Spring Boot @Async method in controller is executing synchronously

Question

My [basic] Spring Boot application accepts a request from the browser, sent via jQuery.get() and is supposed to immediately receive a response - such as \"y

Answer 1

For all those who are still looking for all the steps in @Asnyc explained in a simple way, here is the answer:

Here is a simple example with @Async. Follow these steps to get @Async to work in your Spring Boot application:

Step 1: Add @EnableAsync annotation and Add TaskExecutor Bean to Application Class.

Example:

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableAsync
public class AsynchronousSpringBootApplication {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(AsynchronousSpringBootApplication.class);

    @Bean(name="processExecutor")
    public TaskExecutor workExecutor() {
        ThreadPoolTaskExecutor threadPoolTaskExecutor = new ThreadPoolTaskExecutor();
        threadPoolTaskExecutor.setThreadNamePrefix("Async-");
        threadPoolTaskExecutor.setCorePoolSize(3);
        threadPoolTaskExecutor.setMaxPoolSize(3);
        threadPoolTaskExecutor.setQueueCapacity(600);
        threadPoolTaskExecutor.afterPropertiesSet();
        logger.info("ThreadPoolTaskExecutor set");
        return threadPoolTaskExecutor;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
  SpringApplication.run(AsynchronousSpringBootApplication.class,args);
 }
}

Step 2: Add Method which executes an Asynchronous Process

@Service
public class ProcessServiceImpl implements ProcessService {

    private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ProcessServiceImpl.class);

    @Async("processExecutor")
    @Override
    public void process() {
        logger.info("Received request to process in ProcessServiceImpl.process()");
        try {
            Thread.sleep(15 * 1000);
            logger.info("Processing complete");
        }
        catch (InterruptedException ie) {
            logger.error("Error in ProcessServiceImpl.process(): {}", ie.getMessage());
        }
    }
}

Step 3: Add an API in the Controller to execute the asynchronous processing

@Autowired
private ProcessService processService;

@RequestMapping(value = "ping/async", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ResponseEntity> async() {
        processService.process();
        Map response = new HashMap<>();
        response.put("message", "Request is under process");
        return new ResponseEntity<>(response, HttpStatus.OK);
    }

I have also written a blog and a working application on GitHub with these steps. Please check: http://softwaredevelopercentral.blogspot.com/2017/07/asynchronous-processing-async-in-spring.html