Security Log Error: "An error occurred while fetching element from authcache."

[TwoEdge]

I keep seeing this error in the "security.log":

"An error occurred while fetching element from authcache."

There is no other info to go along with it. Im also getting other strange expetions and erros showing up in other logs, but can't tell yet if they are correlated at all.  

I really need help figuring this out.

[Charlie Arehart]

TwoEdge, you don't indicate what version of CF you are using, and what update level. Can you please?

And are you using cflogin in your code? Or have you or anyone tweaked the ehcache.xml file in the cfusion\lib folder (or the lib folder of any other CF instance you may have)?

Those are a few starting points for investigation. Let me elaborate on them.

There was one bug which was related to cflogin that was fixed in CF2016, with updates for CF11 and 10 at the time: https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-3839458 .

And there as another that was related to such an error caused from within the CF Admin code (which also used cflogin) that was fixed with CF2016 update 1 (and though not mentioned, I assume also with bug fixes for CF11 and 10): https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-4131007

As for the phrase authcache, it's also the name of an XML element in that ehcache.xml file, so used with that, and it could be impacted by things you or someone may have tweaked in that file.

I honestly haven't seen this error much in the wild (in my troubleshooting consulting, nor here in the community), which may explain why you haven't heard from others in your own research.

You say you "really need help figuring this out". Is that just because someone doesn't want to see such errors in the logs? or is there some real impact from this? If the latter, let us know and that may be another clue to helping resolve things. 

But please remember to attend to the very first question I asked. 🙂 And it may help to confirm as well that you had a report of "0" fatalerrors in the update log of whatever was your last CF update. For more, see https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2019/03/problems-applying-cf-update-check-first/.

[TwoEdge]

Thanks for the response.  We are using ColdFusion version 2016,0,13,316217.  I'm sorry for my delay in getting back to you, but coincdently we had a big network switch crash and it took out all of our stuff and ColdFusion had a very hard time recovering from it.  That happened shortly after I asked the other question.  

We've been having a issues that we dont really understand, so I was going through the error and excpetion logs trying to address as many of them as possible and this was one I kept coming across.  I'm not clear what kind of impact, if any, it's having on our users.

[BKBK]

There is a clue as to how you could try to reproduce the issue. You will find the clue in one of the links Charlie mentions, https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-4131007:

1. Login to CF Admin
2. Wait a while for CF Admin's session to timeout
3. F5 the CF Admin
4. See "An error occurred while fetching element from authcache" was logged to security.log

In any case, you will probably be better off updating ColdFusion 2016, as I suggested earlier in your forum thread on java.lang.IllegalStateException.

[Charlie Arehart]

Adding to BKBK's suggestion, I want to point out here something I just added to that other thread he linked to, just in case some future reader finds this post but does not check out that other page:

"Given that you report being on cf2016 update 13 (vs the current latest of u16), do beware of an important issue when you DO  update (to u14 or above). 

If you use IIS or Apache to front CF, you will need to "upgrade" your cf/webserver connector. (Some people also need to add a related attribute or two to cf's server.xml file.) This is all covered in the u14 technote and pointed to in the subsequent ones, but many never read them or notice this.

I will say that I elaborate more in a blog post here (https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/03/three-reasons-sites-may-break-fix-applying-mar-2020-update-cf20...), and that points to still another I did, if needed.

As I say there, it's not a warning to NOT do the update, but just a warning that the connector update is REQUIRED as well for anyone on u13 or earlier moving to u14 or later."

So again, that was repeated for others. Back to you, TwoEdge, it would indeed be helpful to hear if that cf update may help, or you could address some of the questions I'd ask earlier here, which might also help us get you to a solution to the original problem.