RESTful webservice not reliable

Question

I've successfully created/registered a rest service, but I'm having trouble keeping it alive.
I can understand that a change in code needs a refresh of the service (in administrator or restinitapplication), but the following situations also break a service
"clear template cache" button in administrator
restart of server
And the only way to handle this, is to write a scheduled task which polls the service and calls restinitapplication when it does not respond.
Even if I set the scheduled task to run every 5 minutes, it's still possible that the service is totally unavailable for 4+ minutes.
Other frameworks like Taffy does not have this problem.
Why should i opt for REST if SOAP works many times better? Or am I missing something?

Answer 1

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I agree it sounds more like a bandage.
Directory layout:
application.cfc
/API
     rootSVC.cfc
I use the following code:
Application.cfc
<cfcomponent>
  <cfset This.name = "restExample">
  <cfset this.restsettings.cfclocation = "API" />
    <cfset this.restsettings.skipCFCWithError = true />
  <cffunction name="onApplicationStart">
  <cfset initapp()/>
  </cffunction>
  <cffunction name="onRequestStart">
  <cfif isdefined("url.initapp")><cfset initapp()/></cfif>
  </cffunction> 
  <cffunction name="INITAPP">
  <cfset restinitapplication(expandpath("."), "example")/>
  </cffunction>
</cfcomponent>
rootSVC.cfc
component rest=true restpath="/" {
  remote void function get() httpmethod="get" produces="text/json" {
  var result = { 'ts'= now() };
  restSetResponse({status=200,content=serializejson(result)});
Steps to reproduce:
Step 1: register rest service (administrator or restinitapplication)
Step 2: call /rest/example/ -> everything OK
Step 3: clear template cache in administrator
Step 4: call /rest/example/ -> empty response with header 'server-error:true' ; no logging possible in the application because it doesn't exist apparently. It also returns http 200 OK and not even a 500, so 3rd party clients think everything was ok, but in reality no data was processed.
The only way to get the service going again is to either manually refresh in the administrator or call restinitapplication.
Coldfusion-out.log says:
Jun 3, 2014 12:34:06 PM Error [ajp-bio-8014-exec-6] - The CFC C:\DATA\WWWROOT\test\API\rootSVC.cfc is modified and the application is not refreshed.Refresh the application. The specific sequence of files included or processed is: C:\DATA\WWWROOT\test\API\rootSVC.cfc''
Coldfusion-error.log
Jun 03, 2014 12:34:06 PM com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl _handleRequest
SEVERE: The RuntimeException could not be mapped to a response, re-throwing to the HTTP container
coldfusion.rest.component.CFComponentProvider$ModifiedResourceException: The CFC C:\DATA\WWWROOT\test\API\rootSVC.cfc is modified and the application is not refreshed.
  at coldfusion.rest.component.CFComponentProvider.getInstance(CFComponentProvider.java:130)
  at coldfusion.rest.component.CFComponentProvider.getInstance(CFComponentProvider.java:70)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationContext.getResource(WebApplicationCo ntext.java:238)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.uri.rules.ResourceClassRule.accept(ResourceClassRule.java:83)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.uri.rules.RightHandPathRule.accept(RightHandPathRule.java:147)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.uri.rules.RootResourceClassesRule.accept(RootResourceClassesRu le.java:84)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl._handleRequest(WebApplicationIm pl.java:1511)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl._handleRequest(WebApplicationIm pl.java:1442)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl.handleRequest(WebApplicationImp l.java:1391)
  at com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl.handleRequest(WebApplicationImp l.java:1381)
  at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.WebComponent.service(WebComponent.java:416)
  at com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer.service(ServletContainer.java:538)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServletContainer.service(CFRestServletContainer.java:141)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServletContainer.service(CFRestServletContainer.java:86)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServlet.serviceUsingAlreadyInitializedContainers(CFRestServ let.java:556)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServlet.invoke(CFRestServlet.java:434)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.RestFilter.invoke(RestFilter.java:58)
  at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:94)
  at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:2 8)
  at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38)
  at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServlet.invoke(CFRestServlet.java:409)
  at coldfusion.rest.servlet.CFRestServlet.service(CFRestServlet.java:400)
  at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:727)
  at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:89)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.j ava:303)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
  at coldfusion.monitor.event.MonitoringServletFilter.doFilter(MonitoringServletFilter.java:42 )
  at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:46)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.j ava:241)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:220)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:122)
  at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:501)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:170)
  at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:98)
  at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:116)
  at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:422)
  at org.apache.coyote.ajp.AjpProcessor.process(AjpProcessor.java:198)
  at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.jav a:607)
  at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:313)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
  at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)