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zamvil
zamvil
Inspiring
August 19, 2011
Question

HELP -- Slow and sometime unresponsive CF Server

  • August 19, 2011
  • 2 replies
  • 4399 views
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    2 replies

    Charlie Arehart
    Community Expert
    Charlie ArehartCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 23, 2011

    Zamvil, your snapshot below shows that you have the "start memory tracking" and "start profiling" features of the CF Server Monitor enabled. They could very well be the sole explanation for your poor performance. Yes, sad but true. Not always, but quite often, enabling them can cause more trouble than help. Especially memory tracking (though not always: depends on the nature of your app and traffic), but also sometimes profiling (especially if you have a large amount of query processing, whether in terms of number of queries or count or size/number of returned), since profiling monitors every query.

    All that said, just try turning them off, and see if the problem goes away. It may well.

    Some people mistakenly assume that their impact is only if the monitor is open. That's very false. When you enabled those options in the monitor, they cause CF to start tracking the data. Some have turned them on, yawned that they were not learning much, closed the monitor, and assumed there was no further impact. Again, very false. They cause impact as long as CF is running. (And in fact, in CF 9.0.1, Adobe added buttons in the CF Admin "Server Monitor Settings" page just so that one could turn them off even if they could not get into the monitor, which sometimes happens when the server is under stress.)

    Hope all that's helpful. I will say that it's entirely possible that your problem has some other explanation, too. But that's simple enough to try for now. Let us know how it goes.

    /charlie arehart

    charlie@carehart.org

    Providing fast, remote, on-demand troubleshooting services for CF (and CFBuilder)

    More at http://www.carehart.org/consulting

    PS The fact that you shared with us the Snapshot below confirms for us you're already using the CF Server Monitor (and Enteprise or Developer). Since Carl asked about that, I just wanted to share the observation for him or any others who may ever be helping someone who offers that. The snapshot can only be created from the server monitor, which is only in Enterprise or Developer. Since the IP addresses of your requests are all from one address, we can't confirm this way if it's Enterprise or not. Hope that's helpful, too.

    /Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart. org)
    zamvil
    zamvilAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 23, 2011

    Yes I turned the CF monitor on to see what happening on the server but I already turn it off.

    Thanks Charlie, very helpfull your comments.

    Charlie Arehart
    Community Expert
    Charlie ArehartCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 24, 2011

    Great. And thanks for your kind regards. That said, I could still read your reply that you "turned off the monitor" to mean merely that you "closed it". Do you mean indeed that you " stopped the memory tracking"? Because your snapshot showed that it was on. If you have more slowness, perhaps it will help to share a new snapshot.

    That said, some problems just can't easily discerned by email. It may be far more expedient (and surprisingly relatively inexpensive) to have someone "look over your shoulder" on a short-term consulting basis. Even 15 minutes may be all that's needed to find and resolve your problem. I keep a list of such troubleshooting consultants (which includes myself) at http://www.cf411.com/cfassist. But if you're not in a hurry, try sharing another snapshot (preferably caught when you're having slowness) and perhaps we may see something else.

    Hope that's helpful.

    /charlie

    /Charlie (troubleshooter, carehart. org)
    C
    carl type3
    Legend
    August 21, 2011

    Hi,

    That is Windows server running CF8. Is that CF8.0.0 or CF8.0.1?

    Standard or Enterprise licence (I can see Standard install tho could be either licence)?

    In short from the dump looks like threads are getting consumed then some queuing is happening:

    8 or more threads are busy for more than 60 seconds

    Recommend - I would check these logs for error or warning messages at the time and just before the server goes slow. In your case logs are in:

    C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\logs\ coldfusion-event.log and coldfusion-out.log.

    All the best with that, Carl.

    zamvil
    zamvilAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 22, 2011

    Thanks for your response.

