Persistent Issues Installing ColdFusion 2025 on Mac Studio (Apple Silicon) via Adobe Installer & CommandBox

Communities CommandBox CLI
1

I am experiencing extremely persistent and unusual issues trying to get ColdFusion 2025 running locally on my Mac Studio (Apple Silicon). I’ve followed extensive troubleshooting steps, but the problem persists. I’m hoping for specialized assistance.

My System:

  • Hardware: Mac Studio (Apple Silicon M-series chip)
  • Operating System: [Please specify your exact macOS version, e.g., macOS Ventura 13.x, macOS Sonoma 14.x]
  • Java Version: Eclipse Temurin JDK 17 (aarch64) installed via Adoptium. (Previously also tried Temurin JDK 21).

Problem Overview: I am unable to launch the official Adobe ColdFusion 2025 GUI installer, and subsequently, I am unable to set or retrieve the Admin password for a ColdFusion 2025 server started via CommandBox, due to highly abnormal behavior.

Troubleshooting Steps Attempted (and their outcomes):

Part 1: Adobe ColdFusion 2025 GUI Installer ( ColdFusion 2025 Installer.app**)**

  1. Initial Attempt: Double-clicking the .app installer resulted in the error: ““java” cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified.”
  • Attempted Fix: Clicked “Cancel” on the error, then navigated to System Settings > Privacy & Security. The “Open Anyway” (or “Allow”) button appeared. Clicked it, confirmed with password.
  • Outcome: The same “java” error reappeared immediately in a loop.

  1. Removing Quarantine Attribute:

  2. Attempted Fix: Used sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/ColdFusion\ 2025\ Installer.app after copying the .app out of the .dmg to a writable location (e.g., /Applications). This command executed without error.

  3. Outcome: The ColdFusion 2025 Installer.app still produced the “java” cannot be opened error in a loop when double-clicked. This indicates the issue was not purely the quarantine flag.

  4. Temporarily Disabling Gatekeeper:

  5. Attempted Fix: Ran sudo spctl --master-disable in Terminal. Confirmed my macOS password was correctly entered.

  6. Verification: Ran spctl --status. Initially, it showed assessments enabled despite running master-disable**.** After multiple attempts and careful password entry, it eventually showed assessments disabled.

  7. Outcome (after assessments disabled confirmed): Even with Gatekeeper completely disabled, the ColdFusion 2025 Installer.app still produced the “java” cannot be opened error in a loop. This is highly unusual and suggests the error message is misleading, and the problem is deeper than macOS security.

Conclusion for Adobe GUI Installer: The Adobe ColdFusion 2025 GUI installer consistently fails to launch, seemingly due to an underlying Java execution issue that xattr and spctl cannot resolve.

Part 2: CommandBox Installation and Server Management

After the Adobe installer failed, we pivoted to CommandBox as a more robust solution.

  1. Initial CommandBox Setup:
  • Downloaded commandbox-bin-6.2.1.zip.
  • Extracted the box executable directly into the ~/Downloads folder.
  • Used cd ~/Downloads to navigate.
  • Used chmod +x box to make it executable.
  • Ran ./box to initialize CommandBox.
  • Outcome: Configuring CommandBox home: /Users/tonyredhead/.CommandBox was printed, followed by Initializing libraries… and the CommandBox:Downloads> prompt. This indicated CommandBox successfully launched.

  1. Java Runtime Issue for CommandBox Bootstrap:

  2. Initial .****/ box run: Resulted in “Unable to locate a Java Runtime. Please visit http://www.java.com…” error.

  3. Attempted Fix: Installed Eclipse Temurin JDK 17 (aarch64) via Adoptium. Closed and re-opened Terminal.

  4. Outcome: Running ./box again successfully launched CommandBox and presented the CommandBox:Downloads> prompt. (Java for CommandBox’s bootstrap was resolved).

  5. ColdFusion 2025 Engine Installation:

  6. Ran install adobe@2025 from within CommandBox.

  7. Outcome: √ | Installing package [forgebox:adobe@2025] was printed, indicating successful installation of the engine files.

  8. Starting the ColdFusion Server & Missing Output:

  9. Ran start (and later server start cfengine=adobe@2025).

  10. Expected: Full server startup output including URL and Admin password.

  11. Actual Outcome: Only very brief output appeared (e.g., √ | Starting Server), then the prompt returned almost immediately. Crucially, the server URL, Admin URL, and Admin password were never printed to the console.

