Does 2023 ColdFusion Developer version really expire?!

[Laura32781154plht]

It's been installed for over a year with no problems.  Then today I couldn't login to Administrator.  I got no errors. I'm sure it's the right password.  I just does nothing when I attempt to login.  No messages of any kind.

I checked services to make sure everything was running.  Everything was running except the "API Performance Monitoring Toolset  services. Nor will they start.

I checked the apimanager.log and see this:

"[ERROR] 2025-02-19 15:32:05.037 [main] GrootServer - Your Trial period has expired. Apply Enterprise license to use API Manager."

Does anyone know what is going on?  Is this for real?

What a bummer  😞

[Charlie Arehart]

Laura, no. The CF Developer Edition does NOT ever expire. 

That said, the log line you see is from the API Manager log. When you say you can't login to "the administrator", do you really mean the CF Admin (at port 8500, by default)? Or might you mean the API Manager Admin (at port 9000, by default)? The UI will also clarify which you're looking at.

Assuming it's the CF admin, I'll say that whatever is making you unable to login will be another issue--not related to any "expiration".

1. Are you using Internet Explorer, by chance (maybe on a server, where it's the default browser)? If so, can you test logging into the CF Admin from MS Edge, or Chrome, or Firefox for instance? Does that work?
2. If IE is all you have, how long has it been since you last logged in? It's tracked in the audit.log within the cfusion/logs folder. I'm wanting to help you learn when this problem might have started.
3. And the reason I press about IE is that it can default to a limited security implementation, where the javascript underlying the CF admin can't be processed. There are ways to correct that, but it's really preferable to no longer use IE at all.
4. FWIW there is a way to reset the CF Admin password (a passwordreset script in the cfusion/bin folder), but you're not being told you have used an invalid password. (If you had, that would be logged in various CF logs.) So I don't think that's your issue.

Finally, as for the CF API Manager, I'll clarify that it has nothing to do with CF at all--despite it's name. CF does not rely on it, nor does it rely on CF. (If no one on your server ever uses the CF API Manager, you could stop that service as well as its Datastore and Analytics services, and set them to manual, to save yourself a few gig of memory.)

Let us know how it goes.

[Laura32781154plht]

Hi Charlie,

Yes, I meant the ColdFusion Administrator.

http://127.0.0.1:8500/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm

I've tried 4  different browsers.  All the same.  Nothing happens.  No error.  No login. No response at all.

Last login, about 2 weeks ago:

From the Audit log:

"Information","http-nio-8500-exec-5","02/07/25","10:04:41","cfadmin","User admin added/edited new Active ColdFusion Mappings with logical path as /components and Directory path as C:/ColdFusion2023/cfusion/wwwroot/components/"

BTW, the CFserver is still working.  My app functions normally.

This is so weird.

I keep wondering if me installing node.js could have anything to do with it?  I don't see how.  But that's the last change I made on my computer, about a week ago.  Then I uninstalled it out and had to manually delete some of it's folders because it wanted to upload over 1000 files to my github repo.  But I never went near my ColdFusion folders.

Maybe it'll be easier to just reinstall ColdFusion than trying to figure this out?

Always appreciate your help!

Thanks

[Charlie Arehart]

So a few things:

1) No, you need not reinstall CF. It's so unforutnate that people feel they must recourse to that. There is nearly ALWAYS an explanation for what's ailing them. I spend my days helping people do that, whether here in the community or in my consulting.

2) And no, your update of node.js will have ZERO impact on the functioning of the CF Admin. It does not use node at all. (Some may know that there's a mobile app debugger feature called "Weinre", buried in a page of the admin. That UI DOES use node--and CF implements it if you enable the "developer profile". But you are free to update that node install or any you use.)

3) As for your ongoing challenge, you say that you feel that update of node was the last thing you did 2 weeks ago...but your showing us that log line indicates that you or someone changed the CF Admin "mappings" page to add that "/components" mapping.  I'll note first that CF has no such mapping by default. Perhaps as important, it has no such components folder within the cfusion/wwwroot as you show there.

So I'm wondering: do you store all your CF code in the cfusion/wwwroot folder, so that you can access it ("for testing" on your local environment, perhaps) via the same port 8500 that you use for the CF Admin? While you CAN do that, there is always the possibility that in your manipulating that wwwroot folder (which is also where the Admin is, under the CFIDE/administrator folder), you might well cause some unexpected conflict.

But I suspect you feel that your CFIDE/administator folder "hasn't been touched", right? 🙂 I'll note that on my CF2023 update 12 instance (on Windows, like you) I show it having 726 files in 51 folders. How about you? (You can see what update you're on from the CF Admin "settings summary" page, or the "package manager" page, or the "system information" page. Note that there's a search icon in the top right of the admin, to find any page.)