an update before. Just to be safe, I did configure the patching service to exclude the Java folder going forward.

Have you ever seen any other service or application maybe lock up the Java 11 install? We do run OpenOffice on our servers too for cfdocument support. Although I suppose the could be using it's own JVM?