  12. Attempted Fixes:
    * Tried scrolling up in Terminal (no scrollback history, or output too brief).
    * Tried resizing Terminal window (no effect).
    * Tried server info (resulted in truncated output, missing Admin password and full config paths).
    * Tried server info > server_details.txt (resulted in an empty text file, confirming output is not being written to stdout).

  13. Admin Password Issues (Unable to Log In):

  14. Attempted Fixes (despite not having the password):
    * Tried server set admin.password=“mycoldfusion”.
    * Followed with stop, then server start cfengine=adobe@2025 to apply.
    * Attempted login to http://127.0.0.1:52566/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfm with “mycoldfusion”.
    * Outcome: “Invalid Password. Please try again.” consistently.
    * Attempted to use browser Incognito mode to rule out cookies (due to prior Lucee error), but it also failed with “Invalid Password.”
    * Attempted server password (resulted in “Command “server password” cannot be resolved.”).
    * Attempted server delete --force (resulted in “Command “server delete --force” cannot be resolved.”).
    * Attempted manual deletion of server.json (initially failed to find ~/.CommandBox/servers/, then after finding server.json in ~/.CommandBox/, deleting it didn’t resolve the password issue upon restart).

Core Remaining Problem: The primary issue is that the CommandBox server, once started, does not output its critical startup information (URL, Admin password) to the console or to file redirection. Additionally, setting the admin.password via server set does not appear to be picked up by the ColdFusion 2025 engine, leading to persistent “Invalid Password” errors, even after a clean server restart. This happens despite spctl --status showing assessments disabled and the initial CommandBox bootstrap working.

2

I’ll let others address any Commandbox-specific issues that your post may indicate. But note that cf2025 requires Java 21 rather than the 17 you’re trying.

So as for your attempt in Commandbox, try changing the JDK version used by this server instance to 21. There are multiple ways to do that, which I leave to preference or the docs.

As another aside, where you struggled with the cf installer, note that there has been (since cf2021) the alternative of a cf zip-based implementation. You just get that zip get Adobe (offered alongside the installer binaries, and elsewhere), extract it, the run a cfinstall script provided (which sets up a few key things). Like a full cf installer, that too implements it’s own jvm which would be Java 21.

As for your cf installer problem, note that it (installanywhere) provides its own Java that it then tries to use. But there have been times over the years where either a newer Java version didn’t work on a given OS version, or the installanywhere software didn’t support/recognize the new OS.

That can indeed be frustrating, and it’s one more thing that drives many to Commandbox–to remove cf installation issues. But some matters remain a dev’s responsibility to configure Commandbox, and for most the lessons they then learn apply generally to any cfml engine and version.

Let’s hear if setting the JDK version for your cf2025 Commandbox server solves your (second) problem. And if you learn anything on the first, some may appreciate it…though some may feel that should have been brought up elsewhere. :slight_smile:

3

Part 1: Adobe ColdFusion 2025 GUI Installer

So, Ortus does not create, manage, or support the Adobe installers. I would recommend you reach out on an Adobe forum or to the official Adobe support team for any questions or issues you have with their installer. I can help you with CommandBox, but I don’t know a thing about their installer.

  1. Initial .****/ box run: Resulted in “Unable to locate a Java Runtime. Please visit http://www.java.com…” error.

I’m confused… how did the Initializing libraries… message work if there was no Java. CommandBox won’t launch at all if Java isn’t in the path or there isn’t a java_home etc env var. If you ran Box the first time and got “Initializing libraries…” but then you ran it again and got “unable to locate a java runtime” then you changed something significant on your PC which you didn’t report here. Java shouldn’t just “disappear” unless you opened a new terminal with different env vars in it.

  1. Ran install adobe@2025 from within CommandBox.

You should not run this command. It does nothing. Well, nothing useful. Where did you find docs telling you to run that? All it does is put a war file in the current directory, it doesn’t do anything with servers at all.

server start cfengine=adobe@2025

:point_up: That is the correct command to start a server. It will handle the installation of the engine internally.

  1. Expected: Full server startup output including URL and Admin password.

Your expectations are incorrect. There are ways to get that information, but it doesn’t print out when you start the server.

  1. Actual Outcome: Only very brief output appeared (e.g., √ | Starting Server), then the prompt returned almost immediately. Crucially, the server URL, Admin URL, and Admin password were never printed to the console.

