It's that time again: there are new JVM updates released today (Apr 16, 2024) for the current long-term support (LTS) releases of Oracle Java, 8, 11, 17, and 21, as well as the new short-term release 22. TLDR: The new updates are 1.8.0_411 (aka 8u411), 11.0.23, 17.0.11, 21.0.3, and 22.0.1 respectively). Crazy that there are now 5 current Java rele...

If you may have missed the news, Adobe recently held an online event over several weeks (Mid-Feb to Mid-March) where they had most of the presenters from the Adobe CF Summit 2023 in Vegas give repeats of their talks. Of course, it's a great way for those who can't attend the event to see the talks--and for the presenters it can be a great chance to...

Just wanted to share news for my readers here that tonight (Apr 9 at 7pm US Eastern time) I will be presenting at the online meeting of the Mid-Michigan CFUG, on the topic, "What if no one is monitoring your DB server?". Anyone can join in live, and the meeting will also be recorded and posted eventually at their Youtube Channel. Here's the descr...

This is a very important heads-up for my readers: there was an important security update released today by Adobe for ColdFusion 2023 (update 7) and 2021 (update 13). While as always there's much to say about what's changed in this update, I want to make this important clarification: It's very important that people read the technote before "just ap...

There has been important news released (this week and last week) about a critical Lucee security vuln (an RCS or remote code execution vuln). You'll want to make sure your Lucee instances are protected either by updates or configuration (or both). There are actually 3 matters to beware. [More]

Last week (Feb 15) I gave the first talk in the annual Adobe ColdFusion Online Summit for CF2024, and the recording of that session has now been posted by the Adobe CF team (as the first of many such recordings to come). Description and slide deck/PDF Recording (see also embedded video below) Sorry that I didn't get a chance to offer a blog post...

I'm delighted to announce that I've been selected to speak at Into the Box 2024, in DC, coming up in May. This will be my 5th time presenting at this wonderful event, going back to my first time in 2017. My talk will be... [More]

I've done a few online presentations in recent weeks, and while I've done a blog post announcing each when it was upcoming, I was torn about also doing a blog post after each, just to mention their recording URL. I don't want people to feel there are "too many" posts. Also, since I use youtube live for the CFMeetup sessions, technically the url for...

Do you feel you understand all there is to know about the CF Package Management feature (and cfpm tool), added by Adobe in CF2021? It has far more capabilities than most may realize. So I'll be presenting a talk on this topic, online this Thursday, at noon US Eastern, on the CFMeetup youtube livestream (which will be recorded). Folks who are memb...

As most know, ColdFusion runs atop Java (and has since CF6). Did you know that JVM updates come out quarterly (including one just this week)? While some may find the process of doing them to be "old hat", others are often surprised to discover it's their responsibility to keep that Java updated. And on the surface, "installing Java" is easy--but li...

If you learn there's a new Java update available, it may well be relatively simple for you to apply that update, but if you're running important applications that rely on Java, it's in your interest to give some consideration to various matters related to doing such an update. And as important, if you may have skipped some Java updates before this...

Last week I did a talk on MIGRATING to CF2023 (as that's a challenge that many contemplate BEFORE proceeding to install it). This week I will follow-that up with a talk on INSTALLING it, and addressing various challenges in doing that. Some people don't do development and only deal with installing it. (Others don't ever want to install CF, and I ad...

It's that time of the year...well, I don't mean the holidays: I mean time to talk about migrating to CF2023, which came out several months ago. I'm getting asked more and more about it, as people proceed with making or considering the move--and sorry for the brief notice, but I thought I better get this talk out before the end of the year, and befo...

Just a heads-up for my readers that there was an important security update released today by Adobe for ColdFusion 2023 (update 6) and 2021 (update 12). (Users of previous versions should note that those are no longer updated, not even for security fixes). If you apply the update using the CF Admin and then find that CF starts but the Admin and yo...

With all the recent updates to CF (and the ongoing need to keep up and related things up-to-date), I wanted to share some news: I've long had on my site a meta resource page regarding keeping ColdFusion updated, where I offered both links and tips related to updating CF as well as the JVM underlying CF, the web server connector(wsconfig), the CF PM...

ColdFusion 2023 has been released today, May 17 2023. For more on the many features, see the following several Adobe blog posts and substantial documentation resources they released also today, about which I offer some additional comment below. I also discuss changes in OS support (saving you having to compare the docs discussing that), as well as...

