This is a short but I hope sweet blog post with some information which has saved me a lot of grief many times. One of the many things I really love about CF is the logging capabilities. Even with all of the great tools we have at our disposal; Server Monitoring, Fusion Reactor, SeeFusion etc, I still use the logs day in and day out.
However, let’s say for instance that one day we can’t start CF and we get a message like this…
"Windows could not start the Adobe {instance-name} on local computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service specific error code 2."
If we look to the ColdFusion logs for help, we won’t find anything because CF never started. However, usually JRun or whichever J2EE container we are using usually has logged something for us in what is known in the Java world as the std-out.log. Here is where this is located:
In an Enterprise install:
{drive-volume}JRun4logs{instance-name}-out.log
In a Standard-Server install
{drive-volume}CFusionMX7runtimelogs{instance-name}-out.log
Where {instance-name} is the name of the instance.
My example here shows MX7 and a Windows install, just extrapolate this if that is not your specific O/S and CF version.
DougHughes.net 
Comments on: "ColdFusion Won't Start – What Do We Do Next?" (3)
When I run into this, I often find it handy to try starting CF from the command line (which is stdout, at least under my config). I’ll usually see what’s up very quickly, and I can also see if the thing simply hangs forever (which mine does on the Flex MessageBroker servlet about one in ten starts).
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@Joe – The Flex MessageBroker problem seems specific to Macs, FYI. I’ve heard rumors of an impending fix.
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@Joe,
I know what you’re saying but this can mask other problems (eg the service is starting as another domain user without correct permissions OR starting from the command line you don’t specify the correct jvm.config).
Hence as a first stop (and admittedly because I’m really lazy!) I just crack open the log files!
Just my 2p!
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