Yes, this is the expected outcome. If you are wanting to know what the URL is or how to set the password, then I can explain that, but your description of the start command is working as designed.

If you want to see the full output, then use the --debug or --verbose flags and the output won’t collapse after it starts.

  • Tried scrolling up in Terminal (no scrollback history, or output too brief).

The output is hidden upon successful start, so there’s nothing to scroll back to.

  • Tried resizing Terminal window (no effect).

Well, again, there’s nothing there, so resizing the window won’t provide any value.

Tried server info (resulted in truncated output, missing Admin password and full config paths).

What do you mean when you say “truncated output”? Can you provide a screenshot? The admin password is not output by that command, so you won’t find it there. I’m not sure what you mean when you say “full config paths”.

info > server_details.txt (resulted in an empty text file ,

Well, again, writing the output of a command to a file isn’t going to show you more info than just running the command does, so I’m not sure what you were after there. But FWIW, it works fine for me:

❯ server info > foo.txt

❯ cat foo.txt

cfcmethodtestadobe (stopped)  http://127.0.0.1:59850
  Listeners:
    - HTTP
      - 127.0.0.1:59850

  CF Engine: adobe 2023.0.09+330677
  Last Started: 09-Sep-2024 12:40:49
  1. Admin Password Issues (Unable to Log In):

Did you try the default password of commandbox? This should be what you get so long as the server profile is development and you haven’t set it to something else with CFConfig.

  • Tried server set admin.password=“mycoldfusion”.

That’s not a valid server.json setting, so I’m not sure why you would try that. Did you find that in the docs somewhere? You’d need to use CFConfig to set a specific password.

  • Followed with stop, then server start cfengine=adobe@2025 to apply.

This did nothing, since admin.password is not a real setting.

Yes, because it never actually set the password.

  • Outcome: “Invalid Password. Please try again.” consistently.

Yes, that’s what you see when you try a password which is not the actual password that’s set.

  • Attempted to use browser Incognito mode to rule out cookies (due to prior Lucee error), but it also failed with “Invalid Password.”

Incognito won’t help you when you haven’t actually set the password and aren’t using the default password.

  • Attempted server password (resulted in “Command “server password” cannot be resolved.”).

That’s not a real command. Did you find that in the docs somewhere? You can’t view the plain text version of the admin password as it’s stored via an irreversible hash, so it can never be retrieved.

  • Attempted server delete --force (resulted in “Command “server delete --force” cannot be resolved.”).

That’s not a real command. Did you find that in the docs somewhere? The correct command is server forget.

(initially failed to find ~/.CommandBox/servers/

There is no such folder with that name. Why were you looking for that? Did you find that in the docs somewhere?

after finding server.json in ~/.CommandBox/, deleting it

There is no server.json file in that directory. You likely found the servers.json file, which tracks all the servers. Deleting that file however is not recommended, nor documented anywhere, and will not actually remove the server installation files from disk. You’d need to use the server forget command for that.

the CommandBox server, once started, does not output its critical startup information (URL, Admin password) to the console

Again, that’s because it’s not designed to do so. The URLs (there can be many of them) are in the server info command, and the admin password is not available as plain-text. The default password is in the docs.

setting the admin.password via server set does not appear to be picked up

Again, that’s not a valid setting so I don’t know where you got it from.

I don’t know if you’re using an AI platform like ChatGTP to help you, but it sounds like you’re trying a lot of commands and settings which are just plain invalid. Make sure you’re following the actual docs, which are here: Embedded Server | CommandBox : CLI, Package Manager, REPL & More
And I second Charlie’s comment on the version of java. ACF 2025 requires java 21, so all bets are off if you’re using an older version. You can still run the CommandBox CLI on Java 17 if you wish, and request CommandBox to use Java 21 for that server

server start javaVersion=openjdk21

Documented here: Custom Java Version | CommandBox : CLI, Package Manager, REPL & More

The default password is documented here: Multi-Engine Support | CommandBox : CLI, Package Manager, REPL & More

Managing any other CF configuration items that go in the CF admin, would be handled by CFConfig, which has a collection of JSON file conventions and env vars you can use to set things like the password, datasources, or mail servers, etc. Server Start | CFConfig Documentation

And info on seeing more info when the server starts can be found in the docs here: Debugging Server Starts | CommandBox : CLI, Package Manager, REPL & More

1 Like