I was at a loss for a few minutes on how to get ColdFusion started again so that I could fix the issue. Well, the configuration change is in your ColdFusion installation under ~/runtime/bin/jvm.config. So on a typical Windows installation, it may be c:\coldfusion9\runtime\bin\jvm.config.

Note: Before proceeding, it is always good practice to make a copy of the config file before editing it.

In jvm.config, there is an “Arguments to VM” section that has a java.args setting that may start with something like this:

java.args=-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket, server=y, suspend=n, address=5095 -server -Xmx512m

(There will likely be many more arguments as well.)

The first two arguments contain the debugging settings that are probably preventing ColdFusion from starting. Remove the -Xdebug and
-Xrunjdwp:transport arguments, so that the beginning of the line will now look like this:

java.args=-server -Xmx512m (and additional arguments…)

This will be enough to get ColdFusion to start up. You can then go into ColdFusion Administrator to either change the debugging port or turn off the line debugging.