More CFHTTP weirdness

Here's a question for you -

Why would a previously solid, stable, Win2K3 box running CFMX6.1 standard suddenly start throwing a java.lang.NoSuchMethodError on any CFHTTP calls?

(note: this is NOT the box which falls over in the middle of the night with a JRun Guard Page Exception, this is another one!)

This line of code:

<cfhttp method="get" url="http://www.google.com" >
</cfhttp>

...in fact ANY cfhttp call, to any url, with any combination of parameters...

has just started throwing this error:

HTTPClient.HTTPResponse.getHeaderAsObject(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/Object;

here's the stack trace:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: HTTPClient.HTTPResponse.getHeaderAsObject(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/Object;
at coldfusion.tagext.net.HttpTag.createResponse(HttpTag.java:1673)
at coldfusion.tagext.net.HttpTag.connHelper(HttpTag.java:856)
at coldfusion.tagext.net.HttpTag.doEndTag(HttpTag.java:990)
at cftest2ecfm1025982501.runPage(«path removed»\test.cfm:11)
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:147)
at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:357)
at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:62)
at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:107)
at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:80)
at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:47)
at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28)
at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:35)
at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:43)
at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:105)
at jrun.servlet.ServletInvoker.invoke(ServletInvoker.java:91)
at jrun.servlet.JRunInvokerChain.invokeNext(JRunInvokerChain.java:42)
at jrun.servlet.JRunRequestDispatcher.invoke(JRunRequestDispatcher.java:249)
at jrun.servlet.ServletEngineService.dispatch(ServletEngineService.java:527)
at jrun.servlet.jrpp.JRunProxyService.invokeRunnable(JRunProxyService.java:192)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$DownstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:318)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$ThreadThrottle.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:426)
at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$UpstreamMetrics.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:264)
at jrunx.scheduler.WorkerThread.run(WorkerThread.java:66)

The NoSuchMethodError javadoc says the following:

"Thrown if an application tries to call a specified method of a class (either static or instance), and that class no longer has a definition of that method.

Normally, this error is caught by the compiler; this error can only occur at run time if the definition of a class has incompatibly changed."


So this kind of implies that either:

- One or more of the CFMX jar files has changed
or
- The Java Runtime Environment has changed

yet a quick search shows that neither is the case.

java -version from the command prompty is showing 1.4.2_08-b03

The CF Administrator System Information page shows :

Java VM Version 1.4.2-b28

and this is what I get if I cd into the cfusionmx/runtime/jre/bin directory and run java -version from there.

The only files under CFusionMX that have changed since 1st August are log files, verity collections or in wwwroot/WEB-INF/cfclasses/


My first thought was "has someone been fiddling about with the JVM?" but it appears not. No new code has been released on this box in weeks, nothing has changed in the CF Administrator, and no-one has applied any updates to the box for weeks.... yet it's just started throwing this error on all CHTTP calls.

Maybe it's that marvellous Automatic Updates feature in W2K3?

Anyone else had this problem? Anyone JUST STARTED having this?
If so, maybe we can try to find common elements and track down the cause.

UPDATE 22/08/05

I think I've isolated the cause - we had a custom Java-based CFHTTP replacement on the same box which was built around the HTTPClient lib. In deploying this project, we added a HTTPClient.jar onto the classpath, and it looks like that was causing the issue - a conflict with the httpclient.jar (note case) in the CFusionMX/runtime/lib directory.

When I deleted that second HTTPClient.jar file and restarted the server, the CFHTTP calls started working again.

HOWEVER - the custom-made Java-based CFHTTP replacement calls don't work any more........... it's another one of those "works perfectly on dev, but won't work at all on live" issues that we all know and love so well.

JRun Guard Page Exception ???

Now here's a strange one :

One of our servers (W2K3, CFMX 6.1 standard) keeps falling over in the middle of the night, when there's virtually nothing running.

The error message we get in Event Viewer starts with :
"Application popup: jrun.exe - Application Error : The exception Guard Page Exception..... blah blah blah"

The CF logs show nothing at around that time: no exceptions, nothing in the application log, nada.

We've taken to running CF from the command prompt so that we can see any error messages it produces, and last night it said this:

"An End of Array or Structure has been reached, The exception was throw at the location (a memory location number) "

....which Google appears NOT to have heard of. Hmmm......

I only found one other mention of the Guard Page Exception in relation to JRun, which doesn't look like it was ever resolved.

We've been through just about every single "tune your JVM settings" post out there, including RobiSen's exhaustive tuning guide

I figure that if we're having this error, surely we're not the first - i guess people are just keeping quiet about it, or something...

So, has anyone else out there ever had this error? Anyone managed to fix it?

When To Write Comments

There's been a discussion over in Nerdistan about a recent Particletree article: Successful Strategies For Commenting Your Code and I thought I'd stick my two penn'orth in...

The usual way that people approach code and commenting is to dive in, code away feverishly through several iterations until they've got something that seems to work, THEN go back through it and add comments - if they have the time...

One trick I picked up early on in my development career - way back when I was coding massive invoicing systems on WYSE32 green screen terminals in 8-bit COBOL - that radically changed the way I approach the coding process is this:

Write your comments FIRST.

Yes - first. That's BEFORE you write any code. It's a very handy way of planning out your structure, algorithms, and data flow on complex chunks of code before anything is set in stone.

Otherwise, if you dive right in there and start coding away, you often realise halfway through that your first approach is not going to work, and you have to go back and change THIS structure, change THOSE parameters, add THIS call, take THIS chunk out into a separate function, etc etc...

I'm convinced that the vast majority of bugs in code are not due to lack of syntax knowledge, or even typos, but actually down to insufficient planning - not thinking the code through well enough before starting. Of course, this happens for many reasons - usually down to time constraints and/or scope creep - but the end result is the same.

Try writing your comments first - you should be able to walk through your process, follow the data, and catch most of the most common gotchas before you even write a single line of code. If you can't, then you haven't written your comments in enough detail.... Of course, you're always going to have to do the occasional rushed hack job, but I've found this approach tends to actually save me time in the long run.

Give it a go - <mrs doyle>ah go on.... aaAAAhhhh go ON, go On, go on go on go on....!</mrs doyle>