Injection of autowired dependencies failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException:

I am creating web application using Spring, Hibernate, Struts, and Maven.

I get the below error when I run mvn clean install command:

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'com.project.action.PasswordHintActionTest': Injection of autowired dependencies failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Could not autowire field: private com.project.action.PasswordHintAction com.project.action.PasswordHintActionTest.action; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.NoSuchBeanDefinitionException: No matching bean of type [com.project.action.PasswordHintAction] found for dependency: expected at least 1 bean which qualifies as autowire candidate for this dependency. Dependency annotations: {@org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired(required=true)}

The following is the class that has the Autowired dependency:

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.Action;
import org.project.model.User;
import org.proejct.service.UserManager;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.subethamail.wiser.Wiser;

import static org.junit.Assert.*;
public class PasswordHintActionTest extends BaseActionTestCase {
    @Autowired
    private PasswordHintAction action;
    @Autowired
    private UserManager userManager;

    @Test
    public void testExecute() throws Exception {
        // start SMTP Server
        Wiser wiser = new Wiser();
        wiser.setPort(getSmtpPort());
        wiser.start();

        action.setUsername("user");
        assertEquals("success", action.execute());
        assertFalse(action.hasActionErrors());

        // verify an account information e-mail was sent
        wiser.stop();
        assertTrue(wiser.getMessages().size() == 1);

        // verify that success messages are in the request
        assertNotNull(action.getSession().getAttribute("messages"));
    }


}

My applicationcontext.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
       http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd"
       default-lazy-init="true">

    <!-- Activates scanning of @Autowired -->
    <context:annotation-config/>

    <!-- Activates scanning of @Repository and @Service -->
    <context:component-scan base-package="com.project"/>

    <!-- Compass Search Section -->
    <!-- Compass Bean, automatically scanning for searchable classes within the model -->
    <!-- Hooks into Spring transaction management and stores the index on the file system -->
    <bean id="compass" class="org.compass.spring.LocalCompassBean">
        <property name="mappingScan" value="org.project"/>
        <property name="postProcessor" ref="compassPostProcessor"/>
        <property name="transactionManager" ref="transactionManager" />
        <property name="settings">
            <map>
                <entry key="compass.engine.connection" value="target/test-index" />
            </map>
        </property>
    </bean>

I have added to my context configuration to scan Autowired dependencies. But I am not sure why it is still giving this exception.

I tried adding it in following way also but I still get the same exception

<context:component-scan base-package="com.project.*"/>

UPDATE:

following is the password hint action

import org.project.model.User;
import com.project.webapp.util.RequestUtil;
import org.springframework.mail.MailException;
import org.springframework.security.core.userdetails.UsernameNotFoundException;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;


public class PasswordHintAction extends BaseAction {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = -4037514607101222025L;
    private String username;

    /**
     * @param username The username to set.
     */
    public void setUsername(String username) {
        this.username = username;
    }

    /**
     * Execute sending the password hint via e-mail.
     *
     * @return success if username works, input if not
     */
    public String execute() {
        List<Object> args = new ArrayList<Object>();

        // ensure that the username has been sent
        if (username == null) {
            log.warn("Username not specified, notifying user that it's a required field.");

            args.add(getText("user.username"));
            addActionError(getText("errors.requiredField", args));
            return INPUT;
        }

        if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
            log.debug("Processing Password Hint...");
        }

        // look up the user's information
        try {
            User user = userManager.getUserByUsername(username);
            String hint = user.getPasswordHint();

            if (hint == null || hint.trim().equals("")) {
                log.warn("User '" + username + "' found, but no password hint exists.");
                addActionError(getText("login.passwordHint.missing"));
                return INPUT;
            }

            StringBuffer msg = new StringBuffer();
            msg.append("Your password hint is: ").append(hint);
            msg.append("\n\nLogin at: ").append(RequestUtil.getAppURL(getRequest()));

            mailMessage.setTo(user.getEmail());
            String subject = '[' + getText("webapp.name") + "] " + getText("user.passwordHint");
            mailMessage.setSubject(subject);
            mailMessage.setText(msg.toString());
            mailEngine.send(mailMessage);

            args.add(username);
            args.add(user.getEmail());

            saveMessage(getText("login.passwordHint.sent", args));
        } catch (UsernameNotFoundException e) {
            log.warn(e.getMessage());
            args.add(username);
            addActionError(getText("login.passwordHint.error", args));
            getSession().setAttribute("errors", getActionErrors());
            return INPUT;
        } catch (MailException me) {
            addActionError(me.getCause().getLocalizedMessage());
            getSession().setAttribute("errors", getActionErrors());
            return INPUT;
        }

        return SUCCESS;
    }
}

Update 2:

applicationContext-struts.xml:

<bean id="passwordHintAction" class="com.project.action.PasswordHintAction" scope="prototype">
    <property name="userManager" ref="userManager"/>
    <property name="mailEngine" ref="mailEngine"/>
    <property name="mailMessage" ref="mailMessage"/>
</bean>

Use component scanning as given below, if com.project.action.PasswordHintAction is annotated with stereotype annotations

<context:component-scan base-package="com.project.action"/>

EDIT

I see your problem, in PasswordHintActionTest you are autowiring PasswordHintAction. But you did not create bean configuration for PasswordHintAction to autowire. Add one of stereotype annotation(@Component, @Service, @Controller) to PasswordHintAction like

@Component
public class PasswordHintAction extends BaseAction {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = -4037514607101222025L;
    private String username;

or create xml configuration in applicationcontext.xml like

<bean id="passwordHintAction" class="com.project.action.PasswordHintAction" />

You need to provide a candidate for autowire. That means that an instance of PasswordHint must be known to spring in a way that it can guess that it must reference it.

Please provide the class head of PasswordHint and/or the spring bean definition of that class for further assistance.

Try changing the name of