TechNote (Archived)

ColdFusion MX 7.0.2: Preventing the 'Unable to register Flex Assembler Service in RMI registry' error

Issue

ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 (CFMX 7.0.2) may throw the following server exception at start up:

 Unable to initialize FlexAssembler service: coldfusion.server.ServiceException: Unable to register Flex Assembler Service in RMI registry: java.rmi.ConnectIOException: non-JRMP server at remote endpoint.

This error is recorded in the CFMX 7.0.2 server.log (cf_root/logs/server.log).

This exception means the Flex 2.0 Assembler service integrated into CFMX 7.0.2 is unable to connect to RMI over TCP port 1099. This will result in failures for any ColdFusion-Flex data services.

Reason

The Flex Assembler service needs to bind to TCP port 1099. The error occurs because the port is in use by another process or otherwise unavailable.

Solution

The TCP port 1099 configuration is hard coded in the Flex Assembler source, so the only solution is to free TCP port 1099 and restart CFMX 7.0.2. Do one (or more) of the following:

If TCP port 1099 is disabled or blocked by a firewall, either enable it or lift the firewall restriction so that the Flex Assembler service can bind to it.
If another process is bound to TCP port 1099, either stop that process or reconfigure the application/service to bind to another available TCP port, then restart CFMX 7.0.2.
If deploying on a supported J2EE configuration (for example, Multiserver or WebSphere), modify the J2EE server's JNP/RMI configuration to ensure it does not use TCP port 1099 by default. Restart the J2EE server instance(s) and redeploy CFMX 7.0.2.