JSF messages persistance

Question

I have a viewScoped bean which has some business logic validation. I display the resultant errors from this validation to the page using

FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(null, new FacesMessage(severity, result, null));

The problem is:

1. user submits invalid form
2. form redisplayed, messages not displayed to user due to using PRG

I solved this using the following line of code:

FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getFlash().setKeepMessages(true);

Now the problem is that the business logic validation messages persist too long:

1. user submits invalid form
2. form redisplayed with error messages
3. user corrects and submits valid form
4. form redisplayed with "success" message, but also previous error messages also displayed.

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Based on your question comment, you're using Mojarra 2.0.3:

[JSFImplManagementDeployer] Initialized 3 JSF configurations: [Mojarra-1.2, MyFaces-2.0, Mojarra-2.0]
[javax.enterprise.resource.webcontainer.jsf.config] Initializing Mojarra 2.0.3 ( b05)

This is really an ancient Mojarra version. It's currently over 3.5 years old already! (released July 2010). Your concrete problem is caused by specifically issue 1751 which is fixed in 2.0.7/2.1.4. There have however been many other issue reports related to the flash scope afterwards. The flash scope is in older Mojarra versions known for the following major problems:

• issue 1751 - Flash scoped messages lives longer than next request - fixed in 2.0.7 / 2.1.4
• issue 2126 - Flash cookie enables data exploits - fixed in 2.1.24 / 2.2.1
• issue 2136 - Flash cookie not available when redirected to different path - fixed in 2.1.14 / 2.2.0
• issue 2902 - Flash cookie uses wrong path for applications on root - fixed in 2.1.24 / 2.2.1
• issue 2955 - Flash creates sometimes version1 cookies which fails in IE<=10 - fixed in 2.1.25 / 2.2.2
• issue 2973 - Flash causes NPE on stale cookies after a session expire - fixed in 2.1.25 / 2.2.2
• issue 2862 - Flash cookie not cleared when stale - fixed in 2.1.27 / 2.2.5

All in all, concluded can be that you'd need to upgrade to a minimum of Mojarra 2.1.27 / 2.2.5 in order to get rid of all those problems.

The JSFImplManagementDeployer entry in the logger is recognizable as the one from JBoss 6.x. The ancient Mojarra 2.0.3 in turn suggests that you're still using the very first JBoss 6.0.0 release. This is so full of bugs and it's strongly recommended to upgrade to a more recent JBoss server, not only to fix those Mojarra issues, but also many others. Consider upgrading to JBoss AS 7.3.x or EAP 6.2.x. If necessary, you can upgrade its bundled Mojarra based on the instructions in this answer: Upgrade JSF / Mojarra in JBoss AS / EAP / WildFly.