Moving From Coldfusion 8 to MX7

Report · May 16, 2011

A small client of mine is doing a migration from their existing VPS service that offers a ColdFusion 8 package, to Network Solutions, who uses MX7. Right now, I need to know how to remedy this issue that I have been seeing when I test the migration:

Null Pointers are another name for undefined values.

This is rather general, and does not give me a great amount of information. Keep in mind that the version of Mura CMS (which is what I am migrating) works fine on the CF8 server and now is throwing this error. I know the databases at the new location are fine, because I have my development environment plugged into them. Two questions:

Does anyone have any good guesses on what are causing this issue? Also, does anyone know where I can get a developer version of MX7, so I can test this out more on my local configuration.

One of the most annoying parts about this process is that I have to trust that Network Solutions updated my 'data sources' correctly, despite the fact that I know my databases are good. They could have misspelled something or forgotten, which I would have no way of knowing, because they keep the admin panel hidden. If had been up to me, we would not be making the switch, but it's a cost saving measure, and it's also true that this company doesn't get that much out of their ColdFusion server anyway.

Thanks

Report · May 16, 2011

I'm assuming the site was actually designed for CF8? Almost certainly it's erroring on some CF8 specific tag, function or syntax which MX7 obviously was never expecting, hence the vague error.

I'm afraid that other than going through the code line by line and figuring out what it is there's not much you can do.

Except maybe host the site with someone who updates their software more than every four years that is. Why on earth are they *downgrading*?!

Report · May 17, 2011

I'm afraid that other than going through the code line by line and figuring out what it is there's not much you can do.

Or run the precompiler, to automate this process...

Except maybe host the site with someone who updates their software more than every four years that is. Why on earth are they *downgrading*?!

I was thinking the same thing... this is just a daft (and professionally irresponsible) thing to be doing. There's plenty of hosting outfits out there: why pick one who clearly don't take their jobs seriously? Not only is this shoddiness be reflected in the fact they offer a version of CF (MX!) that is no longer supported by the vendor, it'll be reflected in other areas of how they provide their service for you. The per-month cost might be less, but it'll be interesting to see the cost in downgrading the website to work on CFMX7, as well as when they get outages and other support issues.

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Adam

Report · May 17, 2011

Or run the precompiler, to automate this process

Fair, didn't even know you could do that.

Seriously though, I would persuade them to host elsewhere. You wouldn't go for a package running Windows 2000 would you?

Report · May 17, 2011

Seriously though, I would persuade them to host elsewhere. You wouldn't go for a package running Windows 2000 would you?

Well put it this way: I'd be more likely to run on W2k than I would CFMX7 (an apples/oranges comparison, I know, but you get my drift)...

In short: no. It's lunacy.

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Adam

Report · May 17, 2011

Thanks for the responses guys. Somehow in the back of my mind, I knew this outcome was inevitable.

I guess my difficulty is explaining to this client the value of my administration. Furthermore, he just signed up for a lengthy contract with this provider on a whim. Two things we have to understand about this small company:

1) They are relatively ignorant to the magic that runs their systems, they only know how much it 'costs.'

2) They don't properly leverage the power and full range of opportunities ColdFusion offers them.

In other words, with the amount of traffic and web use this company gets, they are fine using a run of the mill PHP cms. Because of the high cost for entry, I always like to think of ColdFusion as more of an expert solution, and it is really out of their league. Unfortunately, this all extends from a small internal project written by another developer in ColdFusion. Once running a ColdFusion server, I kept things running, and ended up with a site built in Mura. Now I am scared that I will likely have to port the site over to Drupal.

Thanks Again

Report · May 17, 2011

Unfortunately I know exactly what you mean, we've seen it with countless customers and they simply will not understand until their site gets compromised and it costs them a big slab of cash.

If they're just ignorant then really they're not as much to blame as the hosts themselves, who really shouldn't be offering software by default which is no longer supported.

Best of luck.

Report · May 17, 2011

1) They are relatively ignorant to the magic that runs their systems, they only know how much it 'costs.'

So why on Earth are they the ones making this decision unilaterally? They sound like muppets to me.

Once running a ColdFusion server, I kept things running, and ended up with a site built in Mura. Now I am scared that I will likely have to port the site over to Drupal.

Sounds like a good way to extend your skillset!

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Adam