Solving a new problem as of CF2023 update 25 that can cause CF to not start
If you've suffered the problem of CF not starting since CF2023 update 25--because you're on Windows and have implemented FusionReactor or another monitor, in this post I offer first an explanation of the root cause problem (a bug, which Adobe will need to fix) and then an unobvious but effective workaround.
I’m running ColdFusion 2023 Enterprise on Windows Server 2022, using an AWS Marketplace AMI supplied by Coalesce Solutions, with Oracle Java 17.0.14 and FusionReactor 2026.1.3.
Unfortunately, after getting past the JVM startup failure, Update 25 still fails to initialize ColdFusion’s license service. The first error is:
```text
Unable to install License package:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/adobe/asneu/AsnException
```
The crypto and security services then fail because `LicenseService` is null, and the ColdFusion Administrator returns HTTP 500. This happens both through the Windows service and when starting directly with `cfstart.bat` in PowerShell using the short PATH.
Update 24 works correctly, and rolling back Update 25 restores normal operation. The update installer reported success, but reinstalling U25 reproduces the failure.
We searched the installed JARs and found `AsnException.class` inside:
```text
C:\ColdFusion2023\bundles\repo\flex-messaging-data-req-4.0.jar
```
So the class exists on disk, although it apparently isn’t accessible during license-service initialization. The installer log also mentions operations involving both `cfusion-req.jar` and `cfusion-req-cloud.jar`.
Given the Marketplace origin of this installation, I wonder whether this second failure could involve the cloud-specific licensing implementation or class loading in the Coalesce AMI. That’s still a hypothesis.
Have you seen this additional failure on AWS Marketplace installations, particularly those supplied by Coalesce Solutions?
That said, your issue may instead be caused by any of a couple problems that are generic and not about the AMI.
One can be about an error during the first startup of cf after the update, when cf updates the packages. Have you confirmed there were none, in the coldfusion-out.log, on that first startup after the update?
Next, have you also tried stopping cf and clearing the felix-cache? It doesn't matter that the update says it does that BEFORE the update starts. This is about doing it AFTER those package updates during the subsequent cf startup. CF doesn't do that.
(I'd discussed those two practices above in previous blog posts about the cf updates. I stopped including that as it is now about a dozen updates per year and it was wordy redundancy. I've been meaning to pull them out into a separate post, to at least then point to that in each subsequent update post.)
Finally, still another possibility stems from a possible choice made on your end: how did you do the cf update? If by the "manual offline update", involving downloading the packages zip, it's easy to get that wrong by taking a shortcut and just extracting that zip to cf's bundles folder. Do not do that. Again, I've been meaning to do a post on that, as I hear occasionally from people who've made that mistake.
As always if you'd rather try to get to resolution more expeditiously (perhaps just minutes) rather than via back and forth here, note that I offer remote screenshare consulting. My minimum billable interval is only 15 mins, and I solve most problems in less than an hour. Regardless, you won't pay for time you don't find valuable.
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Either way, let us know your thoughts in response to the above, as other readers may share your interest.
I ended up installing CFU25 the day it came out, and ran into this -- and implemented the temporary solution of adding the path to the windows environment vars PATH var and it worked. I also had to do a quick workaround in our powershell scripts that are executed via CF, because the full path was not available to them either.
I hate editing the registry, especially on servers, if I don't have to. And certainly not for something that is ultimately (IMNSHO) a bug that should be fixed ASAP. So... do you think Adobe will treat this as the bug it is, and issue a patch or update for it, so that we can revert our temporary workarounds eventually?
But as for whether they WILL treat it as a bug and WILL fix it, I cannot say. As I concluded in the post, it's been filed as a bug. Now we wait. I have no further influence on that than does anyone else, honestly.