updgrade CF9 to CF11

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Hi,

Running Windows server 2008 and CF 9.

I'm trying to update CF9 Standard to CF 11 standard.

I've downloaded the trail version.

I run the installer and then the migration wizard runs.

But after that, the site is still running under CF 9. I know this because if I stop the CF9 process, the site goes down.

There must be some other files I am supposed to modify or move but I can't figure out what they are.

I do notice when I go into IIS 7, there are handlers set up for both CF9 and CF11 -- I can tell this by looking at the file paths to the various handlers.

Where is the 'hook' that ties CF into my web pages? That is what seems to not be working. The 'hook' is tying my web pages into CF9 and not CF11

I've been trying this for about a week now and still no luck. Very frustrating.

Help would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Mike

[Charlie Arehart · Accepted solution]

Hi, Mike. The “hook” in CF9 is the wildcard handler mapping which connect “* paths to a jrun dll. The “hook” in CF10 is isapi filter (IIS feature separate from handler mappings) that causes all requests to be passed to a tomcat dll (isapi_redirect.dll). Then both also have handler mappings for cfm, cfc, etc that also pass to the respective DLLs for each engine.

You have two alternatives to consider:

- one is that you could try to manually remove all the handler mappings for CF9 and that should do it. But then the problem is you may not look at all the places they exist (which could be at the server and site levels, depending on how you or others before you configured things—and those who try to do it via manually tweaking the IIS config files could also be fail as the info may be in multiple places there.)

- but the easiest solution, generally, if you’re saying you no longer want to run CF9 with your IIS sites at all, is to the run the CF9 web server configuration tool and use its “remove” option to remove the settings in IIS that are connecting it to CF9. BE sure to right-click and use “run as administrator”.

That said, if folks HAVE manually tweaked those IIS config files, or HAD previously run the tool (when “adding” sites) without running as admin, then you may find that even doing this removal is not sufficient to get things working, as vestiges of CF9 config lines remain (among the possibly multiple config files, at the server and site levels.)

It can all get rather messy, especially because the CF9 config tool (and CF installer) did their mods to the config files differently, copying ALL handler mappings from the server level into the site level.

But give the removal a try. That works I’d say 9 out of 10 times. If you’re in the 10 percentile where it is not enough, I’d say that if the above info is not enough for you to get it fixed, you’d be wise to have someone experienced in this (like myself) work with you remotely to quickly understand and resolve things.

But if the above is enough to get you going, great.

/charlie

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Thanks Charlie!
I will give your solution a try.

I'm a programmer and database admin. I maintain a CF site but I wouldn't call myself an expert in it, at least not when we get to this level.

If this doesn't work and your available, it would be great if you could connect to my server and help me out. It's a test server I'm running on Rackspace as a Cloud Server.
I'll post back here once I try your solution.

My last ditch solution was to just rebuild the server from scratch with only CF11 on it and go from there. Hopefully it won't get to that.

Mike

[Charlie Arehart]

Sure, Mike. That’s indeed why I am able to make a full-time business of providing CF server troubleshooting help. Most people are busy enough with their day jobs (whether as CF devs or non-CF sys admins), so they just can’t spend too much time (or prefer not to) to fully understand problems like this, which can sometimes be rather involved (and involve multiple moving parts, as well as things from different releases which may not be documented in one place).

I do also share such solutions in the form of answers on forums/lists, blog posts, presentations, and videos. And this (resolving issues with the web server config when transitioning from 9 to 10 or 11) is something I’ve been meaning to blog about but had not. That’s why I went ahead and shared the insights for you here in the meantime.

If you (or anyone reading this) may be interested in more direct help, you can learn more about my services at the consulting page of carehart.org, including rates, approach satisfaction guarantee, and more. I also list other CF troubleshooting consultants in a category of my cf411 site, at cf411.com/cfconsult.

Hope all that’s helpful, for you and future readers here, and that you’ll have your problem solved soon, one way or another.

/charlie

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Happy to pay for your services if I need them. No problem there.

But here is another quick question first. I launched C:\Coldfusion9\runtime\bin\wsconfig but the only option there is to delete/add a web server. I don't see anything listed about connectors. Am I in the wrong place?

[Charlie Arehart]

You’re in the right place. You would delete (remove) the current “web site”. It’s not that you’ll remove the web site (from iis) but you’ll (implicitly) remove the connector between that site and CF.

(Now you can appreciate why a video would be helpful. And especially when it comes to the parts about tweaking IIS config files, if needed.)

/charlie

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Ok, very good. Thanks.

I'll let you know if I need your services.

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Just to finish off this thread and help others that might have the same problem. I used the web config tool as suggested above by Charlie. It worked and solved the problem I was having for the past week.
First I launched the Webconfig tool (see path above) in CF 9 and removed the Website Connector.

Then I launched the Webconfig tool in CF 11 and also removed the website connector.

Then I added a website connector in for CF11.

Why this small but crucial step wasn't included in the CF 11 upgrade docs I don't know. Seems like it was just something you had to know about

Thanks for the help.

Mike

[Charlie Arehart]

Glad to hear that it helped you to solve things, Mike.

As for documentation, I will confirm that I just looked at the installation manual and I don’t see it mentioned.

As for why it may not be, I think the challenge may be that there are some nuances that they’d have to cover:

- is one planning to have CF9 (or earlier, which I’ll call docs may have been more focused on documenting how to install it on a new system, and the one reference to the wsconfig not removing settings in Apache on OSX may have been a remnant from prior releases, written by other engineers.

This is indeed often a problem in docs: the writer may be told “document how to install CF10/11, including implementing web server connections”. They did that part. It doesn’t seem they did the other part. I’ll forward this thread to the CF Product Manager and ask him if it could be considered for refinement in the docs. (I simply can’t do that for all problems or I’d be ignored, but I agree that this one is important and affects many people. They may tell me/us to just open a bug report. You may want to do that now, and point back to this thread for details, and then report here the bug id so others could vote it up, and then I could pass it on to them, if they do not chime in on the thread here.)

/charlie

[MIKE SHAVEL_908]

Thanks for confirming to me that wsconfig was not mentioned in the install docs. This way I'm not pissed at myself for missing something that didn't exist when I first started trying to do this about a week ago.

I'll report the bug also.

When I posted here, I also tried to contact Adobe support. First with Chat/phone. They said they can't help me with coldfusion but to email cfinstal@adobe.com (I thought they were missing the second 'l' so I tried cfinstall@adobe.com, but no, that wasn't it. They meant to leave off the second 'l'. Ugh.) Anyway, I didn't have high hopes but just as I saw your response here, they emailed me basically the same information. And they were fast to respond. It seemed likely they were used to getting that question.

I'm a programmer and database admin so I'm used to reading docs and troubleshooting issues. I could tell something was missing and was about to start deleting handlers in IIS but really didn't want to go down that road. Thanks again for the quick and accurate response.
Mike

[Charlie Arehart]

Well, wsconfig is indeed mentioned. I was saying that it talks about it only in the context of a new install, not a migration.

But really, most people never look a the docs anyway. And I suspect that 9 our of 10 who know there are CF docs and would look at them would only know of the CFML Reference manual (since that’s what tends to come up when you google a tag or function). They don’t know about the wonderful (and equally big) “Developing CF Apps” manual, and few even know there is am Installing manual and an Admin manual. But I carry on the good fight for folks to know of them and for them to be as good as they can be.

Good to hear you’re reporting the bug. Let us know when you do.

And good to hear that they did indeed reply, and with similar info. That’s very encouraging to hear.

/charlie