After I posted my last entry, I happened to notice that it was exactly my 600th post here at carehart.org/blog. How about that? And in that time I've had 3,645 comments from folks. I do write mostly for you all, so thanks! I also noticed that it marks my 17th year of blogging here, almost to the day with my first entry posted this same week back t...

If you've not heard, a new update has been released (March 14, 2023) for ColdFusion 2021 and 2018. Despite what you may hear, this is an URGENT (rated "Priority 1" by Adobe) update that everyone should apply ASAP, for reasons I will explain in this post. In fact, Hackernews reported yesterday (Mar 16) that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure ...

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been asked to present again at the Adobe ColdFusion Summit East 2023, a free one-day conference being held in Washington DC on Apr 6, at the Marriott Marquis. For more on the event, my talk, and how this means I have to skip attending/speaking at DevNexus the same week, read on. [More]

TLDR; the URL for joining the CFML Slack workspace and channels has changed. If you want to join the CFML Slack, use the form at cfml-slack.net. As some may have noticed, the old URL for joining (cfml-slack.herokuapp.com) no longer works. Since it's mentioned in many places on the web, I wanted to help spread this news. This cfml-slack.net URL re...

Are you still running ColdFusion 2018? Did you know that its end-of-life is July 13, 2023? That's the date that "core" support ends--meaning, no more updates from Adobe after that, not even security fixes. As for CF2021, it gets updates into 2025, and the currently running pre-release of CF2023 is a great sign for the continued vitality of CF. But...

If you're a user of the wonderful FusionReactor monitoring and observability solution (for ColdFusion, Lucee, Java servers and more), you may delight in hearing news of a new FusionReactor (FR) version. 9.2.0 was released last week, Jan 18, 2023. You can learn more (in brief) about what's new in the bullets for 9.2.0 offered at the release notes ...

If you're running CF2016 or earlier, now's your chance (though the end of the year Feb 28, 2023) to save potentially thousands of dollars in upgrading to the latest current version, CF2021. Intergral, the folks who make the FusionReactor monitoring tool and service, are again offering a special deal of 25% off to upgrade CF2016 or earlier to CF2021...

This topic may (should) interest folks using CF2021 or even OLDER CF versions. Did you know there's a command line tool to help view/manage as well as export/import CF Admin settings? I will be presenting a talk on this, Thursday. Anyone can attend online. Folks who are members of the Online ColdFusion Meetup that I run will already have gotten no...

Just a heads-up to my readers that I'll be giving a talk tomorrow (Thurs, Sep 1 at noon Eastern) on "Comparing and contrasting Docker images from Ortus, Adobe, and Lucee", at the Into the Box "pre-conference" event. Update 9/1/22: the recording was posted. I'll link to it in the discussion about getting access to those (not free, for now). The p...

Did you know that Java 10 (and above) has added use of a "var" keyword in variable declaration? Note that it's quite different from CFML's var keyword. This is NOT something that CF developers NEED to know, and it WILL NOT affect anyone's CFML code. I just thought I'd share news of it as I happened to learn of it today (though Java 10 came out ...

In a post today on his blog, Ben Nadel did an experiment "Looking At The Performance Overhead Of A Read-Only Lock". (He happened to do it in Lucee, but the concept applies equally to CF.) And I wanted to offer some additional thoughts--first planning to offer them as a comment--because there's a lot behind the question and his observations. But as...

The FusionReactor folks will offer a webinar this Thurs, Mar 24, at noon US Eastern, "Introducing Distributed tracing and on-prem observability". I highly recommend that FusionReactor users (and others) register. (Even if you can't attend, you will get access to the recording.) It's about some totally new capabilities: Note that it's about chan...

If you're running CF9 or 8, beware: a recent spate of ransomware attacks have occurred, hitting such old CF servers that were not updated (in ways offered by Adobe in 2010!) This news has been reported in various security industry press, but I want to share here more that they generally did not. TLDR; A most basic message to hear is "get off of C...

Have you checked out the many things coming in the updates for CF2021 and 2018 in prerelease the past few weeks? Anyone is welcome to join the prerelease, logging in with an Adobe account. It's a lot more substantial than I think most realize. [More]

As you may have heard by now, the free Adobe CF Developer Week 2021 will be held June 22-24. My session will be on June 22 at 4p Central in Track 2. While currently the DevWeek site only offers session titles and speakers (descriptions were added after I posted this: click the + sign to the right of each talk), here is mine, from the "presentations...

For those using the Long-term Support (LTS) versions of Oracle Java, 8 and 11, please note `there were new updates released last week (Apr 20), specifically Java 11.0.11 and 8.0_291. For some, that's all they need to hear. They will take that ball and run with it. For most, you should read on, especially about an important change regarding TLS su...

