javax.persistence.RollbackException: Error while committing the transaction] with root cause java.lang.StackOverflowError: null

Question

I have a Spring Boot API using the Spring Data REST framework (dependencies inherited from spring-boot-starter-parent 2.1.0.RELEASE). I'm attempting to do a PUT or PATCH request to update an entity and neither seem to work, throwing the following error message:

[Request processing failed; nested exception is org.springframework.transaction.TransactionSystemException: Could not commit JPA transaction; nested exception is javax.persistence.RollbackException: Error while committing the transaction] with root cause java.lang.StackOverflowError: null

The entity I am trying to update has the following structure:

@Getter
@Setter
@Entity
@Table(name = "entity_a")
public class EntityA extends BaseEntity {
    @Column(name = "name", nullable = false, length = 100)
    private String name

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "entityA")
    private Set<EntityB> entitiesB;
}

where BaseEntity has the ID and auditing info.

I am making a PUT/PATCH request to the following path:

http://localhost:8080/api/v1/entitiesA/the_uuid

with the body payload as

{ "name": "new name" }

Since it was a stack overflow error, my first thought was something recursive is happening. I commented out the Set< EntityB > field (along with the @OneToMany annotation) and I still encountered the error. Has anyone experienced this error before?

Answer 1

The issue was to do with the way I implemented the AuditorAware< T > interface. The userDao method I was using was causing a recursive call. I still don't know why it was happening, but looking at this forum, I changed the implementation of getCurrentAuditor() from:

@Override
public Optional<User> getCurrentAuditor() {
    String username = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication().getName();
    User user = userDao.findByUsername(username);
    return Optional.ofNullable(user);
}

to:

@Override
public Optional<User> getCurrentAuditor() {
    User auditor = null;
    Authentication authentication = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication();
    if (authentication != null) {
        Object principal = authentication.getPrincipal();
        if (principal instanceof User) {
            auditor = (User) principal;
        }
    }
    return Optional.ofNullable(auditor);
}

and everything works as expected.