Something keeps changing Context docBase in ROOT.xml

I am installing Lucee on multiple Windows Server 2016 / IIS with Boncode connector. Each IIS instance has the default website configured as “E:\webapps”. Each Lucee instance will host multiple apps each in its own directory as subdirectories of E:\webapps and each application has been configured as an IIS Application in IIS Manager. I used the Windows installer and I have Lucee 5.2.9.31. The environment is a large enterprise and the servers are at the DEV, QA, and PROD and PROD Clusters. The solution is being implemented in order to replace an aged BlueDragon/IIS 7.5 configuration on Windows Server 2008 and 2012.

The problem I am having is that at some point the apps start throwing errors and ultimately I trace it back to the Context docBase value having been undesirably changed in C:\lucee\tomcat\conf\Catalina\w3svc1\ROOT.xml. When the value undergoes a change its new value is the directory of one of the IIS apps (eg. “E:\webapps\app_one”) which has replaced the value of E:\webapps".

About the time I find this unwanted change, I also find that a new WEB-INF directory has been created in whatever new directory was written into the Context docBase value (eg. E:\webapps\app_one\WEB-INF).

The error fix is to stop the Apache service, revert the changes in ROOT.xml, and delete the unwanted WEB-INF directory. Then as soon as I restart Apache/Lucee, all is golden again until next time the ROOT.xml file is mysteriously changed.

My questions are these:

  1. what is causing this value in C:\lucee\tomcat\conf\Catalina\w3svc1\ROOT.xml to change undesirably?
  2. what can I do so that this value does not change in the future?

Thank you for your advice.

If at some point during configuration you accidentally moved or created one of the context folders in the webapps folder (instead of the ROOT) folder, this configuration would have been saved, and is the source of the recreation.

Delete the duplicate / unwanted folders, then go to the Server Admin and clear the caches BEFORE allowing access to the site (which would again recreate the folders.)

Clearing the caches before trying again may help to summarize.