Unable to Update from ColdFusion 2021 Update 10 to 11

Iwan, that's indeed quite a mess you've gotten yourself into. I see BKBK offering to try to replicate your scenario. If he's succesful and offers a resolution, great. If he is not, I'll repeat the offer I made previously: we should be able to not only resolve all this (in a screenshare consulting session) but I would help you see/understand where things went amiss--as again your problem is NOT a common one. 

Indeed, I'm pretty confident your problems have gotten worse as you've you've tried so many things.

It really does NOT need to be this difficult to update CF--though again it IS more challenging when one is updating a CF instance on a machine without internet access--and BKBK and I pointed you to the offline update steps. Then the change to Java last July affects EVERYONE updating CF (whether their CF machine is online or not)--and we pointed you to info on that. It's just all a lot to keep straight, when you don't do it often (or even when you do).

But sure, let's see where things go in BKBK's efforts for and with you.

I'm merely proposing that if it's more important to get things working sooner rather than later, direct help is often far more effective in cases like this. (You might even reach out to Adobe to see if they will help. Sometimes they will offer to do a screenshare with you for free. As this is what I do for a living, I don't offer that sort of help for free. But I do it a few times a day, with a couple hundred clients a year--and I nearly always solve the problems, and to be clear no one pays for time they don't find to be valuable.)

The relevant documentation is ColdFusion (2021 release) Update 12. The installation procedure that you have followed is apparently the one described in the section "INSTALL THE UPDATE IN OFFLINE MODE MANUALLY". That procedure is quite intricate. A single wrong or omitted step is enough to derail the installation.

You have to follow Adobe's instructions to the letter. It is unclear from your description that you did so.

A suggestion for you to try:

1.  Stop ColdFusion 2021.
2.  Open {CF2021_HOME}/cfusion/bin/jvm.config in an editor.  The flag java.home points to the Java that ColdFusion 2021 actually uses.  Is this Java version 11.0.20 or higher? If so, add the following property to java.args:
   

   -Djdk.util.zip.disableZip64ExtraFieldValidation=true

3.  Unzip the downloaded file (hotfix-packages-cf2021-012-330257.zip) . Copy all its contents to your {CF2021_HOME}/bundles/ directory, agreeing to overwrite any existing files already there.
4.  Open {CF2021_HOME}/cfusion/lib/neo-updates.xml in an editor. The XML should contain the following two elements:
   

   <packagesurl>https://www.adobe.com/go/coldfusion-packages</packagesurl>
   <defaultpackagesurl>https://www.adobe.com/go/coldfusion-packages</defaultpackagesurl>​

5.  Replace each of the "packages" URLs with the URI of the file {CF2021_HOME}/bundles/bundlesdependency.json on your ColdFusion 2021 server. To illustrate, I shall use the URI on my server, which is file:///c:/coldFusion2021/bundles/bundlesdependency.json
   

   <packagesurl>file:///c:/coldFusion2021/bundles/bundlesdependency.json</packagesurl>
   <defaultpackagesurl>file:///c:/coldFusion2021/bundles/bundlesdependency.json</defaultpackagesurl>​​

6.  You now have to use the Jave that ships with ColdFusion 2021 to install the JAR file, hotfix-012-330257.jar, that you downloaded.
   To do so, open the Command Prompt as Administrator. Use cd to navigate in DOS to {CF2021_HOME}/jre/bin. Then run the DOS command (in my case, CF2021_HOME is C:\ColdFusion2021 and the JAR file is located on the desktop):
   

   C:\ColdFusion2021\jre\bin>java -jar C:\Users\BKBK\Desktop\hotfix-012-330257.jar​

   
   
   

    

    

7.  Apply the Web Server Configuration Tool, {CF2021_HOME}/cfusion/runtime/bin/wsconfig.exe, to recreate the connector. 
8.  Click on Windows Start icon. Type Services and press [ENTER]. Restart the ColdFusion 2021 Application Server.

Iwan, this is not happening to everyone who applies those cf updates, no. Your problem is likely specific to being offline (no internet connection), but there may be more going on. There are indeed a lot of specific (documented) steps to follow when offline. 

First, it's not new that Cf does license activation and verification over the internet. It's done that since cf2021 came out (and does in cf2023). But yes, if your server is offline, that needs to be handled as indicated in the cf docs page for licensing activation. 

As for your experience with update 11, it WOULD be different than prior recent updates you've done in that it's the first one with package updates since update 6, which came out last March (see the table at the bottom of the technote for the updates 11 or 12 you tried). The steps listed for offline updating are indeed what you should do. Are those what you have been doing? 

Otherwise, I can't readily fathom what are the causes of all your problems, and so I can't offer more ideas than the resources above. Someone else may offer more.

Finally there is at least a way to add packages without the admin (including adding the admin package itself), using the command line cfsetup tool (new to cf2021). See the cf docs for more, or a presentation I've done on it, at carehart.org/presentations. 

But if you just need the problems solved and the updates applied and can't sort things out, I'm confident that I could help you via remote screenshare consulting session. We might solve things quickly, and I charge in as little as 15-minute minimum increments. More on my rates, approach, satisfaction guarantee, online calendar, and more at carehart.org/consulting.

I appreciate that you may not be interested in paying for such assistance. I'm only offering it if the updates are important enough to warrant getting them applied (and knowing what steps work versus what you've been doing).