    The server is a Win 2008 Server R2 Enterprise with CF8 Enterprise 8.0.1

    System Information
    Server Details
    Server ProductColdFusion
    Version8,0,1,195765
    EditionEnterprise
    Serial Number
    Operating SystemWindows Vista
    OS Version6.0
    Update Level/C:/ColdFusion8/lib/updates/hf801-71800.jar
    JVM Details
    Java Version1.6.0_04

    zamvil
    zamvilAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 24, 2011

    Hi,

    The whole CF area of Hotfixes and Security patches is fair to say difficult. Security patches are fixes to security problems and from what I read Adobe do not publish that they contain any performance improvements. I am not going to recommend what security patch to apply since it is not my CF server. Patches need applying and testing against applications used in a development environment. It is hard for me to sit here and say apply this and that security fix in such and such order when I do not have your particular CFM code running. Even the excellent CF9 lockdown guide (worth a read http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/coldfusion/pdfs/91025512-cf9-lockdownguide-wp-ue.pdf) does not specifically say what patches to apply only mentioning to check a URL for patches and security updates.

    Oracle publish that new JVM are faster than old ones. While I think changing JVM is a good idea, even changing JVM version alone might not assist with slowness if the JVM parameters are not well suited to the load.

    Now enough banter. So CF did not start post JVM change. First well done on keeping a backup of JVM.CONFIG so you can get going again on your existing JVM. On the working 1.6.0_04 JVM is it 32 or 64 bit?

    In CFadmin > Server Settings > Settings Summary >

    do you have:

    Java VM Name  Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM   

    or:

    Java VM Name  Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM

    I have seen that error blogged before however not had it myself (except on Java 7 which is a matter for another day). Something to do with a msvcr71.dll not being found in the Java path:

    http://www.coldfusionmuse.com/index.cfm/2010/12/4/error.loading.jvm.dll

    I will add I have not tried 1.6.0_27 on CF8 yet only CF9. Latter as time permits I will apply 1.6.0_27 to CF8 and report back.

    Regards, Carl.

    Added latter -

    @Charlie - Agree CFMon is a "doubled edged sword", got to be careful not to cut yourself.

    How amiss of me – of course the dump in the initial posting is from CFMon > Snapshots > Trigger Snapshot.

    @Zamvil - Have run CF8.0.1 with JVM 1.6.0_27 now. I find CF8 works and do not get the JVM.DLL message.

    CFadmin > Server Settings > Settings Summary says in part:

    JVM Details 

    Java Version  1.6.0_27   

    Java Vendor  Sun Microsystems Inc.   

    Java Vendor URL  http://java.sun.com/   

    Java Home  C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_27\jre   

    User Home  C:\   

    User Dir  C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\bin   

    Java VM Specification Version  1.0   

    Java VM Specification Vendor  Sun Microsystems Inc.   

    Java VM Specification Name  Java Virtual Machine Specification   

    Java VM Version  20.2-b06   

    Java VM Vendor  Sun Microsystems Inc.   

    Java VM Name  Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM   

    Java Specification Version  1.6   

    Java Specification Vendor  Sun Microsystems Inc.   

    Java Specification Name  Java Platform API Specification   


    Carl, the server is Win 2008 r2 64 bits and a I think the Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM  (1.6.0_04) is 32 bits. I tried to install the 1.6.0_27 32 bits and it can not install on Win 2008 64 bits.

    What did you do to change to jvm 1.6.0_27 version? Do you have Win 2008 64 bits too?

    JVM Details
    Java Version1.6.0_04
    Java VendorSun Microsystems Inc.
    Java Vendor URLhttp://java.sun.com/
    Java HomeE:\ColdFusion8\runtime\jre
    Java File EncodingCp1252
    Java Default Localees_MX
    File Separator\
    Path Separator;
    Line SeparatorChr(13)
    User NameEXTRANETSRVR$
    User HomeC:\
    User Dire:\ColdFusion8\runtime\bin
    Java VM Specification Version1.0
    Java VM Specification VendorSun Microsystems Inc.
    Java VM Specification NameJava Virtual Machine Specification
    Java VM Version10.0-b19
    Java VM VendorSun Microsystems Inc.
    Java VM NameJava HotSpot(TM) Server VM
    Java Specification Version1.6
    Java Specification VendorSun Microsystems Inc.
    Java Specification NameJava Platform API Specification
    Java Class Version50.0

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