Have you ever wished you could confirm with 100% certainty what Java version is in use by the CF instance you are running? Or where the JVM's location is (in case you are told to modify files related to it)? Some good news is that ColdFusion offers simple ways/variables that can show you each of these, via the admin or via CFML code. In this post,...

Good news to share: if you're concerned about being impacted by a pressing compatibility issue in ColdFusion 2021 (regarding using "D" in a dateformat mask), Adobe released a fix for the problem last week. There are 3 simple steps to implementing that fix, one of which is a JVM arg change to that YOU MUST MAKE--even with the "fix" in place--if you ...

Are you still running ColdFusion 2016? Did you know that its "core" support (meaning, public updates from Adobe) will end in just a couple of months, Feb 21 2021? Same for CFBuilder 2016. The recent release of CF2021 is a great sign for the continued vitality of CF, but this looming deadline is a reminder that as the years roll on, we not only get...

You may hear (starting today) about a new admonition (a "strong recommendation") from Adobe that one should be careful to "delete CAR files once they are used". What's that about? And why is it a concern? (And is it ever NOT a concern?) Indeed why is it a new admonition? (To be clear: the recommendation should be heeded even by those using CF versi...

This is a critical warning to anyone who may apply the recent CF2018 Update 8 or CF2016 Update 14, released Tuesday of this week (on Mar 20, 2020). And readers in the future should note it will apply if and as you may update CF from any update BEFORE this one to any update AFTER this one. To be clear, I do not mean with this warning to suggest ...

This is a hidden gem that I never saw documented anywhere: CF2018 now imports environment variables into the CF "server" scope, specifically: server.system.environment and java system properties into: server.system.properties (Thanks to Sean C for catching a mistake in the initial post.) I learned of it last year when Pete F tweeted about it, ...

If you're trying to run a request against CF 2016 (or perhaps 11), and the URL you're using has a path which starts with /api, you may find that the request fails to run (it may give a blank page). What gives? (It was related to the CF2016 API Manager, not CF's REST services feature.) And what can you do about it, if you are on CF2016 or 11, and ...

Did you know that when you update ColdFusion, there is often a need to also update ("upgrade") the web server connector (for IIS and/or Apache)? Did you know that's gotten easier to do since CF2016 came out? In this post (updated in Oct 2023, for reasons discussed below), I discuss: Knowing when a connector upgrade is needed How to apply the con...

Do you have a presentation you've given or would like to offer to a CF/CFML audience? There is a waiting audience of a couple thousand members of the Online ColdFusion Meetup, the online CF user group which I host, who would love to see your talk and/or its recording that we'd make. This post is a FAQ for such prospective speakers. TLDR: We'd l...

Update (Nov 20, 2019): Adobe announced today that they'd come out with a new set of updates to fix the problems in the Sep 24 updates. Today's updates address the various issues reported below about the Sept update. It's important to proceed with performing the updates, for the benefit of the security updates as I discussed below back in Sept. I ...

If your server is behind a load balancer or other sort of proxy, you may have noticed that when you view information about requests in FusionReactor, they all have the same (or nearly the same) IP address. This can be easily fixed, and I show you how in this post. [More]

Following on my recent announcement about speaking at CF Summit 2019, I am delighted to announce also that I've been selected to speak at CFCamp 2019, in Munich this October. This will be my sixth year in a row presenting at this wonderful event, and my seventh year total. It will also be my 10th presentation there. (You can see all my past pres...

There's great news coming regarding Adobe ColdFusion 2020, with regard to deployment of CF via Docker images and/or in the cloud. Adobe's Director of Engineering for CF, Ashish Garg, recently held awide-ranging interview with Michaela Light (on the CF Alive podcast) aboutthe CF2020 roadmap. Ashishshared news of some substantial changes planned in ...

Just a heads-up for folks using CF, Lucee, and other Java-based apps and app servers: Oracle has released today a new JVM update, for Java 8 and 11. It's update 221 for Java 8 (1.8.0_221), and update 4 for Java 11 (11.0.4). For some, that's all they need to know. For most, they will probably want to read on. [More]

If you've tried to get the update files for cf 2018, 2016, 11, or 10 in recent days, whether from the CF Admin "updates" page or the update technote pages, you've found the update jar files are missing and unavailable, due to a temporary problem. Here's how to get them in the meantime. [More]

I've had clients ask the above question over the years, including today. The short answer is "no", but I do have a recommendation of who you should consider buying CF from, at a discount, and with other benefits. [More]