What does all this mean for Adobe and CF, and CF users? What versions of CF do, do not, and/or may support these various recent Java versions? The good news is that CF 2018 will come out running (and the second public beta does come running) on Java 10 (no word yet on Java 11). But what about other recent CF versions?

Read on for more.

(And while I am writing this in mid-2018, I will come back and update the links and info about CF2018, as it's released, and the JVM versions, as things change over time.)

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Unable to connect to the Java VisualVM Plugins Center because of Server returned HTTP response code: 503 for URL: http://www.oracle.com/splash/java.net/maintenance/index.html

There is a solution.

TLDR: the quick answer is to change the URL used by the tool (Tools>Plugins>Settings) to use a new URL, such as https://visualvm.github.io/uc/8u131/updates.xml.gz.

For those who'd appreciate more detail, read on.

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In this post, I want to elaborate on one more common mistake. Well, mistake may be too strong word. It's about a default option when you run a Java JDK installer (see the other post for more on JDK vs JRE options).

In short, I make the case here for why you should NOT let the JDK installer implement its "public jre" option.

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• You wanted to update the JVM which CF uses to use a new version
• so you found some resource on the web showing how to update, and it seemed simple enough
• and then you tried restarting CF and wham, it won't start
• and now you're stuck wondering, "what happened? and how am I supposed to fix this?"

It's a tragic position to be in, of course.

There are several reasons why your attempt to update CF's JVM can fail.

And fortunately I can offer several things you can consider/look at, some of which may quickly recover from or be able to undo (depends on what you did). And all this applies to Lucee, Railo, and BlueDragon as well, though folder locations will differ.

In brief, here are the things you may have done wrong. See below for solutions or recommendations:

1. You may have told the Java installer to install itself WITHIN the CF directory. You should not do that.
2. You may have gotten the wrong kind of Java installer
3. You may have gotten the wrong bit-level of Java for your bit-level of CF
4. You may have gotten the wrong JVM for your OS
5. You may have tried to use a JVM not supported by the version of CF you're running
6. You may have pointed CF to the wrong JVM location
7. You may have updated the JVM config for the cfusion instance, but not your other instances
8. You may have forgotten to change the path's directory separator slashes on Windows
9. You may have to copy the msvcr100.dll from the JVM's lib to CF's when updating older CF's to Java 7+
10. You may have to copy the tools.jar from the JVM's lib to CF's when updating older CF's to Java 8+ (and delete some files compiled for the old JVM)
11. You may find that Solr integration (and/or PDFG in CF11+) stops working, because you didn't realize you needed to edit *its* jvm config file

While I'm at it, I also cover:

• Why you'll find that CF can't even STOP (let alone START) if you make a mistake with the JVM configuration
• What JVM version(s) are supported by what versions of CF
• Dealing with SSL Certificates you may have imported into a previous JVM
• Beware leaving the Java installer to choose the "public jre" option

So this really became quite a compendium of resources on changing the JVM CF uses, but again the focus is on why CF may not start if you make certain very common mistakes.

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Both CF 9.0 and 9.01 run on older JVMs (and therefore need this update). And are you on CF8? You're not left out: Adobe even has confirmed this update can be applied to CF 8 and 8.01, too!

Note: if you are finding this blog post because you're searching the web for help on updating the JVM that underlies ColdFusion, note that this is a very old post (2011) about one specific JVM version. Instead, for a more general discussion of updating the JVM, and especially about solving and preventing common problems when doing that, see my more "recent" (2014) and more elaborated post: CF911: 'Help! I've updated the JVM which ColdFusion uses, and now it won't start!'.

Still more updates since this originally was posted:

Update 1: Since I wrote this blog entry in Oct 2011, Adobe has since come out with a new technote in Oct 2012 saying that you are now permitted to update to any version of Java 1.6 (for CF 8/9/10).
Update 2: Since posting this note, I've realized I should document an important fact to be aware of if you DO update the JVM: after doing so, it may seem that changes you made to allow CFHTTP calls to SSL pages (or other tags in CFML that talk via SSL or TLS) may "seem to have been lost". The issue is likely that you had modified your current CF setup to import specific certificates for such sites, but those changes are "lost" when you change the JVM that CF is now using (which has its own keystore). But these cert changes can be recovered. For more on that, see the next to last section below.
Update 3: In Feb 2013, Adobe did come out with an update that authorizes moving to Java 1.7 in either 9 or 10. You must apply the update first, though. More in this Adobe blog entry.

Old news, but not everyone knows

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It's a first cut. While there are couple of concerns that will come to mind for some readers, and I try to address those at the end, it does work for me and has helped improve my server's stability and reliability, and it's been used by many others.

Background: do you need to care? Perhaps more than you realize

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